Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a true gamechanger in every sense of the word. It singlehandedly popularised the modern military shooter which for so long had been bogged down with complicated squad-based mechanics; it revolutionised the way PvP multiplayer worked with its extensive ranking system, and it truly cemented Call of Duty as one of the big gaming franchises. With the incredible critical and commercial response the game received it came as no surprise when developer Infinity Ward announced that it would receive a direct sequel that would release in 2009. In fact, Modern Warfare 2 even dropped the Call of Duty moniker from the title in everything other than the boxart (and even then it was heavily minimised) just to hammer home Infinity Ward’s desire to try and distinguish the Modern Warfare brand as an offshoot of the mainline Call of Duty games, rather than a direct continuation of them. But Modern Warfare 2 had a lot to live up to, being good just wouldn’t cut it, the game needed to be exceptional if it was truly going to live up to the hype surrounding it. Looking back, it would be fair to say that Modern Warfare 2 did live up to those expectations.
Five years have passed since stopping Zakhaev’s plan to plunge the world into nuclear warfare. Despite this, the Russian Ultranationalists have gained power in their home country and Zakhaev has become a martyr for their cause. Vladimir Makarov, Zakhaev’s protégé is of particular interest to the United States military due to his involvement in a number of terrorist attacks. When a covert operation goes wrong leading to the deaths of thousands of Russian civilians, the western is blamed for the attack and war becomes inevitable. Playing as Pvt. Ramirez of the U.S. Army Rangers you must defend the United States from invading Russian forces, meanwhile S.A.S. Task Force 141 member ‘Roach’ conducts a number of high-risk missions to try and track down the location of Makarov.
Five years have passed since stopping Zakhaev’s plan to plunge the world into nuclear warfare. Despite this, the Russian Ultranationalists have gained power in their home country and Zakhaev has become a martyr for their cause. Vladimir Makarov, Zakhaev’s protégé is of particular interest to the United States military due to his involvement in a number of terrorist attacks. When a covert operation goes wrong leading to the deaths of thousands of Russian civilians, the western is blamed for the attack and war becomes inevitable. Playing as Pvt. Ramirez of the U.S. Army Rangers you must defend the United States from invading Russian forces, meanwhile S.A.S. Task Force 141 member ‘Roach’ conducts a number of high-risk missions to try and track down the location of Makarov.
Before I go gushing praise over Modern Warfare 2, I need to start off with one negative and another thing that’s neither good nor bad but needs to be taken into account. First, the bad. This is really the only thing I can knock Modern Warfare 2 for, but the campaign is painfully short. From start to finish you’re looking at no more than five hours, and that’s at a push. The game has eighteen missions, but each one can be completed in around ten minutes and none of them are particularly challenging. Even playing on Veteran, the games hardest difficulty, it doesn’t pose the same kind of challenge that previous Call of Duty games did. You can’t help but feel slightly short changed, especially when the game ends on a cliff-hanger just as things start to really hit the fan. It’s kind of criminal how short the game is, but it’s an incredible five hours so more on that in a bit.
The other thing to keep note of is that Call of Duty was envisioned by Infinity Ward to be a more grounded approach to first person shooters, designed in a way where you needed to rely on your AI squad to survive, and couldn’t just one-man army the whole thing. Modern Warfare 2 is the tipping point for Call of Duty wherein from this point on the games lost all sense of reality and became blockbuster action movies that you play. Whilst that’s not inherently a bad thing, it’s certainly something to keep in mind because whilst Call of Duty 4 definitely had some wild moments, Modern Warfare 2 is entirely driven by absolutely bonkers set-pieces. Now that’s out of the way…on with the rest of the review.
