Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

03 Jun 2009 at 23:22:36 by Andy Alderson

Today, IncGamers was lucky enough to get a look at an extended version of the Modern Warfare 2 demo which was shown during Microsoft’s E3 press conference.

Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling took us through the “Cliffhanger” level which begins with SAS members “Roach” Sanderson and “Soap” MacTavish ice-climbing a cliff face in Kazhakstan. Those who played the last game will remember Soap as the playable SAS character who has been promoted to Captain in Modern Warfare 2. You take on the role of Roach and you’re tasked with infiltrating a heavily defended airfield using silenced weapons and some tasty new tech. Roach carries a silenced assault rifle fitted with a heartbeat sensor - which will look familiar to anyone who has seen Aliens - and Bowling tells us “we’ve added a lot of new attachments to weapons.” After a brief section working alongside Soap, Roach heads down towards the airfield while Soap snipes from above.

A storm picks up, providing cover for Roach, displaying some very nice particle effects as he is instructed to avoid unsuppressed weapons. See, Soap has plan. Well actually, he has two although Plan B doesn’t come into action until later in the demo. As Roach reaches the airfield, a group of 20 plus soldiers converge on his position and he must sneak silently through the storm, keeping a close eye on the heartbeat sensor in order to plant an explosive device on a refuelling station. He then rejoins Soap and the two SAS men infiltrate a hangar with the intention of downloading a file from a computer. However, just as they do so, the hangar is surrounded by troops under the command of a Major Petrov. He orders them to show themselves and begins counting down from five as Soap decides that it’s time for Plan B. They detonate the explosive, distracting Petrov’s troops and giving the SAS men just enough time to take out the guys surrounding the hangar and escape onto the airfield.

At this point, all hell breaks and the demo concludes with the snowmobile section we saw in the Microsoft presentation. Bowling explains that the snowmobile chase shows off the new texture streaming technology which allows the team to create larger, more detailed environments which still run at 60 frames-per-second. This vehicle section looks utterly fantastic as the player is tasked with driving and shooting at the same time and the sense of speed is certainly impressive. We ask if there will be more driveable vehicles in the game and Bowling confirms there may be more in the single player game, so long as they fit in with the level design, although vehicles will not feature in the multiplayer modes. 

From what we saw, we were definitely impressed. Although there was still a fair bit of scripting throughout the level, the larger maps should allow for more freedom and when you factor in the new co-op Special Forces mode, a story which picks up where COD4 left off and what Bowling describes as an enhanced multiplayer game, Modern Warfare 2 looks every bit as impressive as its predecessor. 

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