First Look: Modern Warfare 2

As my regular reader will know I pre-ordered the Prestige Edition of Modern Warfare 2 and quite an impressive piece of kit it is. I haven't gotten around to getting the Night Vision Goggles or the Head out yet but the Hardened Edition case and the Art book where nice. It also comes with a code to allow you to download the original Call of Duty which I've never played.

But what of the game? Well I started on the Multiplayer. I got together a small bunch of Live friends and we had a go on some of the maps. First impressions is that there's a lot too them and plenty of scope for learning where to ambush people and perhaps a lot more to them then say Halo 3's maps. However as soon as you go public it's obvious that the larger number of online players per game soon renders that advantage worthless. At least at first.

The game moves at a much faster pace than Halo and a relative small amounts of hits are fairly deadly. Once in a public match it's pretty much mayhem from start to finish. The deaths, at least for me, came thick and fast. The Kill Cam is a nice touch allowing you to see what killed you but it'd be nicer not to die quite so often. XP seems to come thick and fast regardless of whether you're on the winning team and of how much actual contribution you made so it would seem a war of attrition could see even a rubbish player like me make progress..

The single player begins in a very similar manner to CoD 4 with a quick weapons tutorial and then a training area.. Although I personally thought this one wasn't as good as the last one.

The campaign get's off to a rather slow and annoying start as you take pot shots against the enemy from across a river and try to defend a bridge. Followed by an on rails section in an APC and a scripted explosion.. By this point I was starting to wonder what all the fuss was about and I'd had enough.