Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered

Often dated and simplistic, there’s no denying MW2 delivers a cinematic spectacle. The real fun comes from Museum mode and re-running with unlockable gameplay mods. [Issue#175, p.79]

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered is probably the most divided I’ve felt about a game in a long time.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remaster is worth playing it again, or for the first time, thanks to its story. It is a good example of the good in the Call of Duty series. But, you also have to curb your enthusiasm and accept the fact that the remaster yanks the graphic in 2020, but not the gameplay. It is not continuing on the path of the reboot from last year, it is merely a remaster, but one that you should not miss.

Modern Warfare 2’s bombastic campaign remains as fun to play as it was in 2009 thanks to excellent gameplay and well-designed arenas. An impressive visual overhaul rounds out the remaster experience, bringing the game more in line with titles from this generation. It’s short with little to do after the credits roll, but the lower price and the quality of the campaign experience help alleviate some of that concern. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered may not be the full experience, but it solidly delivers an updated take on one of the better campaigns in the series.

An honest remaster full of beautiful sceneries and spectacular explosions, but the storytelling and gameplay are stuck in the past. And beware - there really is nothing else to see apart from the campaign.

If you’re a big fan of the series or just Modern Warfare 2 specifically, there’s no doubt that this remaster will be an easy purchase. If you’ve not got any nostalgia for the game then the asking price might be a little steep, but this was made with Call of Duty fans in mind. For those fans it should be clear that Modern Warfare 2 Remastered is absolutely worth giving a look.

Time has been kind to Modern Warfare 2. The resonance of this particular entry is demonstrated with heartfelt passion in Beenox' high-gloss, finely-tuned remaster. While the overall package is slim and the asking price no doubt steep for some tastes, there's no denying that MW 2's provocative and exciting campaign has aged like wine, an explosive roller-coaster still worth riding.

Thank goodness for all of its memorable, Michael Bay-style blockbuster moments, because in 2020 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is competing for our attention with its own very impressive reboot. In that light, the generic shooting-gallery gameplay of Modern Warfare 2’s campaign feels dated – after so many games we’re onto the magician’s trick now. The new Modern Warfare has largely pushed the series past this for the better. So while this remaster is still a fun ride that looks impressively current, it’s lost a lot of its punch. Some of that is due to the advances of time, but it’s mostly because it’s been bested by...itself.

Modern Warfare 2 is as intense and spectacular as you remember it –maybe even more with its great new graphics. The fantastic campaign, however, feels short and the lack of multiplayer modes is hard to ignore.

Quotation forthcoming.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered is a welcome trip down memory lane. It may have ditched the revolutionary multiplayer offering and Spec Ops mode, but what has been brought into the modern era manages to stand on its own two feet. It still suffers from design choices of old, but this is an intense, enjoyable single player campaign that's more than worth your time.

A competent remaster that gives a decade-old game a suitable level of spit-and-polish, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s campaign reveals a significant graphical overhaul but its corridor-shooter structure and worn animation give its age away. Nostalgic fans of the series might get a kick, but the barebones remaster isn’t a fantastic value proposition for anybody else.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered is an attempt to earn fast money in a problematic period for the industry, when most of the planet's inhabitants are hiding in their homes and apartments. You can finish the story campaign in just five hours, and there is no multiplayer. In addition, in Russia and Ukraine, the developers managed to spoil the story due to the removal of a mission critical to the plot, which, along with the average graphics and other problems of the project, is disappointing. The original MW2 deserves the same respect as the first Modern Warfare game.

The campaign of Modern Warfare 2 is (if not the best) one of the best this franchise has offered over the years, and the remastering by Beenox is great. But the lack of any other mode is keeping us from recommending it at its initial selling price.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered feels like a series of contradictions. It’s a remake of a popular online shooter without the “popular online” part. Its gameplay is aggressive, defensive, fragile, and bombastic all at the same time, constantly pushing you forward but requiring you to hang back. Its story values twists and turns over characters or any sort of sensibility, making the twists and turns lack any sort of value. If you’re coming to Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered simply to revisit a fondly remembered campaign updated for 2020’s visual standards, then Beenox has delivered in spades. But it’s a hard sell for anyone new to the series.

Beenox did a commendable job juicing up the visuals and maintaining the fluid first-person shooting mechanics, but time has not been as kind. Modern Warfare 2 is a dated game due to the archaic framework that surrounds its gunplay and primitive storytelling, showing that the “modern” part of Modern Warfare 2 is no longer as applicable.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered is just an effort to play on the old fans' nostalgia, offering a remastered that ends up being worse than the original.

Though the amount of polish lavished on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's single-player campaign is commendable, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered doesn't go far enough to make people forget that the bones of its design are well over a decade old and neither can it escape the gaping black hole left by the absence of Modern Warfare 2's award-winning multiplayer mode. Sure enough though, fans of the six-hour campaign who haven't played it recently will find something to love here, but few others likely will.

It doesn't accomplish nearly as much as, say, the Resident Evil 2 remake, nor does it offer the expansive, infinitely replayable multiplayer of the original Modern Warfare 2. If anything, it's a short detour that should be seen as a package deal with the far more content-rich 2019 release. Even if it can be bought separately this time, there isn't as much value here as one may expect.