Review: New 'Call of Duty' has issues

Three and a Half out of Five Stars

By Jayden Hewitt
Staff Writer

For this game review, I’ll be going over the 19th, and latest, installment of the “Call of Duty” franchise, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.”

The game is not to be confused with “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” which was released in November of 2009.

“MWII,” for short, was released Oct.  27, 2022, and is rated M for mature audiences. The game is available to play on consoles including PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and on PC via Microsoft Windows.

Gamers are first tasked with completing the campaign mode, in which we see characters including Ghost, Soap and Captain Price.

There’s a lot of nostalgia within the campaign, as players are tasked with playing with characters many remember from “MW2,” and “MW3.”

There’s also multiplayer, and co-op modes. Multiplayer is the most popular game mode; players can level up their weapons, choose their own level, and change their appearance while competing with millions of other people and friends, if they want to play.

The reason I rated this game 3.5 stars is more toward what is not in the game, rather than what is.

The maps for multiplayer play are horrendous; they lack basic “COD” appeal.  Players were sold on nostalgia with promises of classic maps.

And don’t even get me started on the level-up system. Well, here it goes. The weapons in previous games have been easily upgraded and, as players upgrade, they unlock attachments.  Now, players are forced to use different, and not so great guns, to unlock things for an entirely different weapon.

The multiplayer, at times, feels like a classic installment of “Modern Warfare,” but leaves so much to be desired. For a massive game, for some reason, players have issues playing with friends, as errors and crashes continue to happen.

So far, I’ve found myself to enjoy the campaign the most so far, for a series of missions based around a fictional story.

The small, and large, issues need to be addressed, and maps should be added, as players become fed up with the lack of effort put in by the publisher, “Activision.”

I rated this game 3.5 out of 5 stars because of its potential, but with much anticipation. I believe it will be fixed, and players will become more satisfied with classic maps being added, easier weapons, and the new season of “Warzone” coming out.

“Warzone” is a battle-royal themed game mode, in which players compete against several groups of players playing together or as solo players. This will make or break how well the creators want to make this game.