The following article comprised of dangerously opinionated views will contain SPOILERS covering the whole of Modern Warfare 2′s story and should be read at your own risk. This is your only warning.

What follows is not a review of Modern Warfare 2, at least not in the conventional sense. A review is an opinion, but a good review balances up an opinion against the masses. A good review may point out flaws, but at the same time suggest the type of person who wouldn’t mind them or offer balance with what was good. The following article will not be so balanced and will only focus on flaws, at least for the most part.

This article will also not mention the competitive multi-player available. Why? It isn’t my thing, so I can’t really comment on whether it’s good or not. It doesn’t interest me and from an outside view seems no different to the first Modern Warfare’s multi-player (which I also never played). A great single player or co-operative experience is what I’m looking for. If my disinterest in the incredibly popular multi-player has already made you dislike me, then you might as well stick with it and read on.

To spare me some hate mail, death threats and angry glares as I play ‘lesser’ games for more enjoyment than this provided me, I should point out that I thoroughly enjoyed the first Modern Warfare. To an extent I also enjoyed the sequel, in so far as the graphics were astonishingly good, the voice work was above par and the gameplay was fairly smooth. But that is where it ends for me.

Modern Warfare 2 is a game of extremes to be sure and, at the time of writing, it is already confirmed that at least five million copies have been sold. A sizeable chunk of those sales will be in America, but we British will also have paid out to play this game. We British also had the joy of paying a greed based publisher’s premium to get our hands on this game (assuming you didn’t make the most of the supermarket price war).

Due to circumstances I won’t bore you with, I had to wait an extra two days after release until I got my copy of Modern Warfare 2. This didn’t bother me since I had successfully avoided all hype surrounding it (partly because I didn’t want to risk spoilers, but also just because I had no intention of buying it). I sat down earlier today with it though, ready for my extreme experience. I fired my PS3 up and four hours, twenty-six minutes and fifty-two seconds later I was done.

Is this what passes for a single player experience in the most anticipated game of 2009? The game that scared so many other developers enough to push back their release dates to next year? Not even five hours of my time? Don’t yell at me about higher difficulty levels, Spec-Ops and multi-player – those are added extras. Yes, for many people it may in fact all be about the multi-player, but that isn’t why I play games. I want to be immersed in a decent story for a decent length of time and enjoy every second of it.

How happy I was when the first Modern Warfare came into the present and near-future. The Call of Duty obsession with World War 2 was just getting morbid. Concessions were made as a result and what we, as the player, got to experience was a loosely strung together tiff with terrorists in ‘made-up-istan’ setting off a nuke and a mad Russian with one arm plotting against America that was in no way original. It was a great experience though, I think partly because it was a new direction for the Call of Duty series but also because they had made it look so good. The graphics made you forget that you were working your way through a generic action movie plot. Well, the graphics and Captain Price’s mutton chops.

How disappointing then that the first Modern Warfare also featured one of the worst endings of recent times. Having survived everything with your squad and going through hell and back you sit there and watch as each is killed for no good reason, then you get to kill the nasty Russian and that’s it. Not that the story had much focus anyway, but to wrap things up like that was lazy, uninspired and did the rest of the game that preceded it no justice. Modern Warfare 2 manages to pay homage to the first game by featuring an ending almost as bad, albeit for slightly different reasons. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

My understanding of Modern Warfare 2′s story may not be entirely accurate. This is because lack of information made the last quarter of it very hard to follow. Let me run this by you to see if I’ve got it clear (and if I don’t, do point it out).

An American soldier formally stationed in Afghanistan is hand picked to become a spy in a Russian terrorist cell. To get close to the leader of this terrorist cell involves taking part in an airport massacre (more about that in a second). However, it seems the leader of this cell knew that the American was undercover and kills him in order that his body is found, America is pinned for the massacre, and Russia can go to war with America in a justifiable way that would mean no one would come to their aid. That about right so far?