Modern Warfare 2’s story is without a doubt one of the tightest and most consistently high-quality campaigns I have ever played in a first person shooter. I know I just criticised the short length, but it does give it an ‘all killer no filler’ kind of vibe. There’s never a dull moment with Modern Warfare 2 and the main reason why is because each and every single level seems to have its own gimmick (for want of a better word) or is built around a set-piece. Whilst the minute-to-minute gameplay is no different from any other Call of Duty (shoot bad guys, defend vantage points etc.), the way they are structured around the extravagance is what makes each and every single mission memorable. You’ll be escaping snow bases on snowmobiles, running and gunning through a claustrophobic favela, using drone missiles, battling through war torn U.S streets, performing a prison break, fighting through darkness in the aftermath of an EMP blast, and speeding down rapids in a dingy whilst being chased by attack helicopters; and that’s only the half of it.
What ties these superb missions together is an excellently written story about the dawn of World War III starring memorable characters that’ll you’ll come to love, hate, and mourn over the course of the game. Modern Warfare 2 pulls no punches, it’s entirely unpredictable from start to finish, and it’ll never have you doing the same thing twice.
The other thing to keep note of is that Call of Duty was envisioned by Infinity Ward to be a more grounded approach to first person shooters, designed in a way where you needed to rely on your AI squad to survive, and couldn’t just one-man army the whole thing. Modern Warfare 2 is the tipping point for Call of Duty wherein from this point on the games lost all sense of reality and became blockbuster action movies that you play. Whilst that’s not inherently a bad thing, it’s certainly something to keep in mind because whilst Call of Duty 4 definitely had some wild moments, Modern Warfare 2 is entirely driven by absolutely bonkers set-pieces. Now that’s out of the way…on with the rest of the review.
Modern Warfare 2’s story is without a doubt one of the tightest and most consistently high-quality campaigns I have ever played in a first person shooter. I know I just criticised the short length, but it does give it an ‘all killer no filler’ kind of vibe. There’s never a dull moment with Modern Warfare 2 and the main reason why is because each and every single level seems to have its own gimmick (for want of a better word) or is built around a set-piece. Whilst the minute-to-minute gameplay is no different from any other Call of Duty (shoot bad guys, defend vantage points etc.), the way they are structured around the extravagance is what makes each and every single mission memorable. You’ll be escaping snow bases on snowmobiles, running and gunning through a claustrophobic favela, using drone missiles, battling through war torn U.S streets, performing a prison break, fighting through darkness in the aftermath of an EMP blast, and speeding down rapids in a dingy whilst being chased by attack helicopters; and that’s only the half of it.
What ties these superb missions together is an excellently written story about the dawn of World War III starring memorable characters that’ll you’ll come to love, hate, and mourn over the course of the game. Modern Warfare 2 pulls no punches, it’s entirely unpredictable from start to finish, and it’ll never have you doing the same thing twice.
Built on the IW 4.0 Engine, Modern Warfare 2 is a significant graphical step forward from previous entries in the series. Everything has considerably more detail, colour, and animation is much more fluid. NPC’s move more realistically, have more varied facial expressions, and have much smarter AI. Environments are considerably larger than any previous Call of Duty game and are usually populated with more destructible objects and higher quality textures than previous entries. It was one of the best-looking shooters of 2009, with perhaps Sony’s Killzone 2 being the only competitor that beat it on raw graphical power.
Combine this with the stellar soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer & Lorne Balfe and Modern Warfare 2 sounds as good as it looks. Explosions are beefy, guns pack a punch, and all the voice work is above par for first person shooters.
The multiplayer also makes a return, refining what made the Call of Duty 4 experience so beloved. Modern Warfare 2 featured a wide range of maps, including iconic maps like Terminal and Rust which were among fan favourites for the title. Like Call of Duty 4 and World at War, Modern Warfare 2 sees you earning XP for each action you take and unlocking new weapons, skins, and attachments as you progress. However, with more customisation options, as well as the ability to customise killstreaks to your playstyle and ability means that Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer was the most accessible in a Call of Duty game yet.
