Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

---{Graphics}---
☐ Paint.exe
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Bad
☐ Average
☐ Decent
☑ Good
☐ Beautiful
☐ You forget what reality is
---{Gameplay}---
☐ Just don‘t
☐ Starring at walls is better
☐ Meh
☐ It‘s just gameplay
☑ Good
☐ Very good
---{Audio}---
☐ Ear rape
☐ Bad
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Very good
☐ Eargasm
---{Audience}---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Human
---{PC Requirements}---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ High Tech
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{Difficulty}---
☐ Just press ‚A‘
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Difficult
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Dark Souls
---{Grind}---
☐ Nothing to grind
☑ Only if you care about leaderboards/ranks/achievements
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You‘ll need a second live for grinding
---{Story}---
☐ Story?
☐ Text or Audio floating around
☐ Bad
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It will replace your life
---{Game Time}---
☐ Long enough for a cup of tea
☑ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{Price}---
☐ You could also just burn your money
☐ Not recommended
☐ If you have some spare money left
☑ Wait for discounts
☐ Worth the price
☐ It’s free!
---{Bugs}---
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
☐ FIFA 23
☐ Can get annoying
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Never heard of
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

"History is written by the victors."
If there is a game that needs no introduction, it's Modern Warfare 2. There's a reason for whenever Call of Duty gets mentionned, it follows shortly after.
Tuned up to 11 pure mayhem, with soul, immersion and presentation.
A few notes before we get to it:
This will be covering the Campaign and the Special Ops. As much as I would love to talk about the multiplayer, there's the reason below.
If you are not aware, playing the multiplayer of the older CoD titles on PC is currently at your own risk. There is a "Remote Code Execution" exploit affecting every Call of Duty released prior to Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Don't play MP and you'll be fine.
No controller support on this one. Only KbM.
A note for achievement hunters: Two Spec-Ops missions, being "Big Brother" and "Overwatch", require a partner to complete. There's no split-screen compared to the console version, so you'll need a buddy to get 100% completion. This affects 3 achievements :

.
No major spoilers in this review.
Still with us? Good. We're Oscar Mike.
CAMPAIGN
S.S.D.D.
This is no war hero scenario. You'll find yourself playing on the frontlines in the boots of a rank-and-file Private of the United States' Rangers, and behind enemy lines as a Sergeant in the Task Force 141, dealing with the consequences of the actions of the world leaders.
Action-packed and thought provoking missions, a vast array of colorful locales, a memorable cast of characters, and blockbuster FPS gameplay, with a strong narrative. A lot awaits you, on this globetrotting journey through hell.
Up Your Arsenal
Something strike your fancy?
This game features some of the most iconic weapons in all categories. From your reliable M9, to the legendary Desert Eagle. The animation work and the sound design on those guns just makes it pure fun wielding and reloading them.
Side note: Unlike the newer entries, they used to do weapon licensing for CoD. You'll see familiar faces such as the M4A1, M1014, SPAS-12, the list goes on.
Level Design
The Only Easy Day.. Was Yesterday.
The level design is brilliantly executed. A healthy mix of linearity and open areas, a touch of verticality, with set dressing as far as the eye can see.
A strong artstyle/art direction can make a game timeless. MW2 has a perfect mix of the dark and gritty you'd expect from your run of the mill war game, but with an outstanding color palette. Makes every level pop out, without taking out your immersion.
The Score
Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe.
Enough said. (The only downside is that not the entire album is on streaming services..)
Side note: Hans Zimmer composed the main theme, Lorne Balfe composed all the other tracks.
Spec-Ops
"Hunter 2-1, this is Overlord. An enemy helicopter loaded for bear is approaching your area, over."
Special Ops is a challenge mode taking place in levels based off the campaign. Solo or Co-op, you'll have a variety of stealth missions, loud missions, races, you name it.
Some of them get quite tricky, but it's a blast running them either solo or with a buddy.
TL;DR
MW2 remains one of the CoD entries with the strongest identity, and it holds up wonderfully. Worth a revisit in 2023. If you enjoy strong narratives and single player first-person shooters, this is a must have in your library.

childhood memories this game. when me and my cousin played split screen at his dad house and we just had a really good time together. i miss those days..