I have a few problems with that airport level. The first is that it was clearly only put in to create media uproar and get a ton of free advertising as a result. If they really just wanted to evoke hatred in the terrorist leader Makarov (because, you know, the fact he’s a terrorist isn’t quite good enough it seems) they should have placed the player in control of a civilian trying to escape. The second is that it is the first of many plot holes. The undercover American you have control of isn’t the only terrorist that dies at the airport. Two of the Russian terrorists die as well, so why is America blamed? Why is America blamed at all even if the American was the only one to die? Countries don’t go to war just like that and they certainly don’t suddenly clone American satellite network controls and launch a sneak attack invasion of Washington DC.

Yes, I know analysing a story that is essentially brainless like this is probably pointless. Modern Warfare 2 tries no harder to have a moral lesson or important point buried in it than an average episode of 24, but I was just disappointed how shoddily it all hung together.

While the Americans wage war on home soil against invading Russians, you then have the special ops team made up of former British SAS from the first game and others. They somehow piece together that the Russian terrorist waging war on America wants a prisoner in a Russian prison. The reason for this is beyond human comprehension. The prisoner also in fact turns out to be Captain Price. Hurrah, mutton-chops wasn’t dead after all! Why was he in a Russian prison when last he was seen getting CPR from an American soldier?

Anyway, with the war going on in America, Price decides to set a nuke off (that clearly had no radiation in it) just above Washington, so it looks like they are now the victims and America will get aid from the world. But oh no, it turns out that Shepard – the man leading the American army and not the Spectre from Mass Effect (this distinction is especially hard to make since Captain Anderson voices Sergeant Foley) – is in fact the real bad guy and sets about cleaning up all records of…something.

Don't follow MacTavish's example. Run through the game and you'll be done in three hours.

I honestly tried to pay attention. Besides graphics, story is the most important thing for me but I just felt my brain melting out my ear trying to let all this in. I have no idea why Shepard was the villain. Something about five years ago and people not caring about the war? His soldiers dying in that nuclear blast from the first game possibly? Did he hire the Russian to do everything? Was he killing thousands just to make people pay attention and sign up to the army? The last couple stages focus purely on killing him because that achieves…? And yes, after a very stylish knife kill Shepard is indeed killed and revenge is obtained. Now what? What about that Russian and American war still going on? What about Makarov? What about Price and MacTavish being the most wanted men in the world?

To think they can just end it there is deplorable. It isn’t a cliffhanger and it isn’t closure either. It’s laziness, or desperation after giving themselves no where else to go with a broken plot. At least I hope it is, because it better not be an artificial end just so we can see the ‘real ending’ via future DLC or another sequel.

The phrase “It’s just a game!” gets flung around a lot and I can almost hear it hurtling my way right now to deafen me into submission, but hold on a moment. Yes, Modern Warfare 2 is just a game. It’s just a game that sold a few million copies in a single day. It’s just a game that got mass media attention for putting you in the role of a terrorist, albeit briefly. It’s just a game that will be judged by thousands of people to be as near to a perfect game as is humanly possible when it deserves no such credit. Modern Warfare 2 is alright. It’s not great, but it’s not bad either. It’s a horrendously short experience that will dazzle your eyes and bore your brain. It’s a 7/10 at best.

You know, despite trying to form all these really good arguments about why the story was awful and why this game was just about average, I do have one pathetically nit-picky thing to complain about. The instruction manual is one of the laziest I have ever seen. It’s barely seven pages long. It has one hint for how to play and do you know what that is? It’s how to eject the disk (seriously – check page two).

I’ve given Spec-Ops mode a whirl and it’s alright. It’s two player and I love co-op but it does beg the question (given that each Spec-Op mission is simply a scenario or section from the single player game) of why the whole thing couldn’t be played together with a friend. Despite being short, just that simple addition would have made me like it a lot more. Ah well, perhaps I will need to look to that dreaded and overly popular competitive multi-player. So will you, if you want to get any kind of value out of the over priced purchase that you just made.

• Format: Xbox360 (version reviewed), PS3, PC
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• Developer: Bioware
• Players: 1
• Site: www.dragonage.bioware.com

Often when a game is released across the main consoles and on PC, they do not differ in as many ways as a Wii or hand-held port would due to similar specifications. However, Bioware’s Dragon Age Origins plays very differently on PS3 and Xbox 360 compared to PC, and as such we have decided to review both versions.

