This year’s Call of Duty entry looks a lot like its flagship character, Captain Price.
A direct sequel to Modern Warfare 2019’s ‘reboot’, Modern Warfare II felt familiar but is bolder, grittier and grizzlier. Like “Bravo Six” Price, MWII cuts to the chase. There is no glitz and pageantry in this one. They get straight into the action, except for the occasional cigar.
I declared the Modern Warfare 2019 campaign to be one of the best CoD campaigns in recent memory, if not the best. It felt visceral and raw while ensuring it was still fun to play. It managed to stay grounded, while incorporating fun elements into it. It makes players feel like they’re the centerpiece of the action as well as a secondary character in a much bigger conflict simultaneously.
Modern Warfare II replicated that formula and delivered quite a bit more if I’m being honest.
Picking up literally three years after the game’s 2019 shutdown, the same time jump has also happened in the game, with Task Force 141 now running operations around the world to thwart terrorists. Add in several missions gone wrong and WMDs falling into the hands of the opposite side, and we have global catastrophe at hand. Without giving too much away, the gang is back to kicking ass before finally coming face to face with the real villain behind it all.
CoD has always prided itself on its wide variety of missions and this year’s game is no different. The weapons felt very familiar, especially to those who have spent most of the past two years playing Modern Warfare 2019 and Warzone. Jumping into Modern Warfare II will feel like walking into your favorite restaurant, in your favorite town with your favorite friends.
The standard “run and gun” and “hold a point” levels are still there, but presented in a much more elaborate and realistic setting. Developers Infinity Ward return to the helm and try to break up the monotony usually associated with CoD missions, this time laying down some solid gems. In one mission, you’ll have to navigate Ghost through a Metal Gear Solid-style stealth mission, while in another, equipped only with limited weapons and gear, survive the enemy-filled street.
They even recreated the iconic “All Ghillied Up” mission, but with welcome twists and updates, which would put a smile on any CoD veteran’s face. Some level designs worked better than others, with the Uncharted-eque chase sequences being the weakest of the bunch, but overall they’re all solid experiences.
And let’s not forget this game’s equivalent of the classic “Press F to pay tribute” meme. In one mission, you chase the antagonist through a neighborhood. Facing the panicked civilians you just broke into, you are prompted on-screen to hold down the left trigger (for Xbox players) to “defuse”. It’s quite funny and awkward at the same time in retrospect. The problem is that holding down LT means you’re aiming the aiming square at their forehead. Maybe this is how law enforcement does its job in North America?
The fact that the campaign was made available a week before the game’s actual release for those who pre-ordered it also gives players plenty of time to complete the campaign playthrough at their leisure while being rewarded with in-game items. for use in multiplayer modes. These include calling cards, operators, and weapons.
As usual and as expected, there are tons of weapons each with variations dotted throughout the game for you to pick up. Curiously, some of these weapons have “alternative” names to the actual weapons they represent. This may have been due to licensing issues, but it reduced the level of immersion slightly. For example, the “Lachman sub” and the “Kastov 74u” do not sound as immersive as the “Heckler & Koch MP5” and the “AK-74u”.
We half hoped we would have the ability to customize the weapon before each mission, but maybe that would be asking too much. Where is it?
In a way, the campaign mode is essentially a long-winded tutorial to equip players with various shooter scenarios they’ll eventually find themselves in when they jump into multiplayer. We recommend that you play it at least in regular mode for an equal balance between fun and resistance from the AI. On enhanced difficulty, it took us about seven hours to complete the campaign. You can freely change the difficulty settings if you get stuck on a particularly difficult level; assuming you play it strictly in regular mode, the entire campaign is fully doable in less than five hours.
All in all, it’s a fun time for fans looking for a decent follow-up to the Modern Warfare reboot of a few years ago, with some great follow-up missions and not a lot of duds.
Advantages
- Great follow up to the gem of 2019.
- More MW2019-style shooters, less cold war and cutting edge.
- Variety of missions and pace throughout.
- Improvement all around in terms of graphics and sound.
- Realistic but balanced scenery.
The inconvenients
- Some cringe-worthy and awkward moments like “Hold LT to defuse (LOL!)”
This is an ongoing review of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II before the doors to multiplayer modes open soon. Once it’s up, you bet we’ll be there, sharing our views and, of course, updating that review page and score.
