GamesCom'09 gave us opportunity to see Activision's Modern Warfare 2 up close and personal, and whilst on the show floor Infinity Ward were showing off the same mission video from E3, it was great to see it on the big screen. The presentation of this mission did come across very scripted, perhaps more-so than the 'Crew Expendable' mission in the first game, but still offering a cinematic experience that looks good enough to eat. That's not why we're here as you can head on over to countless places to view that video over and over. GamesCom'09 was Infinity Ward's opportunity to showcase a new feature for Modern Warfare 2. The all new Spec Ops co-op mode.
To give an overview of this mode, think about the structure of the 'Epilogue' mission in the first game and how it offered a linear, short and very sweet scenario to battle through. Well the Spec Ops mode expands on the idea in that it offers two player co-op (split screen/Live or solo), adding another layer to proceedings. Your job is to reach an end objective or point on the map in the quickest time possible, whilst the AI throws all manner of enemies at you to slow you down or worse put your escapades to an end. The game will scale the difficulty depending on whether there are two of you or if you decided to go it alone, although what is interesting is the fact that each player can set the difficulty independently of each other, which is a neat inclusion for those looking for challenge when playing with less experienced players.
There will be an unlocking structure whereby completion of the earlier missions will award the players with stars which in turn determines which of the next set of missions can be unlocked. Naturally you'll be awarded more stars if you complete the missions on the veteran difficulty. You'll get 1 star for beating a mission on regular and 3 stars for beating it on veteran.
Missions will also have specific time goals to reach, much like that seen in the 'Epilogue' mission so the example we were shown had a time to beat of 1:30. What was interesting was the fact that enemies would spawn into the level (a set number) but would act more diligently in terms of coming at you and flushing you out. There's a more natural behaviour to the AI and we're promised that the days of the invisible checkpoint will be less noticeable and more free form. We were informed that the structure of the missions and the routines of the AI would mean each attempt could be somewhat different each time you played, so making it harder to learn the enemy patterns and keeping things fresh for multiple plays.
The mission demonstrated featured 'Breach' which is one of five groups of mission types. Starting in an area where players can choose what load-out they will use before the mission starts, planting a charge on the wall and then blowing into a prison shower area. Interestingly this mission seemed almost identical to one of the old Rainbow Six missions on Xbox. The enemies kept coming thick and fast with a variety of tools to finish you off, naturally you're armed with the usual assortment of grenade, flashbangs and smokes. The level featured offered a reasonable amount of cover and a centralised choke point, but was pretty linear - although saying this, there was opportunity for two players to sweep the area from either side of the shower room, offering some minor cover tactics.
Once many enemies were killed and the player pressed forwards it was over very quickly but seemed like a full on shoot-out experience and one that would be extremely challenging on Veteran difficulty (we we're shown the game being played on regular).
As one facet of the Modern Warfare 2 experience Spec Ops mode looks like being a welcome addition to the package, perhaps allaying fears of brevity within the single player experience. With online leaderboards at its heart and the overall level of challenge on offer, we can certainly see this aspect of the game taking off and being pretty popular for those players looking for quick fix shooting action. It's very likely that Infinity Ward will support the mode with more missions via downloadable content, so you can expect a decent amount of variety added to what is already pretty varied. Modern Warfare 2 is one of the big games for this year, and with its well establish multiplayer, engrossing single player(For the Record) and now the inclusion of Spec Ops means that shooter fans have even more to look forward to. We're just as excited as you are and can't wait to get thrown into the skirmishes the game throws at us.
Preview By: Robert Cram
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