Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2Overview
With missions that range from Brazil, Russia, a military base in Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and even America, Modern Warfare 2's single player is in itself an instant hit. The campaign is not as long as Call of Duty 4's, but this is its only drawback. Much of it focuses on a Russian invasion of the United States, especially in the Greater Washington D.C. area. The player will see sights such as the Washington Monument and the White House (called the "Whiskey Hotel" in the game), and the Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Plot
The player starts the game in Afghanistan as US Army Ranger Private Allen. Soon recruited by a General Shephers, Private Allen becomes a CIA operative and is placed in Vladimir Makarov's (one of Zakhaev's former lieutenants) organization as an undercover operative. A surprising mission takes Allen to a Russian airport, where he, Makarov, and a few others must walk through and kill everyone with automatic weapons. Once completed, Makarov kills Allen, exposing him as an American, and turns him into a scapegoat for the brutal terrorist attack on the Russian airport. Enraged by what they believe is an American-supported terrorrist attack, Russia stages a surprise invasion of the United States East Coast. Meanwhile, Soap and Roach infiltrate a Russian airbase to recover a lost ACS module. Task Force 141 (a spec ops group formed to take down terrorist organizations, primarily Makarov's) works on taking down Makarov. Traveling to Rio de Janeiro, Task Force 141 attempt to chase leads on Makarov's contacts, which turn out to be dead ends. As a result, Soap decides to rescue one of Makarov's mosthated enemies from a Russian prison camp, called the Gulag, and use him as bait to draw him out. With assistance from the Marines and SEALs, Task Force 141 manages to free the prisoner, who is revealed to be Captain Price. Price agrees to help them track down Makarov, but knows that they must do something extreme to end the war. Temporarily going rogue, Price hijacks a Russin nuclear submarine and launches an ICBM at Washington D.C. However, he rigs the warhead to explode in the upper atmosphere, which destroys th International Space Station but saves Washington. The resulting electromagnetic pulse cripples both the US and Russian forces in the city, causing helicopters and jets to fall out of the sky and small things such as red dot sights not to work. Army Rangers in Washington discover that the Air Force will assume that Washington D.C. is lost and will carpet bomb the city. They fight their way to the Russian-controlled White House and set off green flares on the roof in time to save the city. Even though that conflict is over, Makarov is still at large. Narrowig his hiding place down to two separate locations, Task Force 141 splits up. Soap and Price go to the boneyards in Afghanistan, while Roach and Ghost raid Makarov's safehouse in the Caucasus Mountains. Roach and Ghost obtain vital intelligence to put an end to him for good. General Shepherd, however, betrayes them and kills both Roach and Ghost. Shepherd intends to tke advantage of the global crisis to turn himslf into a global her as wll as write history however he sees fit. Price and Soap manage to escape Shepherd's ambush, and decide to tke revenge on him in one final, bloody suicide mission. After their helicopter crashes, Soap (who the player takes control of after Roach is killed) attempts to stab Shepherd in a sandstorm. Shepherd is able to repell his attack and stabs Soap instead. Price rescues Soap temporarily and after a brutal fist-fight between Price and Shepherd, Soap manages to remove the knife from his abdomen and throw it into Shepherd's eye socket, killing him. Soap and Price both seriously wounded, Nikolai arrives to extract them. Price warns Nikolai that they will be international fugitives fo what they've done, but Nikolai tells them he knows a safe place to take them.
Special Ops
Modern Warfare 2 features a cooperative mode entitled Special Ops, which consists of independent missions similar in design to the "Mile High Club" epilogue mission from Call of Duty 4. These missions will take place in a variety of locations from the campaign mode, but are not related to story of the campaign itself. Special Ops mode can be played alone and also supports two player cooperative play, where it can be played with another player split-screen locally, or online. It includes such scenarios as a snowmobile race between the two players, one player providing airsupport from an AC-130 while the other player conducts operations on the ground, capturing an enemy compound and searching areas for and eliminating 40 or more enemies at a time. Special Ops is divided into five separate groups of missions which are Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Echo. Each mission can be played at three difficulty levels which are regular, hardened and veteran. Successfully completing a mission earns the players stars, there are three stars available for each mission: one star for completing the mission on regular difficulty, two for hardened and three for veteran. Once enough stars are earned, more missions can be unlocked. Infinity Ward has stated that the total number of stars is 69, meaning there are 23 missions in total. At the end of each mission, a statistics screen displays how long the player took to complete the level and how many kills were scored, among other stats.
Online
The online multiplayer mode of Modern Warfare 2 retains the same experience points and unlockable reward system of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but also introduces several new features. Aside from new weapons and equipment, 15 different kill streak rewards can be unlocked and selected by the player. Among these is the ability to receive a supply drop after four kills, a predator missile strike after five kills, and to call in a strike by an AC-130 gunship after achieving 11 enemy kills in a row. It is also now possible to upgrade perks to a "pro version". Another new addition to online multiplayer is in-game host migration - if a match host leaves the game, instead of the match ending (as in Call of Duty 4), a 5 second 'host migration delay' allows a new host to be selected and the game to continue. There has also been the addition of a new 3rd person mode which can be used in certain game types for multiplayer. Game modes include Free-For-All, Search & Destroy, Demolition, Domination, Team Deathmatch, and Capture The Flag.
Final Word
All-in-all, Modern Warfare 2's immersive single-player and intense multi-player makes it one of the very best shooters out there. Go out and grab yourself a copy today.
9.5 / 10
