GamerNode: Reviews - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

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• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2...
• Xbox 360
• Infinity Ward
• Activision
• November 10th, 2009

Multiplayer has been vastly improved, balanced, and tweaked over COD4. The perks have been reduced, and replaced with Perk Challenges. By using a certain perk more often, you are contributing to these challenges. Get 25 kills using Sleight of Hand, and it will upgrade to Sleight of Hand 2, allowing you to reload even faster. Each perk has these challenges and can upgrade up to 5 times. It allows you to focus on certain perks you really find useful and build a character that fits your style of play. Killstreaks have been greatly expanded and go up to 25 kills now. After 3 kills, almost every additional kill has a reward associated with it. If you're thinking to yourself, "I probably won't get to 25 kills," then Infinity Ward has you covered. Certain Killstreak awards are supply drops now. These drops can be more munitions, or they can be a Killstreak award. So even you aren't the best player, you can still gain the option to call in that armored attack helicopter. Of course, these drops can be used by the opposing team as well, so you'll want to get to them fast.

Speaking of balance, there are also Deathsteak awards too. If you die three times in a row without getting a kill, you'll gain a special Deathstreak perk. Copycat lets you take the loadout of the last person that killed you and Painkiller gives you a large boost of health for the first ten seconds of your spawn. Two old favorites are now here as well. Martyrdom and Last Stand are now Deathstreak perks, which is fitting (both give dying players a final chance to take down their opponents) and helps to better balance each match. With Killstreaks and Deathstreaks, Modern Warfare 2 is always rewarding you in some way during your play time. Get a headshot? More xp. Shoot a guy from a distance? More xp. Kill the guy who killed you last? Guess what, more xp. That visual feedback and xp gain from this and many other situations in multiplayer make for an addicting experience that any player, no matter your skill level, can enjoy.

But the rewards and xp don't stop there. You now have a Callsign card that can be customized with different titles and emblems that you earn by leveling up and getting certain xp awards. This card pops up on the opposing players' screens everytime you kill them and even comes up for the person who got the first kill of the match. There are hundreds of titles and emblems to unlock, so making your card stand out is pretty easy. If that wasn't enough content, you have accolades to earn, challenges to complete, and more custom weapon mods than I could fathom. This really is the definitive multiplayer shooter out now and will continue to be popular for a long time to come.

Spec Ops rounds out the package and is, quite frankly, the only hit-and-miss part of the game. Spec Ops has you and a buddy run through different co-op scenarios. These missions stand on their own and have no story or introduction. They're like arcade levels that can be played together. Each completed level earns players a star rating that will then unlock more missions and achievements. While the star ratings make for a very rewarding arcade experience as you try to attain all three stars for each mission, the missions themselves are, again, hit and miss. Some of them are really cool, like racing your buddy on snowmobiles. One of the missions is downright awesome, where one person is on the ground trying to get to a certain building and the other player is piloting an AC-130 to provide support. Hearing your friend shout "rain some kickass down on these enemies for me" while you shoot from above is pretty thrilling stuff. Some of the missions, though, are just regurgitated from the single-player mode. The Rio Rooftops mission isn't very spectacular by itself and a stealth snow level from the single-player campaign just isn't that great with another friend. While some of the missions can be completed by a lone player, some of the missions require two people, so if you can't grab a friend from your friends list -- since there is no matchmaking in these modes -- you won't be able to experience all of them. Infinity Ward could have easily solved this with an A.I. partner for those who want it.

This isn't saying Spec Ops is the black sheep of the package, it just isn't as exciting as the single-player and multiplayer portions. That being said, Infinity Ward could easily fill this mode out with more DLC missions that are innovative and fun, so expect Spec Ops to grow in the future and hopefully add some missions that aren't just cut directly from the single-player.

With all this said, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is one of the greatest FPS games ever made. The emotional and intense single-player game is a thrilling rollercoaster ride of exciting moments, while the multiplayer is truly a definitive experience for online FPS players everywhere. This game lives up to its hype and then some, and won't disappoint even the most jaded of gamers.

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