Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PC)

Does anybody here remember Modern Warfare? You know the one - it was a multiplayer game with a ridiculously short (but very good) single player campaign tacked on as an afterthought. How many of you finished it and said 'please Sir, may I have more?'

Well, grub's up-come and get it.

Taking up the sword of righteous justice, Modern Warfare 2 begins five years after the tense finale of the previous incarnation where the nasty Ultranationalists have now taken over Russia and the vanquished enemy (Zakhaev) has been posthumously declared a hero of the people. All you really need to know is that someone with an even bigger chip on his shoulder has filled the nasty terrorist void and you will have to stop him and his minions with every skill and weapon at your disposal.

That's the easy part. MW2 has more weapons and reckless bullet spraying than a Redneck convention supplying free beer. Of course you can't take your favourite firearms from level to level though, which sucks, but you are spoilt for choice once each chapter begins.

The obligatory training mission should help you get used to the PC controls but to be honest, if you have played any FPS on your fabulous-much more expensive than a silly console-plaything then you should have no qualms about going gung-ho on the hardened setting (as long as you don't mind reloading at save points every couple of minutes). Otherwise, you are going to feel very cheated when you realise that once again your beloved MW is a multiplayer game with a ridiculously short single player campaign tacked on. Déjà vu anyone?

Don't get me wrong, right from the start you get to see some real Hollywood style action which continues right throughout the game. Swapping between British and American characters for each caffeine fuelled level has the story jump from country to beautifully realised country with remarkable pace and throws more enemies at you than ever before. Thankfully though, these are without the obvious infinite spawn points that could see you sit and shoot streams of fanatics forever in the first game unless you moved forward to the invisible checkpoint.

The computer controlled enemies are, for the most part, very smart and work well together to make your life as difficult and short as possible. They use grenades and flank you and your comrades creatively, allowing some of the gunfights to unfold differently each time, although set pieces are the bread and butter of Infinity Ward and MW2 has them in spades. If an area looks like a perfect ambush point, it is, and you know one hell of a battle will ensue once you step your booted foot into it.

Your AI buddies are a boon and will, on countless occasions, save your proverbial bacon from the fire. They run, jump, dive, peek around corners, open doors and generally do things you are seemingly incapable of managing. The only way your character can open a door in MW2 is to blow it open with a breach charge and run through in slow motion firing a hail of bullets in a blockbuster movie style dance of death. That said, it's bloody good fun.

Graphically it's not without flaws but the overall look and feel is highly polished, with loving attention to detail and some great sound effects and voice acting. If only you could spend some time admiring any of it. The problem lies with the overall pace of the game. It's so damned fast that you feel propelled forward like the ever present RPG your counterparts invariably warn you about at every turn. You are constantly chased by the enemy or cajoled by your team into keeping up the pace. While good at first it becomes somewhat tiresome after a while and also makes the game shorter than it needed to be.

I didn't buy the game for the multiplayer-as good as it is admittedly-and feel a little cheated if truth be told. Why not have separate games? Crytek tried it with Crysis Warhead, giving gamers a free second disc with the multiplayer Crysis Wars to install separately if they so chose. For the multiplayer lovers out there it's a solid offering with great maps and countless hours of fun. [if we forget the whole dedicated server debacle - Ed.]

Infinity Ward has created a solid shooter which raises your adrenaline to dangerous levels in a number of places with some of the best set pieces I have ever seen in any game. If only it had changed the pace here and there and made it longer, MW2 would have been a classic.