The world of Dragon Age is that of high fantasy. Really high fantasy. If you are immediately put off by Elves or Dwarfs and the like then get out while you can, because you’re going to be waste deep in pointy-eared lore here.

Set within the kingdom of Ferelden, you play as one of three races through one of a handful of different origin stories as one of three classes before being recruited into the Grey Wardens. The job of these wardens is to defeat an Archdemon, a dragon that leads an army of Darkspawn up from the bowels of the earth to destroy, pillage and generally do nasty things.

At its heart, Dragon Age is an RPG working on a system similar to D&D with the trademark diplomacy and conversation choices from other Bioware games (such as Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic) being as important as fighting.

Well...it wouldn't do the title justice unless it had at least one dragon.

Be prepared for a tough time, as this game is not easy. That is to say, that normal isn’t easy, but easy isn’t easy either. A small patch already released fixes imbalances found by players, so as long as you’ve got that, then easy should be easy and normal should be normal. Hard and nightmare are still hard and “Is that my spleen on the floor?” though, so have fun with that.

While the PC version can play like those other games we mentioned, it can also be played overhead in a similar manner to older games such as Neverwinter Nights. The action can also be paused so orders can be given efficiently and tactics better employed. The console ports do not have this luxury, and can only be played in Mass Effect type ways – with swords replacing guns. A radial wheel can be opened to pause play and select abilities (which is a must as you only have six quick slots) but this is no substitution. A similar AI tactics system to FF12′s Gambits pales in comparison to the level of control you can yield over your four man team on PC.

The lack of full tactical control also made the game feel a little too much like a hack-and-slash affair at times (though that may in fact make it appeal more to console players as a result). It is a good thing, then, that the saving grace of Dragon Age Origins is in the storytelling.

While we found ourselves getting a little bored of combat by the end, the story was captivating from the off. It does fall back on some fantasy stereotypes, but it gets high marks for not making the Dwarfs Scottish (or perhaps it loses points since they just sound American, depending on your opinion) and for putting you up against excellent choices. Your actions make a difference everywhere and it is refreshing that these choices and consequences are presented to you to shape a story rather than simply to obtain rewards.

The story is helped along by an almost entirely stellar voice cast. Stand out mentions include; Simon Templeman as Loghain, Steve Valentine as Alistair and Claudia Black as Morrigan.

Having compared the console ports to the PC version running at full settings we can surmise that (roughly speaking) the consoles get the equivalent of medium-to-high. The game is only moderately good looking. It is by no means ugly, it is just surprising that more effort was not made. In fact the only place effort does seem to have been made is in blood splatters being persistent on your characters after battles, which was a very poor choice as it’s both distracting and incredibly silly looking.

A single play through of Dragon Age Origins will take a minimum of thirty hours (and that is an absolute minimum), granted that is partly because of the vast amount of conversations you’ll be having more than anything else but that is part of the charm. It feels as though creating an in-depth and original fantasy world was the most important thing here and for RPG lovers we’re sure this will be a good thing. Those not so into their role playing may be willing to look past the mountains of dialogue, but we suspect that in most cases that won’t be possible.

For those into their RPGs that don’t have a PC capable of running Dragon Age Origins (which is possibly quite a lot of you, as it seems there are some serious problems with ATI based systems) then we can still recommend the console port – if you can put up with the limitations. At time of writing there are bugs, but the console version appears to be spared from the most serious and we only encountered one which solved itself after a while.

We will close with a warning to console owners that decide to purchase this game. There is already free and paid for DLC available and if you download either and activate them then you must play the game online and be signed into EA’s servers or your save will not load. These days most people have an always-on connection, but it is still an extremely poor decision that will hopefully be rectified in the future.

With all that said, get out there and slay dragons. Or do some talking. Lots of talking. Or bed an Elven assassin that sounds like Antonio Banderas. Seriously.

7/10