Call of Duty Modern Warfare II Review

Ali Hasan October 30, 2022

Modern Warfare II, the nineteenth title in the Call of Duty series kicks off a new era for the franchise. Being the first game in the series’ almost two-decade-long history to have a two-year life cycle the pressure is on. Not only does Infinity Ward have to put up a title worthy of the Modern Warfare name but also a game that will be the main Call of Duty game for a lot of players for the next two years. Infinity Ward iterates on the formula while also making some questionable choices to deliver a title that isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination but is serviceable enough to build upon for the next two years while also being incredibly fun and entertaining.

Modern Warfare II Does Not Live Up to Its Predecessor’s Campaign

Rolling the credits on the Modern Warfare 2019 campaign left me with a sense of catharsis and fulfillment. Not only did Infinity Ward deliver a great story with beloved returning characters in an entirely new context, but the game was also visceral, raw, and unforgiving showing the harrowing effects of war and conflict on different groups.

The series had finally returned to its realistic roots and that was something everyone was clamoring for following years of disappointing releases. It was haunting and disturbing but rightfully so. With Modern Warfare II, I was expecting the same level of finesse and over-the-top moments while there was plenty of the latter there was little of the former.

The Modern Warfare II campaign suffers from a case of too many plot threads and characters and not enough breathing room for them. The game is long; clocking in at around seven hours (that’s how long it took me to beat it on regular difficulty) across seventeen missions but it still manages to muddle its story into a convoluted mess that has you hoping from location to location doing virtually the same thing.

The first few missions of the game concern themselves with locating Hassan, leader of the Russian-backed Irani forces that serve as the main antagonists of the game. You eventually do apprehend him after going through multiple missions in the Middle East, Europe, and North America but your efforts are futile as you’re forced to release him to avoid political fallout. Along the way the Mexican cartel becomes involved as well as the Shadow Company, completing the Hodge podge of factions that are somehow all related with convenient plot links.

The “Big” Twist Feels Predictable and Safe

The “big” (predictable) twist in this game comes when you’re 3/4ths of the way done where Shadow Company, led by Commander Phillip Graves turns out to be involved with General Shepherd. The betrayal doesn’t work because there aren’t any stakes in addition to the game continually alluding to the twist throughout the game.

Part of what made the Original Modern Warfare 2 campaign and Shepherd’s betrayal so gut-wrenching was the fact that it came with Ghost’s demise which pushed the story forward and the final showdown where you do take him down felt absolutely amazing. In MW2 2022 Shepherd disappears after a final disappointing tank battle with Graves. There was also a considerable lack of closure from the previous game. No mention of what happened to Hadir and Alex who survives the events of the first game also doesn’t make an appearance, with Farah only being in one mission.

Thankfully, the story is probably the only disappointing thing about the campaign because Infinity Ward has outdone itself as far as the sound and level design, and gunplay is concerned. There is plenty of variety on display, from the colorful and narrow streets of Amsterdam to the dilapidated locales of Al-Mazrah and the claustrophobic streets of Mexico there is a grand amount of level variance that works to the advantage of the game, each offering unique play opportunities and mission setups.

My favorite mission in the game, “Alone” comes after Graves reveals his true intentions. As an injured Soap you have to navigate the streets of Mexico as Shadow Company continues to hunt down civilians. With nothing on you, you have to loot and scrounge for resources in the environment to craft make-shift weapons and tools to weave around the environment as Ghost whispers in your ear guiding you to a nearby rendezvous point. The absolute intensity of each step and decision made the level super challenging yet methodical and entertaining.

Ghost and Soap are The Highlights of the Campaign

This mission also highlighted one of my favorite aspects of the game; Ghost and Soap’s relationship. Ghost being a serious and brooding individual while Soap being more flippant gives them a unique dynamic and works very well within the oftentimes grim nature of the story. Ghost not being able to understand his Scottish slang which he often blurts out was a definite highlight during the “Alone” mission and made for some incredibly fun exchanges between the two. Although the inclusion of armored enemies (a first for Call of Duty) completely kills the pace of the mission towards the latter half of the mission.

Armored enemies are littered throughout the campaign and have to be, without a doubt the weirdest design choice for the campaign. The fact that enemies feel spongy really takes away from the tactical and realistic nature of the game. Coupled with the reduced player health, many sections of the game feel like absolute slogs to get through and borderline unfair at times. Infinity Ward, however, has outdone itself in gun animation and sound design.

Every cock of a shotgun gun barrel, a magazine switch, and a sniper bolt pulls feels incredibly weighty and well-animated. Coupled with the game’s incredible sound engine, the gun design is truly second to none. After playing Cold War and Vanguard for the last two years seeing Infinity Ward finally coming back to show what they do best has been an absolute treat. I truly think this is the best showing (as far as gun design is concerned) since Modern Warfare 2019.

Multiplayer Iterates on the Same Great Call of Duty Formula

Like the Campaign, the multiplayer features an incredible gun and sound design, which makes picking up every weapon a treat. Each weapon feels unique, from its handling and reloading to its shooting and inspection. The Multiplayer, outside of a few changes remains largely the same and iterates on the same great Call of Duty formula.

There is a great variety of maps available at launch. Ten core maps of which three also serve as ground war maps (for a total of five) are largely well-designed outside of a few outliers. The maps of Modern Warfare 2019 were its biggest pitfall and it’s nice to see Infinity Ward take that criticism to formulate some of the best launch maps we’ve had in a long time. Farm 18, Mercado Las Almas, and Breenbergh Hotel all return from the beta with an extra bit of polish but interestingly enough Valdera’s Museum has been removed.

