After their smashing reboot of the franchise with 2019’s “Modern Warfare”, Sledgehammer and Activision return with the highly anticipated sequel. “Modern Warfare II” reunites us with franchise classics while picking up and creating a coherent story off the back of its predecessor.
(No Spoilers)
Visually I think “Modern Warfare II” is the best Call of Duty to date. There are cutscenes where if it was plugged into a blockbuster film it would be quite hard to stop the difference. The overall designs of the missions and characters are fantastic as well as the models and overall feel of the weapons. Obviously when it comes to Call of Duty how the guns feel is most important. While overall I think everything ran quite smooth there are some features that if are implemented into multiplayer I would be quite concerned with. My character often felt like he was moving with a bus tied to his waste which made the overall fluidness of gameplay less so and often took you outta the emerson.
The overarching story of the game while fun and exciting is very predictable to almost anyone even if its your first time with these characters. The main villain of the game, Hassan, poses a threat and has a level of power that isn’t quite earned. He’s nothing more than your average arms dealer we see in media all the time. The story jumps all over the world which is one of its major strengths. You get to fight in so many different areas and are always expected to adapt to your surroundings which can often be a challenge for even veteran players.
Even though it is Call of Duty, there’s only so many times a person can breach a building and wipe enemies before your sanity starts to slip. There are a few different missions typed which are all super exciting and feel like they are straight out of an action film with missions ranging from being posted as a sniper to an almost 20-minute run and gun car chase.
New Call of Duty’s are always plagued with bugs especially when released early but I ran into a few that made the game almost unplayable from invisible enemies to not being able to crouch or sprint. While I do expect all this to be fixed by the games full launch to the average player it could be a major turn off when they are in intense situations where you can’t perform main functions of the game.
While “Modern Warfare II” doesn’t have the best campaign we’ve seen in recent years, it does build out on beloved characters and leaves room for a potential “Modern Warfare III” if the fans desire.
