After the flak it had with 2019’s Modern Warfare revival and Vanguard, the studio is keeping up its pace of year-over-year campaign games with Call of Duty Modern Warfare II , with multiple events and marketing hype around the world.
This installment is full of nostalgia and references to players who have known the franchise since it began. However, those who encounter the video game for the first time will enjoy it.
It shows that the game takes care of the details. The cities he visits are full of little landmarks that make you feel immersed in each location. The plot, which brings together “all the enemies” of the United States in a single campaign, makes you travel around the world. Going through the supposed Iran, the supposed Spain or you face organizations similar to Al Qaeda or the Mexican cartels.
This conjunction of stories allows you to go through different characters with different roles, a soldier on the ground, an infiltrator, snipers or even an aircraft, added to a dynamic between car chases, or missions in the water.
But one of the problems is in the duration of the campaign. Considering that it is a complete game and for sale that exceeds 1,600 Mexican pesos, it feels like a short game, with just over six hours of play. In addition to the fact that its missions are closed, it does not allow extensive replayability.
Multiplayer, the bet of this installment
The bet of this Call of Duty seems to focus on multiplayer. Just think about the more than 100 million monthly players that the franchise has right now. In the same way that happens with Halo Infinite , the campaign is a kind of laboratory to understand game dynamics, try weapons and new modalities, with the difference that this game is not included in the Game Pass services, even after the release. acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft , and after the controversy over its exclusivity on the platform.
The multiplayer mode will add to the current dynamics of weapons and game modes that it collects in its previous versions and that is where it will look for its strength. Similar phenomenon with the last title, Vanguard, despite the fact that its campaign was not very successful, its media coverage keeps the conversation going in multiplayer, with new game modes and favoring the 6v6 mode, to play with friends in squads.
The successes of the game are in the graphics, music and sound design. Cutscenes are well integrated into the story, gunshots and explosions, especially for those wearing headphones add significantly to the experience. Even with the addition of the MS Band as part of the game.
An important issue to consider graphically is that the advances in looks are beginning to be noticed, those empty eyes that we see in many games and where you can see that they are animations, in Call of Duty they are very well resolved, the looks transmit emotions.
The dialogues on the other hand also add up, if you listen to them in the “original version” you will hear dialogues in English, Arabic, Spanish, etc. And despite the fact that some dialogues fall into caricature, for example of the Mexican narco, in general it gives coherence to the story. It is a game that feels focused on the American public, to show patriotism and, as it happens in superhero movies, the United States saves the world from misfortune. So these details will be imperceptible to your audience, but in our country, although they are remarkable, they do not ruin the experience.
Of the recent Call of Duty games, this is undoubtedly the one that provides the most versatility, takes advantage of the power of the new consoles and graphics engines; however, it is a game that has exploited the formula of war, drug trafficking or terrorism in such a way that it is very difficult to find any distance or surprise. We will see if within the new structure of Microsoft it is renewed, we will see sequels with new pretexts.
