Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 review: jammed first-person shooter

A new game in the Call of Duty series is released every year – so shooter fans regularly get “ammunition” to reload on their console or PC. CoD Modern Warfare 2 has been available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC since the end of 2022.

First of all: The game costs 80 euros new for PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X. That’s not a little when you consider that many first-person shooters can also be played for free – even the Battle Royale multiplayer Call of Duty Warzone is currently permanently free .

So why should you buy Modern Warfare 2? Well, you’re treated to a full multi-mission single player campaign. It is the main argument for this purchase.

It is varied and offers several changes of location in the present. So it won’t be boring here. The shooter gameplay is just as successful as the natural character representation.

Nevertheless, the campaign is played through in a few evenings and the story is nothing really special. The hunt for terrorists and US weapons that have fallen into the wrong hands is only partially engaging.

terror in everyday life

However, there are intense moments. Compared to other shooters, the battles in Modern Warfare 2 are almost frighteningly realistic. This isn’t a fantasy or sci-fi shooter, the contemporary setting always feels familiar, and operations in public places like Amsterdam add to the immersion. Frightened civilians or even civilian casualties are presented to players, and such images reminiscent of acts of terrorism from the news are not a fun experience for every type of player.

The missions vary in length. Some are over after five minutes, for some you should plan more like 40 minutes. There isn’t always action. You are repeatedly asked to follow or observe opponents. Or you fill the time with overcoming paths and with a relatively low movement speed. You might find that long-winded and it doesn’t increase the replay value either.

If you prefer fast action, you can simply enjoy fast and very fun games against computer-controlled opponents on multiplayer maps. However, this requires successful navigation (to “private game”) through the somewhat confusing main menu.

The start and continuation of the campaign is also not immediately apparent in the menu, but it should be displayed immediately. Instead we see promotions like the “Messi Bundle” or the “Pogba Bundle”. Why does this appear before the campaign? After a little scrolling we find the desired icons, but we really can’t describe the menu navigation as successful.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 review

Screenshots show you which visual direction Modern Warfare 2 is taking.

We consider the loading times between the menu items to be a bit too long, even on a PS5 that has an SSD. But that’s more because the game is constantly trying to create an online connection and this is always displayed to the player with an extra overlay. Some options will even show as “locked” and you’ll need to give the game some “cooling off” before the restriction goes away.

Developers should do without something like this altogether, an online connection should not be necessary for the campaign or games against bots.

Good graphics

The presentation surrounding the game content is almost ghastly. The graphics are quite nice though. We can ignore objects that suddenly appear in missions (“pop-ups”).

split screen

We were especially looking forward to the local multiplayer with split screen (“Splitscreen”), after all this worked very well in previous titles like Call of Duty Black Ops 3 and even 4 players could play on one TV at the same time.

Those days are over. Activision only allows split-screen for two players, and even that didn’t work at all in our test. An error message kept appearing. Local multiplayer does not work. Maybe the developers will solve this problem with an update in the future, but in its current form it’s disappointing.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022)

editorial rating 7.6 reader rating

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