Modern Warfare II: A Dud Round

C all of Duty: Modern Warfare II is what we thought its predecessor was in the late aughts. Now, ten dollars more expensive ($69.99), the structure, physics, and objectives all feel as they did then — raw adrenaline and set pieces where one can feel the wash of an oil rig’s detonation and deaths that have us clutching the controller after the screen bleeds. The damnable words of some philosopher then consider the many facets of your demise by shotgun blast. Herein lies the challenge with praising or denigrating the game — it’s everything Call of Duty has been up to this point, but that’s all it is.

If you’re like me, what the series was is sufficient. Like all previous installments, the game is like a Michael Bay–directed exercise in plastic personalities and explosives — thrills and stilted dialogue in heavy-metal scenarios are what one expects when purchasing Call of Duty, and such is provided. But if you are searching for a finished and tuned product, or a game from which you can get more than 20 enjoyable hours of gameplay, including competitive multiplayer, then you may need to look elsewhere.

Complicating the picture is Modern Warfare II’s essentially becoming a sidecar to the free-to-play behemoth Call of Duty Warzone, now in its second iteration and an Achilles’ heel for the purchased game. The ad-lousy, free-for-all Warzone infects the menus and design decisions for both the campaign and multiplayer. It’s nigh impossible not to become irritated by the pervasive push for the player to buy superfluous bilge (skins, alternative lucre, and season passes). This incessant up-selling is unacceptable in a game that costs more than almost any other on the market (I purchased and played on PC through Steam).

Despite all of that, seated in my dark office with an Xbox controller in hand and the campaign queued up, I found myself back in my parents’ basement as a sophomore in high school, with my new Xbox 360 Slim, waiting for a used copy of the original Modern Warfare II (2009) purchased from GameStop to finish downloading. A momentary reminiscence and a warm one.

The campaign knows its target audience and offers variations on some of the most memorable missions of the franchise (think avoiding roving patrols while belly-crawling in a ghillie suit, or manning AC-130 overwatch, but with the notable absence of something akin to the infamous “No Russian” mission from the original MWII) while incorporating some new concepts that occasionally work, such as vehicle chases and munitions-crafting.

The plot is a classic: A semi-sympathetic antagonist from a generic Middle-Eastern country wants to nuke the world, and a straightforward mission implodes as the squad tries to bring him and his missiles to justice. Your team grows as the scope of the challenge is revealed, bringing in “badass” lady freedom fighters, CIA operatives, and Mexican special forces. The enemy factions are dynamic, establishing alliances with seemingly incompatible groups, further complicating matters. Then, there’s the inevitable twist that has your small squad’s back to the wall and leaves you with only your wits to win the day. After clawing out from a premature grave, you bring the pain to enemies, new and old.  

Visually, the cutscenes are gorgeous. They’ve wisely nixed the interminable walk-and-talk cutscene replacements, a welcome revision. The lighting effects and animation are superior to anything I remember the franchise featuring previously, even controlling for tech advances. That said, the shift from cutscenes to gameplay is jarring as the fidelity does not follow — at all. There are visual issues galore, from goofy death animations to hideous pixelation and texture-rendering. There are moments that visually stun (e.g., aboard a heaving vessel in the Gulf), but search-and-destroy missions aren’t about looking one’s enemy in the eyes and complimenting his eyelashes, and the game’s developers appear to have made the choice to favor performance — if a character must have a Tomb Raider II–era face to maintain 60 frames per second as high-mobility multipurpose-wheeled vehicles explode, the developers are willing to have it so. My frame rate was admirably steady throughout, something I was worried about given my small PC’s airflow limitations and modest RTX 3060 graphics card.  

Some of the best missions are those that have the player helpless and alone. After things go to pot, an injured player must drag himself through a Mexican city during a downpour to meet up with an ally at a church, while incapacitating with IEDs and smoke bombs those hunting him. It brought to mind the now-aged Medal of Honor: Frontline, wherein players working as lone operatives had to unmake the Nazi war machine through espionage and guile. A classic of the genre, a bad guy busting through the door you’re opening it — be it a bathroom stall or kitchen — is used to flustering effect throughout. At their best, the directional sound effects, coupled with a decent score and rumble feedback, make the story an immersive, sweaty experience. Unfortunately, Call of Duty has always been a war-torn stroll through set pieces, and once again players are allowed precious little liberty in how to approach objectives. One improvement is that instead of simply killing the player for being discovered when on a stealth mission, the game will allow him to fight his way out. . . . Though death is to be expected when armored guards discover a hunched-over guy named Soap pilfering from their office-supplies closet. Prepare to reset frequently, even on regular difficulty. It is advisable in especially heated moments to sit behind an indestructible riot shield and allow one’s invulnerable allies to slot the adversaries — as effective as it is pusillanimous.   

An aside: My errant ballistic applications with a .50 caliber rifle should earn me a burial under Leavenworth Prison for fratricide and accidental civilian casualties. A white screen with a finger-wagging “Don’t shoot civilians” message and a return to a save point is a feeble response to war crimes and an anachronistic holdover that should be retired. MWII is a mature-rated game; please make death or imprisonment the punishment for failure. If my AC-130 shell takes out a civilian structure, show the player standing before a court-martial and the prison door slamming shut. Actions should have consequences more severe than a regression of about two minutes of gameplay. Since games such as Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor have situational player-death animations, one’s demise should carry more weight in a much newer triple-A title.

For years, campaigns have been Call of Duty’s secondary draw, with multiplayer dominating a player’s time and energy. Not anymore. Except for speed-leveling one’s guns for use in Warzone — especially with the new and diverting player-vs.-player-vs.-environment mode, dubbed “DMZ,” that offers the combined draw of multiplayer and an open-world campaign — there isn’t much to recommend multiplayer unless one yearns for small-squad tactical matches that are, at any rate, better facilitated by other first-person shooters. So, you’re left with a mostly enjoyable but monstrously expensive campaign that feels two missions too long and a multiplayer developed to funnel into the game’s free component.  

It may be worth a shot on sale, but Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is ultimately a dud round compared with what’s available in the genre for much less. How much do you value nostalgia?