Defend Burger Town
Ramirez! Save the world!
Before there was Modern Warfare 2 (2022), there was… Modern Warfare 2 (2009). In the year 2009, a video dropped on YouTube for the highly anticipated follow-up to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It was a trailer in the form of a Hollywood summer blockbuster action-flick featuring “Till’ I Collapse” by Eminem, and it got the whole world fucking pumped! Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was the perfect package. It featured a stellar campaign mode, even more refined multiplayer, as well as the addition of Spec-Ops co-op missions that provided hours of fun and rage.
This game, from the very start, is a patriotic wet dream. The introduction cinematic is like a Michael Bay film directed on a 3-day long caffeine binge while blasting Ted Nugent. Hans Zimmer does what he does best at opening up this game with a bombastic orchestral that gets you hyped for this Chad as fuck campaign. The campaign is like if you dialed it up all the way to 11 and drew a ’12’ in crayon next to it. One minute you’re sneaking through the snowy mountains of Kazakhstan with your mate Soap, like a spy-thriller, the next you’re hunting down illegal arms dealers in Rio. There’s some missions that have you playing as the Americans, fighting Russians through Virginia suburbs, Burger Town, and then eventually in the fucking Oval Office! How Ramirez is still a PFC through it all is one of gaming’s biggest injustices. The man deserves at least 3x Medal of Honor badges by the end of this. Russia literally invades the Eastern-Seaboard and occupies the capital. The Russian’s reasoning for wanting to make Washington D.C. their new vacation spot is due to a plot twist that may as well have been written by a chimp with a concussion. Yet, we love it for all it’s worth anyway. The only downside to the campaign is that it’s way too fucking short. Despite the rampant stupidity of the plot, you do find yourself getting drawn into it, and before you know it- credits roll. Bummer. I think the game could’ve easily run for another 2-or-so missions. I was having fun!
Before you even start the campaign, the game asks you REPEATEDLY if you’re comfortable viewing potentially upsetting explicit content, never taking yes for an answer like your Babushka after you’ve told her you’re full and don’t want more goulash. The game is basically trying to get you to sign a waiver stating that you’re emotionally stable enough to partake in some senseless violence. Why else am I here?! This, of course, was alluding to the infamous “No Russian” mission that some of us (me) played over and over again (you know who you are). The mission became so controversial it actually made headlines on the news. I think the most hilariously morbid part of the mission is the fact that in the midst of ruthlessly murdering hundreds of innocent people in cold blood, some Ruski that works at the airport has the audacity to switch the flight-plan signs from “On-Time” to “Delayed”. Another is that Makarov, the most wanted terrorist in the world conducts this plan unmasked with his handsome face for all to see.
The multiplayer was the Call of Duty golden-age era. Everything you remember actually liking about COD online was improved upon and hit its peak here. All the basic custom loadouts, kill-streaks and children screaming politically incorrect insults like banshees was all there. What a time to be alive. Back when people regularly used in-game chat. We had hundreds upon hundreds of hours spent on those now iconic maps such as ‘Rust’, ‘Favela’, ‘Estate’ or ‘Terminal’ where everyone was itching to get that 25-killstreak Tactical-Nuke. I honestly don’t know what else to say here… It’s fucking Call of Duty! Everyone and their plumber has played Call of Duty Online…Now I’m going to Tactical-Nuke this paragraph and move on…
The multiplayer was expanded upon this time around with the introduction of the Spec-Ops missions. WEE. Those were fun. Mostly… These little co-op missions provided extra hours of content for you and your buddies. It was a nice little addition where you needed to use some semblance of strategy. It was a little more tactical and added some variety to what could be considered mostly mindless mayhem in the main game and multiplayer.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is an absolute bombshell. Some would argue it’s even better than the original. The golden-years of this series have long since past, but the legacy of this game will be remembered for a long time to come. You can enjoy the short-but-sweet remastered campaign on modern consoles but the Online is deader than Disco on Limewire (if you know you get a cookie). Enjoy the classics. Don’t drop the Soap or you’ll become a Ghost by paying the Price. Blah blah blah 5 years ago.. I lost 30,000 braincells writing this, and you all just fucking watched!
Remember, no Russian- (through this game) OOOOOooooo,
Mikhail & Fil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty:_Modern_Warfare_2
https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/Call_of_Duty:_Modern_Warfare_2