Updated 15 Feb, 2012, 6:16 pm IST

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

16 Nov, 2009, 11:58 am IST | Avinash Bali | PC

Developer Infinity Ward have consistently delivered an adrenaline pumping war experience with their Call of Duty games. They’ve always taken the Michael Bay route portraying war with much flare and style and it’s worked really well for them so far. With Modern Warfare (MW) in 2007 they exceeded expectations after a drastic change of setting that now took the fight from the World War II theatre to the modern age. Modern Warfare was an instant classic with a tight single player campaign and a highly addictive multiplayer component that people still play till date.__STARTQUOTE__All controversies and PC complications aside, Modern Warfare 2 is a must buy.__ENDQUOTE__And now after around two years we have a sequel to Modern Warfare that has elicited a bit of a mixed reaction from me. The single player experience, while pretty stellar in its own way feels more like an expansion rather than a full-fledged sequel bringing nothing significantly new to the table. Missions while pretty solid and intense in their way fail to assault the senses the same way MW did. Still by no means is Modern Warfare (MW2) a bad game. In fact I’d say it’s one of the best shooters I’ve played all year and all controversies and PC complications aside, is a must buy.

The game takes place nearly five years after Soap McTavish successfully thwarted the nefarious plans of ultranationalist Imran Zakhaev. A lot has happened since then and due to certain events that transpire during the first half of the game, you find out that Russia has basically mounted a full scale war on the United States. You’ll play through the campaign as three distinct soldiers who not only have to defend America (directly or indirectly) but find out who’s behind this massive conspiracy as well. Now I really don’t follow the CoD series for their riveting plot because frankly speaking there isn’t one. Even then I was still a bit upset at the way the game ended as it not only felt incomplete but kind of anti-climatic as well. Luckily for us, gameplay’s still as tight as ever.

If you’ve played any Call of Duty game in the past, the gameplay in MW2 will feel right at home. You take multiple waves of enemies until you perform a certain objective or you hit the invisible trigger that stops spawning enemies. Like MW, MW2 is littered with quite a few stealth missions that do provide a certain amount of respite from all the hectic action. The thing that set Modern Warfare apart from the pack at the time were its nail biting, intense missions that culminated in insanely choreographed scripted events. While not completely missing from MW2, these monumental events are few and the ones present didn’t feel nearly as mind blowing as the opening ship level or the flashback in Pripyat. Also I think we’ve really been spoilt by Uncharted 2’s cinematic set pieces that do make MW2 feel a tad archaic.

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