Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Some people slept last night. I played Modern Warfare 2 instead. I didn't mean to stay up all night when I started playing it at 1:30 in the morning. I just planned on taking it for a test run and doing the first mission or two. But no. I played the game straight through from start to finish and never once felt bored or tired in the least. This wasn't even a caffeine-assisted all-nighter either; my only fuel was my own adrenaline. Faithful readers of Back-Blogged need no reminder that I only played the first Modern Warfare less than two weeks ago. As such, it's still pretty fresh in my head, and I feel that every comparison I can make between that game and this one is justifiable and accurate. Ready? Here's every comparison I can make, in a nutshell. Every single thing that was fun about Modern Warfare was made more fun in its sequel. Every horrifying twist was replaced by an even more horrifying twist this time around. In short, this game did exactly what a sequel to a great game should; it expanded upon the first game in every way possible. A few quick reflections and thoughts, without spoilers, while we're here. Firstly, this is the third Call of Duty game I've played, and all three games had me fighting as an American at times and as a Brit (twice) or Soviet (once) at other times. And in all three games, the non-American missions were the cooler missions. In this game, for instance, the Americans largely play the "secure or defend this area" roles (not all that much fun, in my opinion) while the British forces get to ride snowmobiles and Zodiac rafts, scale cliffs, use ghillie suits and other stealth weaponry, and infiltrate Russian gulags. The game's ending is both surprising and strange - when the final mission ends, you kind of can't help but ask, "was that really the whole objective of this campaign?" Fortunately, I think they're just trying to leave the door open for a sequel. After all, Halo 2 had one of the worst video game endings of all time. Seriously though, Modern Warfare 2 was a game that kept me up until eight in the morning. It's everything the first one was and so much more.