Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Don't believe the hype"

Ah, Call of duty 4: one of my favorite games of all times. You pratically told the whole world how FPSs should be made: an imersive storyline, great characters, unbeatable multiplayer, COD4 deserves all the praise it has ever gotten. It was so good that it didn't need a sequel. Yet along comes a sequel, Modern Warfare 2. And guess what? It SUCKS. And before you start sending me death threats saying my opinion is wrong and that I deserve to die for ripping on probably the most over-hyped and disapointing games of all time, NO. The game sucks,ok? And if you take time to read this review, I'm going to explain why I think the game sucks.

First, you have the campaign mode which follows the typical "*insert number of years* since last game" idea. Basically, after the death of Zakhaev in COD4, Ultranationalists took over Russia anyway, declare Zakhaev a hero and are taken over by Vladimir Makarov who for some unexplained reason, feels like taking on America. For most of the game, you will be playing as Sergeant Gary "Roach" Sanderson, a member of an elite, multi-national counter-terrorist unit known as Task Force 141 basically tasked with taking down Makarov.

The gameplay itself still feels like COD4 which I view is a good thing for ANY sequel, to feel remeniscent of its predecessor. But it's spoiled by a number of things, the first being the length of of the campaign: the campaign on average is about 4 - 8 hours long depending on what difficulty you choose: fairly short for a game in todays world. It would have been nice for it to have been at least another few hours longer. I also had a few problems with character development. With the exception of the Task 141 characters and MAYBE Makarov, most of the characters, especially the US ranger characters, are given little to no character development at all, they just tell you to do everything because they can't be bothered to do any of it themselves. I also have a problem with the plot twist which I won't spoil. Let's just say, I think it's something that has been done to death in recent years and just doesn't impress me anymore. I also noted that at times the checkpoint system can put you DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF A GROUP OF ENEMIES.

So we've established that the campaign could be improved but what about the other two modes? Special ops is basically a co-op mode which sees you partner up with a friend (and it MUST be with a friend if you play online; special ops doesn't let you join anyone random like other co-op games) or going solo to complete a variety of missions. These missions are very fun and are good fun to play with a friend...... offline. Online, it becomes a very different game: a game with you trying to battle the CRIPPLING lag you get in almost every game you play with a friend. Sometimes you get lucky and the lag isn't SO bad but 9 times out of 10, you're really going to get some serious lag. I also have to gripe about the 2 missions that NEED two people to play them. These two are of course the ac130 stage (ripped straight from COD4) and the chopper gunning stage. These two missions MUST have two people to play: one to shoot at enemies from above and the other to run around and try not to die (almost impossible on the hardest difficulty). Which begs the question: if you don't have anyone to play with, why not just make your partner AI controlled? Mind you, it would probably be ungodly stupid so maybe that's for the best.

So we know that the campaign is mediocre, special ops is ok but is usually ruined by serious lag, but what about the multiplayer? The most hyped up part of the game? Here's a hint: IT F***ING SUCKS! Why? First off, the ballancing system for the weapons is just BROKEN: most guns are just completly overpowered. For example, the M4A1, the Famas, the scar-h, the m16, the acr, the UMP 45, the RPD, the spas-12, the aa-12, the ranger, the model 1337, the g18...... you know what? Screw it: PRATICALLY EVERY GUN IN THE GAME IS OVERPOWERED. Even the snipers are broken: sometimes you can aim for the head, shoot, hit but they won't die! It seems random: most of the time they die, other times they don't. The only weapon that seems to be balanced is the FAL.

While we are on the issue of balancing, I should also mention the perk system. The perk system has been upgraded so now if you complete a few acchievements with any perk, you upgrade it to a pro version. For example, sleight of hand pro not only increases your reload speed like regular sleight of hand pro, it now lets you aim down your gun sights a lot faster. This is fine and a good system BUT the issue is simple: some of ther perks are overpowered and can be exploited in various ways. For example, commando pro increases your knife distance (which I already thought was pretty far) AND takes away falling damage. This, combined with marathon pro for unlimited sprint and lightweight pro for faster sprinting means the possibility of people running around faster than Usain Bolt and stabbing you in the back FROM ABOUT 10 FEET AWAY. I'm sorry but that knife distance is just flat out stupid. Then there's one man army which let's you switch classes without respawning first but at the same time, if you try switching to your current class, it refills your ammo, grenades and everything. THAT IS ABSURD.

Then there's other ballancing issues like the tactical insertion for example, a piece of equipment that let's you spawn wherever you want when you die. This is fine if it wasn't for the fact that when you respawn, you get your tactical insertion back. This, combined with silenced weapons, cold blooded pro for not being detected by any killstreaks and ninja for not appearing on the new heartbeat sensors makes that problem known only as boosting even worse (more on that in a bit).

So yeah, themultiplayer sounds pretty bad. But do you want to know the scary part? It gets worse, believe it or not! Which leads to my next issue with the multiplayer: numerous glitches and exploits including being able to get unlimited care packages (since patched), "elevators", the infamous "javelin gltich" (patched) and of course, the infamous yet-to-be-patched-but-most-likely-never-will-though-everyone-knows-about-it rock glitch, allowing you to glitch inside a rock on one map and still being able to shoot out. But it gets WORSE. Hackers have been popping up all over the game lately with always at least one guy in the lobby with an aimbot, using the UFO mode, wallhacking, unlimited ammo and invincibility. In fact, it's gotten so bad, Infinity Ward themselves supposidly can't fix it.

But that's not the worse part. Do you really want to know the worst part of multiplayer? The killstreak system. Goddamn, I HATE THE KILLSTREAK SYSTEM IN THIS GAME. The problem being is that pratically every killstreak is overpowered. That, combined with the fact that kills from killstreaks count torwards the next killstreak and that most killstreaks rack up more kills than every death in WWI and WWII combined add the problem of boosting and finally one killstreak that actually ends the game early, ARE YOU STARTING TO SEE THE PROBLEM? Pratically every killstreak in the game needs to tonned down. Or better yet: how about you just make it so kills from other killstreaks don't count torwards your killstreak?

So yeah, this game is seriously bugged up. And this is why I PLEAD to you one thing: DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME.

Final score:

Graphics: 4/5

Sound: 4/5

Gameplay: -8/5

Entertainment: 1/5

Overall: 1/20