But the content didn’t stop there. Perhaps to make up for the campaign’s short length a new game mode, Spec Ops, was introduced. A co-op mode where you must complete various challenging tasks, usually within a time limit, to earn stars. Spec Ops mode does re-purpose a lot of the campaign firefights but with slight modifiers enabled to keep them fresh, but there’s also a decent amount of original content here. Unfortunately for skilled players Spec Ops mode will only take a couple of hours to blast through.
Combine this with the stellar soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer & Lorne Balfe and Modern Warfare 2 sounds as good as it looks. Explosions are beefy, guns pack a punch, and all the voice work is above par for first person shooters.
The multiplayer also makes a return, refining what made the Call of Duty 4 experience so beloved. Modern Warfare 2 featured a wide range of maps, including iconic maps like Terminal and Rust which were among fan favourites for the title. Like Call of Duty 4 and World at War, Modern Warfare 2 sees you earning XP for each action you take and unlocking new weapons, skins, and attachments as you progress. However, with more customisation options, as well as the ability to customise killstreaks to your playstyle and ability means that Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer was the most accessible in a Call of Duty game yet.
But the content didn’t stop there. Perhaps to make up for the campaign’s short length a new game mode, Spec Ops, was introduced. A co-op mode where you must complete various challenging tasks, usually within a time limit, to earn stars. Spec Ops mode does re-purpose a lot of the campaign firefights but with slight modifiers enabled to keep them fresh, but there’s also a decent amount of original content here. Unfortunately for skilled players Spec Ops mode will only take a couple of hours to blast through.
I can’t talk about Modern Warfare 2 without addressing the elephant in the room though, and that’s ‘No Russian’. Modern Warfare 2 was the first entry in the Call of Duty series to be given an 18 rating and it all comes down to this mission. Infamous the world over, No Russian sees you gun down unarmed civilians in an airport. It’s the inciting incident of the whole story and what sets in motion the events of the game…but it’s quite rightly controversial and did set a tried for a little while in Call of Duty games where they included the obligatory controversial mission in an attempt to be ‘mature’.
Unfortunately, mature is the wrong word, in fact it’s more akin to an edgy teenager acting out for attention. I’m hesitant to be too harsh on the mission because I understand what Infinity Ward were trying to achieve, but it didn’t quite turn out how I think they hoped it would. The mission is entirely skippable if you don’t want to witness the frankly quite disturbing material, but the rest of the experience can feel like it’s missing something as a result because you haven’t witnessed the event that has set the war in motion.
Modern Warfare 2 is nothing short of a masterpiece. Whilst Call of Duty 4 was certainly more revolutionary, Modern Warfare 2 is a more refined experience. It trims away what didn’t work with Call of Duty 4 and doubles down on what did work. With an excellent campaign, co-op missions, and expanded multiplayer suite, Modern Warfare 2 would prove to be a last hurrah of sorts for Call of Duty for quite some time, anywhere between five and ten years depending on who you ask. Even now in 2022, Modern Warfare 2 still manages to thrill me, and that’s a remarkable achievement.
Unfortunately, mature is the wrong word, in fact it’s more akin to an edgy teenager acting out for attention. I’m hesitant to be too harsh on the mission because I understand what Infinity Ward were trying to achieve, but it didn’t quite turn out how I think they hoped it would. The mission is entirely skippable if you don’t want to witness the frankly quite disturbing material, but the rest of the experience can feel like it’s missing something as a result because you haven’t witnessed the event that has set the war in motion.
Modern Warfare 2 is nothing short of a masterpiece. Whilst Call of Duty 4 was certainly more revolutionary, Modern Warfare 2 is a more refined experience. It trims away what didn’t work with Call of Duty 4 and doubles down on what did work. With an excellent campaign, co-op missions, and expanded multiplayer suite, Modern Warfare 2 would prove to be a last hurrah of sorts for Call of Duty for quite some time, anywhere between five and ten years depending on who you ask. Even now in 2022, Modern Warfare 2 still manages to thrill me, and that’s a remarkable achievement.