A particular standout map for me has been Zarqwa Hydroelectric which combines traditional boots-on-the-ground combat with aquatic combat, allowing for very interesting flanking positions and maneuverability around the map. The map flows incredibly well and is perfect for objective game modes, and domination in particular. Taraq is another map that has quickly become my favorite. Taking place in a worn torn town, with a grey color pallet it perfectly encapsulates the tone and setting of the game and is perfect for the headquarters game mode, allowing for both long-range and short-range combat scenarios.  

Other returning game modes include the standard Call of Duty affair; team deathmatch, domination, kill confirmed, and hardpoint. A big disappointment is the removal of cyber attack which has been replaced by prisoner rescue and gunfight. While prisoner rescue works well enough as a stand-in for cyber attack the non-inclusion of gunfight, a game mode Infinity Ward themselves pioneered is a major letdown.

There also seems to be no trace of a combat record in the game in addition to missing challenges something all three previous Call of Duty’s shipped with. It’s odd that something as essential as a combat record isn’t in the game considering stats and leaderboards have been a staple for the franchise for a very long time and Activision is well aware of how vocal the community has been over its non-inclusion in the past.

Also Read: Gotham Knights Review

Changes to the Perk and Camo System Are a Welcome Change

The perk system has been completely redone in Modern Warfare II. Instead of the traditional three-slot perk system, you start out with two base perks and then unlock two additional perks (bonus and ultimate) over the course of the match. While this new system does mean that you equip a total of four perks by default, more powerful perks can only be earned about halfway through the match. This works well as a balancing mechanic for stronger perks like a ghost and quick fix.

The camo system has also been redone. Instead of having to earn over a hundred camos per gun to unlock gold and mastery camos, in Modern Warfare II, each gun has two camos that can be unlocked by simply getting kills. Mounted kills, longshot kills, double kills, all of that has been removed in favor of a much more streamlined and easy system. Once you unlock a specific camo for a gun it can then be used across all guns in the game. There are over 186 camos in the game excluding the mastery ones.

I especially enjoyed this change because not only does this remove the slog of having to earn x amount of kills a certain way with all weapons but it also encourages the player to try and use all different guns in the game to be able to unlock a camo that may be tied to a specific gun. As someone who tends to stick to the M4, the Kastovia weapon platform has a camo that I really like but to earn it I had to use the Kastov 74-U.

In my hunt for this camo, I was able to discover that the Kastovia weapon platform is actually better than I expected it would be and I suspect this will be the case for a lot of players. Incentivizing different playstyles is something that Infinity Ward has worked hard on for this game and it seems to be working.

Gunsmith 2.0 is Infinity Ward at Their Best

Weapon platforms tie into the new gunsmith system which like the camo system has been completely redone. Weapons of a similar nature share a single weapon platform (the Kastovia weapon platform includes the Kastov 762, Kastov-74U, and the RPK) after progressing through the base weapon you can unlock a receiver and changing it out on the gun gives you access to the other weapons within that platform allowing for a more connected and seamless weapon progression system.

This also means that you won’t have to unlock separate attachments for weapons that share the same platform, making weapon grind a lot less tedious and is by far the best decision the development team has made. Most weapons max out at around level 30 whereas in Modern Warfare 2019 some weapons went all the way up to level 71 and there wasn’t really an incentive to max out each weapon given the fact that you could complete all camo challenges before reaching the final level, this time around however weapon tuning has been introduced which is unlocked once you max out a weapon.

Weapon tuning essentially allows you to finetune your weapon to make it fit even more to your liking in case the plethora of attachments available weren’t enough. You can adjust sprint-out times, how close your optic is to your face, weapon handling, recoil, and the list goes on and on. the team has gone all out-weapon customization for this game and the possibilities to create unique weapons are limitless.

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Spec Ops Returns And Has Been Much Improved, But Remains Similar to Previous Outings

The ill-fated spec ops returns in modern warfare II after an abysmal showing in its predecessor. The good news it has been improved considerably, missions are much easier than they were before and there seems to be a greater variety available at launch.

Spec-ops has been redesigned to be a two-player co-op mode. The two missions I played; Defender: Mt. Zaya and Low Profile each played extremely differently and I was genuinely surprised by how fun they were. Mt. Zaya is your standard wave-based spec-ops mission where you have to defend three areas as enemies grow in number and difficulty with each passing wave. While Low Profile has you infiltrating an enemy base to take out their weapon caches. The latter of these two almost felt like a co-op campaign mission with its methodical approach and it requiring close communication with your teammate.

Enemies aren’t as spongy as they were in Modern Warfare 2019 and not only does this act as a worthy stand-in for zombies but also works as a very well-thought-out expansion for the campaign. I would have liked to see maybe a bit more work put into the Mt. Zaya mission because it ends up feeling more monotonous on each subsequent playthrough when compared with low profile but by in large this is probably the best spec ops we have seen from Infinity Ward and will only get better with time.

Verdict

Modern Warfare returns with a serviceable campaign that lacks the cohesion and excitement of its predecessor. Multiplayer is enjoyable featuring great gunplay and excellent animation work while a fresh new take on gunsmith and camo challenges is a welcomed addition. Spec ops largely remains unchanged and the game has omitted some basic features but with a solid foundation in place, the next two years of Call of Duty look very promising.

Excited for the next chapter in the Call of Duty franchise pick up a PS5 or Xbox Series X to make sure you get the best experience. Browse through our featured ads to pick up your next console today! Gameutha.com is not only Pakistan’s largest dedicated gaming marketplace but is also home to the latest in gaming, news, reviews, and updates!