Where to begin, where to begin...
First off:
It's awesome having a video store that sells it's copies of MW2 5 days before it's release. Even PRESTIGE EDITIONS! W00TNESS!
Now, down to the review...
Apparently, the guys down at Infinity Ward sat down at a big conference table with a huge pile of money and a lot of ideas, and said, 'Let's make something happen'. Apparently to them, protecting a tank in the middle of night time bog surrounded by enemies, crawling though a radiated, bad-shit-crazy enemy filled countryside in a suit made of leaves (can't remember the name, Guilie?), taking a trip through the inside of an atomic explosion, sniping high value targets from several miles away, and being in an epic, gun toting car chase, all with a stunning British accent that 'made all the girls wet', as my friend Kevin put it, and not to mention the award winning multiplayer battles that kept you coming back for more, just wasn't exciting enough. So, bringing an awesome solution to an imaginary problem, they started development on Modern Warfare 2, so, let's break it down.
Take a big bag of hapiness, two whole jars of AWESOMESAUCE, one tablespoon of epic, minus the failure, add an insane arsenal of weaponry, equipment, and explosives, mix all in a solid gold bowl and bake at OVAR 9000 degrees for about 15 minutes. Remove. Stir and serve before all the TUBE NOOBS start coming out to play again.
TIEM TO DISPELL ROOMURS!
1. There are still Tubes (Grenade Launchers), in fact, there's a new weapon called the Thumper, which is nothing but a grenade launcer
2. Last Stand and Martydom are still perks, however, Martydom is a 'Death Perk', meaning that only if you get a certain amount of deaths in a row without getting a kill (I believe it's 5 or so), will Martydom activate. It will stay active until you get a kill. Last Stand is still a regular perk
3. There are still no vehicles in multiplayer, but several times in campaign you can use them. Like REALLY use them, not sit in the back and shoot anything you see
4. You are able to 'Akimbo' (dual wield) certain weapons like handguns, machine pistols, and certain shotguns
5. No longer do you HAVE to have a pistol side arm, you have a choice of using a pistol, machine pistol, shotgun (no shotgun primaries, sorry), or an explosive device (RPG's, Thumper, AT4-HS)
Campaign (here come teh spoilers)
In the campaign, you take control of 4 different characters; Pvt. James Ramirez (USMC), 'Roach' Sanderson (SAS) , 'Soap' MacTavish SAS, (again), and Pvt. Joseph Allen (USMC). You go across different theaters of operation for each of them, but let's get to the story.
5 years after the fabled events of your last mission in CoD 4, you are Pvt. Allen at first, showing some trainees the ropes and proving your own skills as well, them jump into the action. If you've played the first Modern Warfare, you won't even need to break into these new boots, it's essentially the same great gameplay. However this time around, there's a lot more Urban Warfare going on, with more battles taking place in crowded cities then out in the open, meaning a lot more focus is put into trying not to hit that civilian and fail the mission. Immediately after your first mission as Pvt. Allen, you're put into the boots of the main character of the story, 'Roach', scaling icy cliffs with the help of the now immortalized Soap MacTavish. Soon after this mission, Pvt. Allen is picked off, and because of this, I won't go into exactly how, all of Russia has declared and brought war on the United States, and proceed to bomb the shit out of the East Coast and ONLY the East Coast, like WTF? Why couldn't you just bomb... Humboldt, Iowa or somewhere? Why my side of the states? But anyway, as a member of the USMC you're generally fighting on home turf, in places such as, and pretty much limited to, Washington D.C., and parts of Northern Virginia and lower Pennsylvania. In the SAS, you take the fight to the Russians and a Militia-man, who 'has no morals and will fuck your shit up', Vladamir Makarov. Lots of fighting later, you find Captain Price, a prisoner to the Russians. More fighting later, you try to find Makarov, you go to his house and throw a party, and you invite all the Ultranationalists within a five mile radius to come celebrate. You barely make it out with your life, the 'good guy' stabs you in the back, and then shoots you in the face (in a more literal sense), then burns you alive so Charles Manson can be proud of him. Then you take hold of Soap for the first time since... the last time you played Call of Duty 4. More fighting, big explosions, and one boat ride later, you knife the 'good guy' in his face and Captain Price FIRES HIS LAZOR, and Nickolai is useless as always and trys to make jokes while you bleed to death. End of game.
The campaign is pretty short, rounding out at about a good 5 hours on Recruit, and 8 on Veteran (I always play the easier difficulty first). However short it is though, it's very cinimatic and definitely worth playing.
Say hi to Mike. He's watching me finish the review.
Multiplayer
I definitly have no objections to this top notch experience. It can be described as taking all the great things from the first game's multiplayer, fixing the things that didn't work, and adding a slice of epic win to balance it all out. And remember all those games you were excited about that you WERE going to get? Well once you've played this, everything else seems like a bad disney movie knockoff game. Let me give you some specifics:
The game's multiplayer maps are designed around different campaign levels and maps (throwing knives on Rust make for the ultimate in-game irony). I know, it may not make for excitingly 'new' gameplay if you've been playing campaign for a while, but it's still top notch, no doubt about that.
-Christopher
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