So, communication is paramount, and the Spec Ops missions pretty much demand ownership of a gaming headset. One drawback with them is that, at times, you find yourself in the hands of others – for example, travelling in a helicopter that has to be piloted competently.
The Spec Ops missions require plenty of commitment: they are long, challenging multi-stage affairs. That silky feel and responsive weaponry we expect from Call of Duty games is very much present and correct.īeyond the main storyline and the multiplayer, there's an extensive set of four-player co-operative Special Ops missions, which cleverly reuse levels from the main storyline, while kicking off a new storyline that begins where the single-player narrative ended. Visually, it is quite simply one of the finest-looking games ever made, and its production values are through the roof. Technically, Modern Warfare is vastly impressive. Plus, Modern Warfare has a new mode entitled Realism, which does away with the HUD altogether (and also makes it into the multiplayer). And it has loads of replay value: it's slightly more forgiving than the norm for Call of Duty games' campaigns, which encourages you to bump up the difficulty level and embark on several play-throughs. Fast-paced actionĪway from the controversy, Modern Warfare's single-player campaign proves to be great fun to play: it's fast-paced, cinematic and varied. Such scenes will jar with those naturally predisposed towards outrage, but you can also see how they are designed to invoke the horror of enforced occupation and conflict. Plus, it has some unduly attention-seeking moments, notably when you control Farah as a child and she has to kill two Russian soldiers, and an interrogation scene in which you can choose to shoot a child (albeit with a gun that turns out to be unloaded). Modern Warfare's storyline has attracted a bit of controversy, and you can see why: it aims to paint a picture of the human cost of a country under occupation, and at times strays towards US-propaganda territory.
Urzikstan also hosts the (unimaginatively named) terrorist organisation Al Qatala, but much of Modern Warfare's story focuses on Farah Karim, head of Urzikstan's native resistance movement, who is assisted by various characters played by you who, in classic Modern Warfare style, mainly hail from the SAS and CIA. The story centres on the fictional country of Urzikstan, occupied by a Russian regime headed by the brutal General Barkov. There are, of course, plenty of shooting sequences, running the gamut from full-scale assaults to close-in house-clearances, via mopping up after a terrorist attack in Piccadilly Circus. Like that of the original Modern Warfare, it cleverly mixes up its gameplay, with plenty of sequences in which conventional shooting takes a back-seat in favour of activities like firing rockets from an attack-helicopter, carrying breeze-blocks to enable stealth-movement in a hostile area, keeping a US embassy employee alive by tapping into security cameras and telling her when and where to move, and even surviving a waterboarding. That particularly applies to its single-player campaign which, while short, is very sweet indeed – by far the best CoD single-player campaign for many years.