Hey all. I'm back from a very long suspension, but rest assured, I was NOT taken captive by a rogue band of rebellious monkeys hoping to get secret information on... screw it, the punchline was small British people. Ha ha ha. Guess what? The part where I said "... screw it, the punch line was small British people" was actually part of the joke. I didn't cut any of it out! So, do you get it? Do you find it funny? Of course you don't! Because it's British humor! It's never funny! But if you don't get it, apparently you're really stupid. That's what they say, anyway. Speakin' of them British folk, didn't Lord of the Rings have quite a few of them? Well, I don't think the actual actors were all British, but they all had British accents, especially Pippin. Pippin the Wee Scottish Hobbit. But then... Scottish isn't British! 
No matter, I associate most all Euopean people who speak English primarily as 'Brits' anyway.
MODERN WARFARE 2DEVOLOPED BYINFINIY WARD AND PUBLISHED BY CRAPTIVISION
See, I wrote all that in giant, bold, big lettering, because Modern Warfare 2 deserves it, and it did actually surprise me by how awesome it was. I expected nothing more than Call of Duty 4 1/2, with another 5 hour campaign and new multiplayer stuff and well... that's what Modern Warfare 2 is. But to be blunt, it is much, MUCH better than Modern Warfare, because everything has been done better. So without further ado, a Modern Warfare 2 review!
Warning: The writer does not claim responsibility for making fun of Activision by calling them 'Craptivision', and wishes to establish the fact that Activision did that to it's self, and Bobby Kotick should go ------------ himself. (MESSAGE ALTERED FOR FEAR OF MODERATION) Any possible references to living individuals IS intended, asto make him/her/or otherwise copyrighted material feel bad about itself/himself/herself.
The biggest game of the year, and perhaps all time, has stormed onto store shelves awaited for by millions. Analysts predict the game could reach over 7 million copies sold by year's end! It is, of course, another cheerful, kid-friendly, vibrant, colorful, and generally good natured game from Infinity Ward, and it's Modern Warfare 2. Mow down terrorists with heavy machine guns, watch as innocent astronauts get exploded from space by EMP bombs, massacre hundreds of innocent civilians in an airport, defend a crumbling Washington DC from an army of Russians, and DIE! All light hearted fun!
In all seriousness, Modern Warfare 2 is the latest in the Call of Duty series, and is easily the most violent of the series, and perhaps the most violent FPS of all time, it's one of those games that really earns it's M rating. The stakes are higher than ever, the intensity has ramped to it's peak, and the production values are high enough to put every third world country out of poverty. But why do that when you can give rich people ridiculously violent shooting games that partially take place in third world countries?
The single player is once again fairly short, but filled with so much, intensity, action, and events, more probably happens than in most regular sized FPSs. It takes place after the events of Call of Duty 4, following the events of Imran Zakhaev's death at the hands of Soap MacTavish and his squad. Now the cold-hearted killer Makarov, Zakky's right hand man, has taken the reigns in destroying the world in the name of restoring Mother Russia to her former Soviet glory. Death, doom, and destruction follow in Makarov's path, and you have to kill him.
His army of Russian-curse-spewing Russians and turban-bound Afghan terrorists are taking the fight all over the world killing everything in their path, including cities, soldiers, and civilians alike. The story is extremely dark, and it takes a lot of twists and turns, if a bit ridiculous sometimes, but in the end, the world is left worse than it started, and you eventually lose sight of who you're supposed to be rooting for. It's very powerful stuff conveying a lot of ideas with untapped potential and exploring and analyzing them, and the game fully realizes the harshness of war, and how bad it really is. Combat and soldiers aren't glorified in Modern Warfare 2, they'respeculated and made out as what they really are, and morales aren't dealt with in absolutes, everything is handled in shades of grey.
