Well, I'm sure you are ALL tired of hearing about Modern Warfare 2. How great it is, how terrible it is, how neutral and how strawberry and cream cheese flavored it is. Well let me just put my two cents into this torrent of cynicism and celebration. Now, before I go on, excuse my sporadic "Catcher in the Rye" style of writing. Anyways, allow me to start: I've followed the call of duty series since number 2, I play on the 360 and I loved the first modern warfare. So, because of this background this review may just be slighted towards the positive side. However my past experiences with the series and other games will certainly add a wash of negativity to this spotlight.
LET'S BEGIN! (for real now). I get the box, inside on the left I've found my all too familiar 2 page instruction booklet. The classic "Point, press, pew" scrawled in crayon. Nothing amazing, oh and hey 48 hours of live, but I'll get to that later.
I turn on the game, I take notice at the opening credits of the game, or lack there of. In the past Call of Duty (cod) games, the player is greeted by panoramic shots and cuts from the game itself portraying bits of what's to come. But no such thing here, alas. Let us get to campaign.
Same old same old. Flip book version of the instruction booklet and gruff, hammy marine shouting "point, press, pew" in your ear deal.
Then your first mission, you're riding through a city in a humvee, mini-gun a' whirring, giving you a chance to chance a look around you. The graphics.
Now, allow me to digress a moment from campaign and enter the elements of the graphics. And allow me to add my 2 cents, really 2 cents, i could care less about graphics, as long as it doesn't look like I'm playing a 50 dollar claymation. But anyways, the graphics are decent, not amazing, surely better than many games and a great improvement on the 4th call of duty and a minor increase in quality in comparison to the fifth. Nothing amazing or revolutionary but none the less note worthy.
Back to campaign.
That's it, now on to multi-player. Haha, just kidding, sarcasm aside, single-player is short, almost inexcusably, no, insultingly short. The few levels you do get portray dramatic scenes of hell raining down on America, Brazilian gangsters in Rio de Janiro and the classic dusty "mysterystan". The missions have great variety. One moment you are rushing through some closed in rooms and then the next you are storming the white house or taking out an entire military installation single handed. Yes, the missions are dramatic and you are never doing any one thing twice. Well that sort of variety is a double edged sword. The fact that you end up jumping around doing one thing and then another forces the plot to be strung together with some vague and short dialogue, leaving some plot "not-necessarily-holes-but-dents" behind in it's wake.
The story over all is interesting, just very, very poorly told and could have certainly been done better. But i digress, if I want a good story i will read a book, like say "catcher in the rye".
Anyways, the campaign is great, it was even difficult at times. But the main problem i had was it's brutal shortness. I'm sure they could have evened out the plot by filling in the chips with some wood putty missions. And then painted over it with some better and less hollow dialogue veneer. But alas, sometimes when you gain so much fame you get, well, full handed, empty handed and palms a' itching.
Now let's turn to the multiplayer.
It's quick, games go by very, very fast. Probably one of the greatest time sucks I have ever experienced. It's fun, well, for awhile, then all the things wrong start to slip through the gaps in my smile. Aside from the classic problems with playing on xbox (screaming children and heavy breathers, munchers, and probably deaf music dilettantes), and probably some lag due to the popularity of the game. Multiplayer is not that much different from cod 4's. If you liked multiplayer call of duty. You will probably enjoy, at least temporarily, this online multiplayer. Sure you will have your gripes about glitches, and quick dying but hey, that's life. People are people and people are douches.
That's enough!
Let's invite some friends over and play some spec ops!
The spec ops are great fun in my opinion. Seriously, if you get some friends over, well friend (it's only 2 players) spec ops will surely give plenty of entertainment for you and your buddy. However, I do have some complaints. The levels get very, very samey after awhile. It's the same bridge, same favela, same forest, over and over again at least for awhile. But otherwise, beating the different difficulties was a rippin' good time. I'm sure you would enjoy it. At least with your friends. Now go get some friends.