Call of Duty 4 brilliantly renewed the series by abandoning WWII in favor of a modern conflict.
The success of this episode and its cliffhanger ending made us wait for a sequel.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is the worthy successor we've been waiting for.
Infinity Ward has taken the basics of the previous opus, while adding welcome new features.
The fights are grandiose, even grandiloquent, punctuated by infiltration sequences.
The iconic characters of COD4 are back, namely Price and Soap.
Newcomers like the charismatic Ghost are there.
The player essentially embodies two new protagonists:
- Sergeant Gary "Roach" Sanderson of Task Force 141,
- Private James Ramirez, a U.S. Army Ranger.
The new threat is one Vladimir Makarov, a lawless psychopath who trades blood for money.
The game aims to be more spectacular than its predecessor, and offers, among other things:
- Fast and exhilarating snowmobile combat
- An armored vehicle escort with laser guidance of its turret
- The use of the Predator missile, with surgical precision and extreme power
- A memorable attack in an airport, with striking realism
The world is on the brink of a third world war,
leaving the field open to numerous combat areas, including:
- The inhospitable lands of Mother Russia, including a gulag and an airport
- Favelas in Brazil, where the local militia leads the way
- Wealthy neighborhoods as well as the White House in Washington DC, USA
- An airplane cemetery and caves in Afghanistan
The music is epic and supports the action moments.
The original soundtrack is by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe,
to whom we owe epic orchestral music and some good rock.
A "Special Ops" Co-op Mode is included.
This consists of different missions, playable by two people.
They are separated into five groups, each bringing more challenge than the last:
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Bravo.
The missions are diverse and varied, offering for example:
- Kill as many enemies as possible within a given time
- A player providing air support for the player fighting on the ground
- Explosive defusing missions
These co-op maps are essentially slightly modified COD4 and MW2 levels.
MW2 is fun and even exciting, but has a few flaws:
The game is too linear, the player has no freedom of action, everything is extremely scripted.
It is far too easy, even in "veteran", surely to make the game more accessible to the general public.
The blood looks like jam and covers too much of the screen when you're injured.
Even in 2009, the title is graphically outdated, some skyboxes are really pixelated.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 improves in (almost) every way the qualities of COD4.
Enjoyable and spectacular as possible, the game will satisfy fans of military FPS.
Note the absence of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered on Steam.

I remember back in the day we used to get DDoS-ed, PC riddled with malicious software and our informations stolen free of charge.
Now, it costs 20-40$. Times have really changed.

DO NOT PLAY ONLINE.
The online mode has tons of hackers that can infect your pc and get access. It's not safe, so if you want to play mw2, just play the campaign.