I won't spoil anything important, but I will say there are some jaw-dropping moments, some heart-breaking moments, and some downright disturbing moments. The Washington DC levels in particular were a mixture of all 3 things, creating a strange sense of weariness afterwards, posing the question "What if America was attacked, and how would I react?" Being a citizen of America and generally a patriot, it was pretty thought-provoking. There is a lot more memorable stuff and action going on than in Modern Warfare 1, and there is absolutely NO filler. Actually, the game might have benefited from some filler! Just a level or two, some really basic ones, with little to nothing to advance the plot or blow your mind, just get from point A to point B while shooting stuff, just for a breather. But nope, there is absolutely no down time or unremarkable levels here, just constant, intense, and meaningful combat throughout varied levels. That said, while the story is good, it gets muddled sometimes through the pre-mission briefings, which are generally the means of advancing the story, and while the ending kicks ass, it's also a cliff hanger. Modern Warfare 3 inbound!
But what would Call of Duty be without gameplay? A movie. One much like... any modern military movie, I guess. I haven't really seen any. Killing stuff by aiming with great reflexes is the name of the game as with all Call of Duty games, looking down your sights and constantly being on the move is key to survival. You kill your adverseries with a huge arsenal of weapons at your disposal, like the SCAR, dual wield Uzis, Glocks, MP5s, P90s, throwing knifes, claymores, and whatever other modernized weapondry your heart desires. These weapons all have unique and crazy add-ons like silencers, ACOG sights, holographic sights (my favorite), heart beat sensors (think Halo 3 motion tracker), and many more. It really hasn't changed much since Call of Duty 4 because it didn't really need to, and I honestly don't know how it could of, but it does add a lot more variety with new weapons, add-ons, and cool sections of the single player like turret sections when inside helicopters, and surprisingly fun vehicle sections, though there are only three. It still controls excellently, the gameplay is very fluid and streamlined, AI is improved, no more respawning enemies, more balance, and more of everything good. What more could you want? Well actually, I would have liked an arcade mode for the single player with online leaderboards, like in Call of Duty 4, which I enjoyed very much. Why the hell did they take that out?
When you've had your fill of gloom and doom in the campaign, you can always take things to the more simple, but incredibly fun Spec-Ops mode, a series of tons of little mini-challenges where you work to improve your score alone or with a friend. These challenges are mostly taken from the single player and are usually the most exciting sequences. For instance, the snow mobile level where you try and get the fastest time going down the mountain, or one where you go witha certain someonethrough the snowy forest picking off enemy patrols with your sniper, or the incredible AC-130 mission, where one player uses the AC-130 guns to guide the other player through the level. It's an awesome addition and stands out from the now extremely popular and somewhat tiresomeHoard-like modes as seen in Terrorist Hunt, Hoard Mode, Nazi Zombies, Survival, and Firefight. Props to IW for trying something new.
Then, there's the incredibly deep and very fun multiplayer, which is a huge step above Call of Duty 4, and mostly because of one thing: Balance. Balancing was a pretty big issue in Call of Duty 4, where winning was really dependant on who had the better perks, and some weapons were obviously better and more effective than others, as well as constant grenade spam. It would have been two times better if they had just gotten rid of Martydrom, but they went the extra mile and overhauled the perk and killstreak system so nothing works more in favor of certain players or the other. Granted, it can get a bit unfair when you get slammed by a Predator missile strike that was impossible to avoid, but other than that, it's a lot more balanced and based on... *gasp* skill! Another cool thing is that the maps are all very well done. There are only two maps out of the however-many-maps there are as of right now that I don't like, whereas in Call of Duty 4 I liked half the maps, and I hated the other half. Here, it's just a slight disgruntle towardsonly two. There are also new modes, like Capture the Flag, which is pretty self explanatory. So overall, the multiplayer is just an excellent offering and I can finally say Halo 3 has some competition on the console front.
In the end, Modern Warfare 2 exceeded my expectations by delivering a fantasic shooter with great new content and then some, and makes other action games look bad in comparison just because of how much more there is in Modern Warfare 2 and how massively large the production values are, and is only slightly marred by a somewhat convoluted story and lack of an arcade mode. If you like shooters on consoles then Modern Warfare 2 is a no-brainer, go pick it up.
9/10