Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009)

Genre: First Person Shooter | Players: 1, 2, Multi | Developer: Infinity Ward

Continuing some time after Modern Warfare 1, the Ultranationalist rebels have seized control of Russia despite the best efforts of the USMC and SAS operatives. Now terrorist plots are in motion to take advantage of the growing anti-West sentiment and players take control of several protagonists, old and new, to try to keep tensions from boiling over.

Gameplay is just as frantic with new weapons and perks and new "snap-to" aiming that will jump to an enemy if it is in the general vicinity of the crosshair when players aim down the sight. It works, to it's credit, almost too well and makes the single player almost insultingly easy even on harder difficulty settings. It is somewhat less of a problem in multi-player with human players that can move and act dynamically. Multi-player is also ramped up with a bevy of new additions, some cool, some stupid like the instant "I Win" button that is the tactical nuke killstreak reward. It can also be insanely glitch prone at times. Single-player is still filled with thrilling set-pieces, but is criminally short. What is there is very polished and even has some big name actors doing voices (Bonus points are always awarded for the awesome Kieth David) and a soundtrack by Lorne Balfe with collaboration from Hans Zimmer. That shit couldn't have been cheap.

Very polished and sticking to formula, with some new tweaks. Some are cool i.e. the Spec Ops co-op missions. Others not so much i.e. the hand-holding auto-aiming. Thrilling at times, ridiculous at others.
The controversial No Russian mission is kind of fucked up, but that was the point, I imagine.
Not bad. Not as good as the first.

Buyer's Guide:

Available on the PS3, 360 and PC. All 3 versions are more or less identical.

3½ Ghost has a sweet balaclava out of 5
The extra ½ is for Kieth David