Hands-on: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Ready for Action

It seems like it was only yesterday that I first saw Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 at E3, and here I was getting ready to hop into the multiplayer mayhem against a field of wide-eyed game journalists. Sure that snowmobile chase and the Ice Climbers single-player stuff was neat, but CoD4 was a multiplayer game at heart, and I expect Modern Warfare 2 to be no different. It was a strange setting for my first taste of Modern Warfare 2. I had to fight for a seat at the game stations, with European press and American journalists going elbow-to-face for the chance to sit down and get some highly anticipated hands-on time. In the gaming world, Modern Warfare 2 is big news: The guy next to me was shooting a video segment and only half-paying attention to the game, only we could all hear his monologue in our headsets. Where was that mute button again? I was pretty sad that we weren't on opposing teams, because it would have been a lot of fun to get some easy kills from him.

Now, if you've played Call of Duty 4, and shame on you if you haven't, you know what to expect out of Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer. While there was talk of the game being scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up, much of what I knew and loved has remained intact. From what I saw, the lobby interface is nearly identical, the character models bear similar levels of visual fidelity, and everything feels familiar. Sure, there are some new visual effects, like the awkward blood-splattered windshield effect that coats the screen with gobs of red whenever you take fire, but this is unmistakably Modern Warfare.


Can't Catch Me

Knowing that I'd only have time to play a few rounds before giving my seat up, I was pleased to see that the playlist kicked off with one of Modern Warfare 2's new game modes: Capture the Flag. CTF is a classic game mode, one that works in anything from Unreal Tournament to World of Warcraft, and Call of Duty's version is no slouch. Objective games were very well executed in CoD4, and this one is easier to wrap your head around (and for newbies to hop into) than something like Sabotage or Headquarters. The pace of the game feels like it's been dialed up a notch. Picking up the flag seems to take only a second, and the Marathon perk with its unlimited sprint seems a great option for this movement-reliant mode. In a densely cluttered urban map like Modern Warfare 2's Favela, a flag carrier can do very sneaky things, and I was able to use alleyways and rooftops to streak down a path from one end of the map to the other that rarely exposed me to enemy fire.

As you'd expect, everyone started out at rank 1, so I wasn't going to get much of a chance to check out the create-a-class options. Thankfully, the preset builds featured a couple of the new perks and weapons, so I tried to cycle through as many different options as I could from spawn to spawn.

Ding!

It didn't take long before I was able to line up an enemy in my sights and shoot him in the face. Oh, Modern Warfare 2: It was love at first headshot. You know that warm and fuzzy feeling of accomplishment that you get when you gain experience? Modern Warfare 2 is heaping on an extra helping of rewards, handing out more gold stars than your favorite teacher. Kill someone, capture something, ruin somebody's day, do anything cool that you can think of, and the game will let you know with the flashy, in-your-face on-screen equivalent of a pat on the back. I vividly recall stabbing this one unfortunate soul in the face with my knife just before he was able to finish me, and getting rewarded not only for the kill, but also for ending his own kill streak and exacting revenge upon him for a previous death.

Call of Duty 4 had all those great challenges to plow through in the barracks, but that whole system has been expanded extensively. Now your actions within the game are measured against the other players more so than to a static list. From round to round, the game gave me props for capturing the most flags, getting the most long-distance kills, and the most stabbings. Stat tracking may sound like a boring feature, but it'll add a lot to Modern Warfare 2's reward system, and ultimately it was just as much the XP and progression systems as the gameplay and graphics that kept players coming back. How you play the game will impact the rewards you earn, and will even mold how you set up your soldier, as you'll need the proper experience in order to earn those pro-level perks.

Smooth Sailing on the S.S. Gunship

When we spoke to Infinity Ward Community Manager Robert Bowling about things to look out for during our hands-on session, he urged us to be on the lookout for the airdropped Care Packages that would grant us access to some cooler stuff that would otherwise only be unlocked at higher levels and by much greater kill streaks. I managed to go on one particularly nasty tear by sneaking around the enemy flank and taking up a vantage point at a nearby rooftop and racked up a solid streak of kills, giving me the ability to call in a supply drop. I ran back to our own base in order to play with this ability from relative safety, and dropped some red smoke to call in the package. It didn't take long at all before the tell-tale green case of a military storage unit parachuted down from above, and I raced over to find that I had scored big. I was the proud (part-time) owner of an AC-130!

Activating this baby dropped me into the familiar black-and-white overhead view from the mother of all gunships, and I started raining depleted uranium death down upon the enemy team. Enemy targets were easy to distinguish from friendlies, as the baddies all had red squares around them, highlighting them clear as day. The AC-130 lasted quite a while, easily long enough to rack up a whole new batch of kills and to set the other team running scared. The Predator missile, which I was able to use a couple times during my session, is similarly cool, flying down from above to strike at any enemy target, and powerful enough to get the kill even when they're behind cover. You have to think fast and be quick to pick a target, and you can get the business over with extremely quickly and precisely by kicking in the afterburners and boosting the missile towards its unlucky victim.

I (Don't) Wanna Riot

It's been said time and time again that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Knowing that it had the potential to cause the most change, I tried out the riot shield build and instantly hated it. You're defenseless, unable to even use a pistol to fire from around the shield, as you would in the countless other shooters that have utilized a shield option. I had dual machine pistols as my secondary weapon, however, and had fun pulling those out and spraying crazy amounts of bullets around, shield be damned. This akimbo thing might be worth further investigating. I'll say this about the riot shield, though: It kept me alive for quite a while despite a hail of incoming fire. I was eventually taken down, but you can easily use it to lead a charge down an exposed hallway, clearing the way for your team to take up advantageous positions, or providing cover so that your squadmates can maneuver towards the enemy flanks. You're not completely immune, though, and every time I used it, enemy fire eventually penetrated my shield (and my skull). There's some use to this, specifically in objective games, but you'll probably want to forget all about donning a shield in a deathmatch.

I came away from this brief taste of Modern Warfare 2 feeling like the fundamentals remained largely intact, while its new rewards system would give me an even greater incentive to put in those long hours. If Modern Warfare 2's single-player campaign can meet the standard set by CoD4, then this is going to be one hell of a complete package.