Review: Modern Warfare 2 - 'Hostiles in the Burger Town!'

November 10, 11:49 AMSF Console Game ExaminerDavid Downs

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Prestige Edition: For when you're proud of not having a girlfriend
Infinity Ward

Insanely violent, stunningly detailed and as addictive as a speedball, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, is worth the hype. Free up time in the schedule, because even sleep will be a low priority while ensnared by this long-awaited and difficult first-person shooter.

Encino-based gamemaker Infinity Ward has pre-sold more than four million copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, released today for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The sixth title in the best-selling Call of Duty franchise and the direct sequal to '07s hit Modern Warfare, the $60 game is expected to clear seven million copies sold during its first week, matching prior records for Grand Theft Auto IV. If retailers worldwide take in the expected $500 million in sales this first week, the game will have a stronger debut "than any film, book, or music production in history," says leading game sales tracker VGChartz.com.

And there's no reason to assume it won't. We went to a midnight sale in Daly City and the line of several hundred started to form at 9 p.m. Many were looking forward to the six to ten hours of 'campaign' play that takes players from the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan, and the slums of Rio, to the invaded streets of the Eastern seaboard. Few mentioned new features like duel wielding handguns, larger maps, better graphics and better rendering. Everyone was obsessed with Modern Warfare's near-perfect online multiplayer, where teams can go nine versus nine, augmented by an arsenal of new perks, weapons and load-outs, as well as all-new features like fifteen different customizable 'kill streak' rewards and even 'death streaks'.

The narrative of the campaign throws players in five years after the death of a right-wing ultranationalist Russian warlord killed in the prior game. He's become a martyr to mother Russia, and you mainly play Sgt. Gary "Roach" Sanderson, a new recruit to the international Task Force 141 trying to stop a bloodthirsty terrorist named Markarov. Without tipping the plot - we will say that we find it very bizarre to be celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall with yet another Russian plot against America. It's as if Infinity Ward is stuck in a Cold War mind set, though clearly they've done their homework.

What's really new about this game is the richly detailed civilian environments. The battlefield is no longer the battlefield. Now it's airports, slums, convenience stores and office cubicles. Seeing such places ripped apart in a fury of sizzling lead offers new vistas for Americans - long-complacent from war abroad. It's bitter poetry that the most powerful military in the world is controlled by people who've never known war. MW2 gives players a strong dose of "hostiles in the Burger Stop". It's very scary, confusing, sobering, and sad – but it's also an adrenaline dump of a good time.

Read on for more technical details:

• MW2 continues to use "Dynamic AI", which means bad guys keep pouring out of the woodwork and exhibit different behavior each go-round. Players must push forward at all times under heavy fire or risk a grenade up the poop chute.
• Modern Warfare 2 is running on a proprietary game engine from IW that supports insanely crisp world-dynamic lighting (sunrise, sunsets), HDR lighting, dynamic shadows and depth of field. The first time you take a hit and blood spatters across your visor, you will cry and want to go home to mama.
• Online multiplayer worked fine the night of the release, even though millions were logging on. Crisp, responsive, fast, and addictive: it's damn-near the best multiplayer experience money can buy.
• Some PC players continue to boycott the game, but they are sad, lonely people who will be ignored.
• Meanwhile, there's four different retail versions of the game - the Prestige Edition includes working night-vision goggles.
• Lastly, Infinity Ward has a Modern Warfare 2 comic coming out November 11 chronicling the backstory of MW2 main character Ghost. Yes.

Lastly, Links:

• Here's newbie tips from Infinity Ward.
• A video interview with the game's principles.
• An interview with MW2 writer Jesse Stern where he talks about the Mumbai massacre and its effect on the game.