Let's see: final verdict? Fans of the game have already bought it. People who have given in to peer pressure have already bought it and people that already hate fps or the series or are trying to "boycott" the game aren't. There aren't many people to convince out there to buy this game, but I still recommend it, especially for the xbox. I just hope i served as your catcher in the rye and saved you some disappointment.
LET'S BEGIN! (for real now). I get the box, inside on the left I've found my all too familiar 2 page instruction booklet. The classic "Point, press, pew" scrawled in crayon. Nothing amazing, oh and hey 48 hours of live, but I'll get to that later.
I turn on the game, I take notice at the opening credits of the game, or lack there of. In the past Call of Duty (cod) games, the player is greeted by panoramic shots and cuts from the game itself portraying bits of what's to come. But no such thing here, alas. Let us get to campaign.
Same old same old. Flip book version of the instruction booklet and gruff, hammy marine shouting "point, press, pew" in your ear deal.
Then your first mission, you're riding through a city in a humvee, mini-gun a' whirring, giving you a chance to chance a look around you. The graphics.
Now, allow me to digress a moment from campaign and enter the elements of the graphics. And allow me to add my 2 cents, really 2 cents, i could care less about graphics, as long as it doesn't look like I'm playing a 50 dollar claymation. But anyways, the graphics are decent, not amazing, surely better than many games and a great improvement on the 4th call of duty and a minor increase in quality in comparison to the fifth. Nothing amazing or revolutionary but none the less note worthy.
Back to campaign.
That's it, now on to multi-player. Haha, just kidding, sarcasm aside, single-player is short, almost inexcusably, no, insultingly short. The few levels you do get portray dramatic scenes of hell raining down on America, Brazilian gangsters in Rio de Janiro and the classic dusty "mysterystan". The missions have great variety. One moment you are rushing through some closed in rooms and then the next you are storming the white house or taking out an entire military installation single handed. Yes, the missions are dramatic and you are never doing any one thing twice. Well that sort of variety is a double edged sword. The fact that you end up jumping around doing one thing and then another forces the plot to be strung together with some vague and short dialogue, leaving some plot "not-necessarily-holes-but-dents" behind in it's wake.
The story over all is interesting, just very, very poorly told and could have certainly been done better. But i digress, if I want a good story i will read a book, like say "catcher in the rye".
Anyways, the campaign is great, it was even difficult at times. But the main problem i had was it's brutal shortness. I'm sure they could have evened out the plot by filling in the chips with some wood putty missions. And then painted over it with some better and less hollow dialogue veneer. But alas, sometimes when you gain so much fame you get, well, full handed, empty handed and palms a' itching.
Now let's turn to the multiplayer.
It's quick, games go by very, very fast. Probably one of the greatest time sucks I have ever experienced. It's fun, well, for awhile, then all the things wrong start to slip through the gaps in my smile. Aside from the classic problems with playing on xbox (screaming children and heavy breathers, munchers, and probably deaf music dilettantes), and probably some lag due to the popularity of the game. Multiplayer is not that much different from cod 4's. If you liked multiplayer call of duty. You will probably enjoy, at least temporarily, this online multiplayer. Sure you will have your gripes about glitches, and quick dying but hey, that's life. People are people and people are douches.
That's enough!
Let's invite some friends over and play some spec ops!
The spec ops are great fun in my opinion. Seriously, if you get some friends over, well friend (it's only 2 players) spec ops will surely give plenty of entertainment for you and your buddy. However, I do have some complaints. The levels get very, very samey after awhile. It's the same bridge, same favela, same forest, over and over again at least for awhile. But otherwise, beating the different difficulties was a rippin' good time. I'm sure you would enjoy it. At least with your friends. Now go get some friends.
Let's see: final verdict? Fans of the game have already bought it. People who have given in to peer pressure have already bought it and people that already hate fps or the series or are trying to "boycott" the game aren't. There aren't many people to convince out there to buy this game, but I still recommend it, especially for the xbox. I just hope i served as your catcher in the rye and saved you some disappointment.