While my total playtime on Steam may look short, believe me when I say I've put in hundreds of hours into this ABSOLUTE BEAST of a game back in my early teenage years from 2010-2013 on my Xbox 360 and PS3, or as I like to call it "The Golden Age of Gaming."
Where do I even start with Modern Warfare 2, this game, along with Black Ops 1 were GIGANTIC to the gaming industry back in a time when flip phones were still relevant, midnight releases for games at a local Gamestop had long lines that stretched to the end of their shopping centers, and YouTube was a place to watch prerecorded videos of people playing MW2, Halo 3, or Battlefield Bad Company 2 on ole' Machinima (Seananners, Hutch, ONLYUSEmeBLADE, WoodysGamertag etc.). Back when all the kids in school wouldn't shut up for days about their KDs and quickscope trickshots and everybody wanting to be like Ghost.
Fast forward to present day 2022, MW2 may be a shell of its old self online with all the hackers on all platforms and the infamous RCE exploit on PC that LITERALLY LETS PEOPLE BACKDOOR HACK INTO YOUR PC (DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME ONLINE WITHOUT USING A CERTAIN PROGRAM WITH A "4" IN ITS NAME OR YOUR PC IS IN HUGE DANGER). Campaign and Spec Ops wise though, MW2 is very much playable, and still as good as it was almost 13 years ago.
The campaign holds up beautifully, continuing 5 years after the events of Call of Duty 4 and throwing you into a world even more riddled with terrorists and traitors at every corner than in CoD 4. Now you've got the added bonus of a war between Russia and America over a massacre at a Moscow airport perpetrated by the main villain of Modern Warfare, Makarov who made it look like it was an attack by Americans. The whole game revolves around Soap MacTavish and later Captain Price, returning faces from CoD 4, to find and kill Makarov and end the war, all while also experiencing the game from the perspective of American troops fighting for their lives in a Washington D.C. mid Russian invasion. It's a short campaign compared to other Call of Dutys, but it's a campaign that's so memorable people still remember moments like General Shepherds betrayal, storming the White House, the No Russian mission, and RAMIREZ WE HAVE TO DEFEND THE BURGER TOWN!!!!! to this day.
Spec ops is an entertaining bunch of missions that can be done solo or coop with a friend, that have you completing objectives during certain moments from the campaign. For each mission you do well on you get 1-3 stars that let you unlock more missions until you reach the max of 69 (noice) stars. While it was a welcome addition to Call of Duty, and MW2 developer Infinity Wards response to Treyarchs World at Wars zombies mode and the MASSIVE success that was, it still pales in comparison to Zombies in my opinion, but Infinity Ward would go on to perfect spec ops in Modern Warfare 3.
Now comes MW2s main attraction, the multiplayer, back in MW2s heyday the game had thousands of lobbies littered with its infamous mic chats (you can see some of them on Youtube) where dudes with names like XxeL1TePu55ySlayXx, 420SnipezZz, or Goldbrain/Goldbrain2000 (my old PSN and XBL gamertags) would go release our pent up stress of the day by insulting each other nonstop through our cheap mics while flexing our ability to quickscope and "not" use noob tubes and commando knives. God forbid you were considered a noob or had a high pitched voice because dudes with deeper voices in middle of nowhere Michigan would have an open season on your ass in the lobbies. If you had beef with someone you would settle your differences in a 1v1 match on Rust snipers only. It was a place where a 12 year old and a 33 year old could insult each other in a lobby by claiming they banged the others mom or had a family member working for Microsoft or whatever. It was toxic, it was aggressive, it would make a Twitter users head explode these days, but it was our favorite pastime in America during a time when many of us were struggling during the great recession, and I wish I could relive those days again T_T
Today MW2 multiplayer on consoles is a hacker infested mess that's no longer updated or monitored by Activision (a future Microsoft developer who knows). On PC the game is also a hacked broken mess, but with the added RCE problem I mentioned earlier. Don't bother getting the DLC for this game if you haven't already, you wont find anyone to play with and you'll just get your PC hacked. If you do wish to experience MW2 multiplayer on PC with some level of ACTUAL security go find the lovely mod with the "4" in its name online and install that (No, you wont get VAC banned for playing that, quit saying it will those of you who know what it's called). Playing with that will allow you to play MW2 multiplayer in a more PC friendly way by allowing you to customize your FOV and other settings that you couldn't before all while giving you custom maps and weapons for your classes. Sometimes you may run into a hacked lobby, but you wont run the risk of getting you PC hacked if using the mod. When you find a good game (not hard to find) you're treated to the closest thing you could get to the old MW2 multiplayer experience from back in the day.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is one of those games where the saying "You just had to be there" can be easily applied to. If you were there in its glory days then you'll probably cry tears of nostalgia like I did seeing this game and any videos about it on YouTube or even hearing the background music from the main menu on an endless loop. No battle royale, no lootboxes, no microtransactions, no always online, no goofy dances, no silly camos or attachments, no season passes. The only game to make a night owl like me become an early bird and wake up at 7am on a Saturday in 2011 to grind xp for another prestige level. To those of you who remember all this, I salute you.
Oh, and one more thing...
QUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!