Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
Developer: Infinity Ward, Raven Software, Beenox, Treyarch, High Moon Studios, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob
Publisher: Activision
Platforms: Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC (Reviewed)
Release Date: 28 Oct 2022
Price: $109.95 AUD – Available Here $69.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
Do you have a guilty pleasure when it comes to TV shows? You know, that one series you watch that isn’t exactly stellar, the acting is average at best, the story is so and so but at this point, you invested a lot of time that it would feel weird to throw in the towel. Call of Duty franchise is my guilty pleasure when it comes to video games. I’m not particularly invested in the overall story, wouldn’t even consider myself a fan but whenever a new entry in this franchise is out, I say to myself “well, I might as well give it a go”. And that’s not a bad thing at all. Being reserved and somewhat detached from all of it helps me to be objective about it and without a strong bias. So, let’s do that while we dig deeper into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.
Story
One thing to point out at the start is that this game and its predecessor is a soft reboot of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series. So if you played the OG games, you have a general grasp of the story. The previous game ended with the introduction of iconic Task Force 141. Here we will be joining the ranks of Soar, Gaz, Ghost, Captain Price, and Colonel Alejandro Vargas as the campaign takes us all over the world.
We start by hunting the dangerous terrorist Hassan Zyani, then getting involved with a cartel and ending up in the skyscrapers of Chicago. Of course, the story this time has gone through some minor changes. Shepard’s betrayal is still here but it is done in a way that will make sense for the reboot. Some new characters and levels are introduced just to amp up the stakes and because it’s not fun playing the same game over again with nothing but updated visuals.
Gameplay
There is a lot of new stuff and surprises in this reboot. Stealth missions, the one where you provide support to ground units from a military plane, a couple of stealth missions, driving sections (where you can hijack vehicles GTA style), and my personal favorite – Alone. A mission where you play as injured Soap, starting without any weapons and you have to sneak around enemies while looking for resources to craft makeshift smoke bombs, traps, and grenades.
As for the multiplayer, I never thought I’d say this but……I’m actually having fun with it. This is coming from someone who played every single Call of Duty game in existence. In some of them, multiplayer was glued as an afterthought, in some, the campaign would be generic and hamfisted to no end cause all of the focus was spent on multiplayer, and then there were some that had nothing good in them. I like the choice of being able to customize everything. From weapons, perks and kill streaks to everything about your profile (emblem, calling card, operator skins).
I also have to mention that I’m playing with the Vault edition of the game, which means I get some exclusive operators such as Farah, Ghost, Soap, and Price. There is also the FJX Cinder weapon blueprint and 50-tier skips for season 1 of the battle pass. But even with all that aside, there is surprisingly a lot of content here. Customizable playlist for multiplayer (if you only prefer team deathmatch you can select it in the filter and you will only join sessions with that mode), third-person mode, co-op, invasion, prisoner rescue mode…..the fun never stops.
Visuals
I’m glad that Activision finally decided to move away from one particular engine that only had minor facelifts and tweaks throughout the years. It only took them a decade or so but hey, better late than never. All joking aside, the game looks great even on medium settings. The night vision missions are especially immersive and motion capture has probably reached the ceiling in this game considering how natural and smooth it looks. In any case, you haven’t played this game properly until you visit Amsterdam and admire all of its beauty. The gunsmith addition for multiplayer is a notably welcome feature considering just how much freedom in customization you have when it comes to making your own signature weapon (camo, attachments, stickers, and so on).
Audio
There is no room here for nitpicking. While the sound design is something that will rarely come into focus in the campaign, the multiplayer is where it really shines. The symphony of weapons, choppers, and explosions is something that is best experienced in the invasion and ground war modes. There is nothing like the feeling of bullets zipping over your head while you try to evade missiles and explosions as you race to the nearest cover. Even the sounds of various sniper rifles are distinguishable, instead of them sharing the same generic subsonic sound effect (as is usually the case in other games).
Overall
It wouldn’t be your average Call of Duty game if it didn’t come with a plethora of bugs and crashes. I figured at least this one would be an exception to that established rule, but no. It might seem like something that you have to willfully look past it but the overall shoddiness in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will only drag down the overall experience.
One particular moment in the mission Dark Water stands out. I’m well into the half of the campaign and I get to this mission where the game would always freeze at one specific point. The only solution was to kill the game via the task manager. Only after some googling, I found out that I’m not alone in this and one solution that might or might not work was to restart the whole mission (luckily, it worked for me). Not to mention to occasional random 1-second freezes in multiplayer, where that one second can mean a difference between life and death. So it is business as usual. If you think of buying it maybe it would be better to wait for some inevitable fixes and updates. What can I say, it is classic tale of rushing the game to meet a release deadline.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
