G l i t c h y G o b l i n !

It’s Vegieza, back once more to bring you a review from what I believe Assassin’s Creed II knocked off its Game of 2009 pedestal:  Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare 2.  It’s the sequel to the 4^th game, but the game before this one was Call of Duty:  World at War.  But World at War is not Call of Duty 5.  And Modern Warfare 2 is not 5 or 6.  And you’re just supposed to call it Modern Warfare 2.  And they dropped the “4” from “Call of Duty 4”.  Confused yet?

Before I get to the Pros and Cons, I have to say that I had quite a hard time coming up with cons for this game.  The basics are that if you’re a fan of First Person Shooters, this is a must buy as it is one of the most exhilarating, depthful FPSs ever conceived.  If you’re looking for an action game, at least borrow this from someone.  If you don’t like FPSs at all, then you probably should find something else.

Pros:

It’s Action-Packed. Rarely will you see so many different action sequences rolled up into one campaign as with this.  It’s like they had a list of cool things they thought up and then squeezed them all in.  Basically, it’s an entire season of 24 in one game, but with most of the dialogue cut out.  When you put in the disc it even warns you on the screen that some levels are disturbing, and if you press a certain button those sections can be skipped over.  I actually gasped out loud at one point in the game.  At other points you will just be in awe at what’s going on around you.  If you’re going to play this, you really shouldn’t look anything up on Youtube, wikias, or anything to not spoil any of the like 50 surprises.

By the way, is Vladmir Makarov, a Russian terrorist who terrorizes an airport, voiced by one of the Russian terrorists who hold up an airport from season 5 of 24?  Why, yes.  Is the “Overlord” who explains all of my mission objectives mid-mission my favorite character from 24, Aaron Pierce, head of the Secret Service?  Why, yes.  Yes it is.  What a coincidence.

You’ll be playing multiplayer forever. Call of Duty 4:  Modern Warfare’s multiplayer overtook Halo 3 as the most played game of Xbox Live.  They took everything that made that multiplayer amazing and added more.  For people who don’t know about the multiplayer, you can create custom classes with the different guns, attachments, grenades, killstreaks, the new deathstreaks, and more.  This lets you really customize the multiplayer to the way you want it to be, as you can switch between your custom classes mid-match.  Add to this the fact that for every single gun, attachment, and more there are challenges to unlock.  You constantly get more XP and rank up all the time, and the more you rank up the more you unlock.  It makes it feel like you’re actually being continuously rewarded for playing, unlike in Halo 3.  It even keeps track of the percentage complete your multiplayer is, and it goes up to 1000%.  You can play for months straight (24 hours a day) and still not have everything.  I’m still not even doing it justice as I’ve left out even more things you can do.

Special-Ops is great. Spec-Ops is the co-op mission mode of MW2.  There are tons of really diverse and fun missions to do, and all of it is tracked just like in multiplayer.  As you complete more you unlock more, and some of the most fun times in this game has been playing this mode with a buddy.  Imagine a friend runs under cover of night across fields and through barns while you bombard all of the enemies coming toward him or her with an AC-130.  It’s glorious.

Grenades aren’t spammed constantly. This was World at War’s biggest downfall, and what made it the hardest Call of Duty game.  You get behind cover so you don’t get shot, right?  Well, you duck behind cover and 12 GRENADES LAND ON YOUR POSITION AT ONCE.  This doesn’t happen in MW2.

Graphics are just…  wow. Play this on a big screen TV in 1080i, and then be amazed.  It’s really, really realistic.

Cons:

You have a disadvantage when starting multiplayer. You get the crappiest guns and can’t use attachments and the like for about the first 5-10 levels or multiplayer.  I had such bad Kill/Death Ratios (K-Ds) toward the beginning.  The point is to stick with it, and don’t get discouraged.  It gets better.

Some choke points in the campaign are tricky. If you’re playing the campaign on Veteran, the hardest difficulty and what Call of Duty should always be played on, some (but very few) sections are really difficult.  One section of the white-water rafting comes to mind. If you get in a place like this (not the rafting, but in shooting sections), remember sometimes you can push forward and get another checkpoint.

The story isn’t as good as it could’ve been. It’s still gripping, mind you, but some events are really far-fetched.  Like I said, they had a list of cool things and then wrote the story around it.

Achievements/Trophies are hard for less-skilled players. If you aren’t that great at FPSs, then you might not be able to get the majority of the achievements/trophies, which have to be done on Veteran.  This Veteran isn’t as hard as 2, 4, or World at War, though, so if you’ve beat them then you probably can do this one.

There is no Jack Bauer. I know, I’ve probably mentioned 24 too many times by now, but Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer, the main character of 24) was the voice of your commander in World at War.  He should’ve been in this one, but he probably is under contract with the other Call of Duty company (it’s a long story, look it up yourself).

Well, there you have it.  Those first two pros were pretty long, but I still didn’t even say all that I wanted to.  Please look forward to next week’s review of Mass Effect 2, a game that I believe has achieved a pinnacle of gaming never before witnessed.  This has been Vegieza, and remember:  No Russian.