Developer:
Infinity Ward, Raven Software, Beenox, Treyarch, High Moon Studios, Sledgehammer Games, Activision Shanghai, Demonware, Toys for Bob
Publisher: Activision
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PC
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II – Review
The Call of Duty franchise has been very popular throughout its nearly 20-year existence. We have played quite a few good entries in the franchise ourselves, but also very buggy ones, or those that simply felt a bit off. Last year we played through Call of Duty: Vanguard, which had its memorable moments but also an excessive amount of bugs, which still have not been fixed a year later. This made us fear for the quality of the newest iteration of Call of Duty, which takes us back to modern-day warfare. We put Modern Warfare II to the test, and while we enjoyed the gunplay a lot, this game sadly suffered the same fate as Vanguard.
Story
If you’re diving into this game expecting a deep storyline, you’ll end up disappointed. If you’re looking for a game that presents you with a by-the-numbers story with a decent presentation, you’ll most certainly enjoy playing through the campaign. Modern Warfare II offers a typical story in which a specialized strike force is doing its best to thwart the plans of terrorists. In this scenario, you’ll be doing your best to stop Quds Force Major Hassan Zyani. The plot holds a few surprises here and there, which does add a bit of excitement to the mix.
Graphics
Modern Warfare II truly shines on heavier gaming rigs, as the game does look quite impressive. The character models are decently sculpted and the maps themselves have a lot of smaller details that you’ll undoubtedly spot when you get blown to smithereens by a cruise missile or two. Sadly, once again the game does have a lot of smaller graphical bugs. We noticed glitching in the menus, we fell through walls (or the floor) when we got killed. Certain dead enemies also glitched making their corpses move, and so on. While most of the issues here are quite small, they do become very noticeable when they keep happening in rapid succession. The menus themselves also look quite cheap and unattractive.
Sound
The sound design in these games is always superbly handled. When playing the game, you’ll always feel in the midst of a warzone where bullets whizz by and your allies shout information to keep you on your toes. The different voiced lines in combat may be limited, but they do give you proper feedback. It’s nice to know that an ally is behind you, when they shout they have your back. The voice acting in the campaign is also impressively handled, and it felt as if we were watching a proper war movie.
Gameplay
We doubt that the Call of Duty series needs a lengthy introduction. The newest iteration, Modern Warfare II, is the sequel to the 2019 reboot, and is a good old-fashioned shooter. In the game, you’ll be able to plow through the fairly short campaign, or you can just opt to duke it out online against other players. The game offers a variety of modes, ranging from fast-paced Deathmatch or Kill Confirmed modes to more tactical modes in which you have to capture objectives or have shootouts on bigger maps. Overall, the tried-and-true formula still works, and that’s what counts. There is actually very little to say when it comes to the overall gameplay. You’ll be able to level up the weapons of your choice, while also playing more and more to unlock new ones. You will be able to tailor your loadout(s) to your needs, ranging from having perks that allow you to carry around two main weapons to having different throwables and kill streak options.
The Battle Pass system has also changed slightly, as you’ll now be able to unlock regions on a map, which will give you new items, currency, and so on. When unlocking all items in a region on the map, connecting regions will become available, and you can keep spending the tokens you earn there. Overall it’s a fun alternative to the original formula where everything just gets unlocked in a specific order.
Once again, the game is absolutely not bug-free. We are not talking about the small graphical bugs here, but we mean actual crashes, Tokens not working in the Battle Pass menu, updates that get corrupted, drivers that are not recognized after updating, and so on. During our frequent play sessions, it became a running gag to make a wager to see if the game would boot up during our first attempt. This game was absolutely not ready at the time of its release, and it still isn’t finished by all means. Don’t get us wrong, we enjoyed shooting people in the face with our different weapon loadouts, but the game should not have passed quality control with this many bugs present.
Conclusion
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is a fairly decent addition to the franchise, and multiplayer enthusiasts will have a blast trying out all the different modes. Sadly, the game feels unpolished and still has a lot of bugs. The campaign is also quite fun to play through, but it’s not the main course of this bullet-rich dish. All in all, if you’re a fan of the franchise, you’ll probably have a blast, if not, this one will not win you over. We also deducted a bit from the game’s end score, as we do not see any reason why the base game is even more expensive than the previous entries in the series.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II - Review,
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