There’s a clear attention to detail here, with completely overhauled textures, lighting and character models, and the pitch-perfect gunplay the series is known for remains fully intact. Still, while I was a little sceptical beforehand, Modern Warfare Remastered is one of the most lovingly remastered games I’ve played in quite some time. However, I found the latter could only hold my attention for so long, and it’s not something I see myself playing a lot once the game’s multiplayer goes live. Excessive ragdoll punches are a laugh, and the points-based arcade mode is a reasonably welcome distraction. Collect the 30 odd laptops hidden around the different stages, for instance, and you can play through the game again with different game-changing cheats enabled. In the meantime, there’s plenty of fun to be had in its campaign. I breezed through the campaign in around seven hours on regular difficulty, but if you’re lucky enough to have never played the original, it might take you a little longer. Some might say this is a rather needless bit of padding, but for me it only makes Modern Warfare Remastered feel that much more modern and up to date. Instead of simply knifing watermelons and shooting at metal men, you now also have to run an obstacle course and try your hand at different types of explosives. The story remains intact, with all its plot twists still holding up even a decade later, but the opening tutorial level, for instance, is now much more fleshed out.
That sense of newness isn’t just limited to its looks, either: Raven Software has given certain parts of the game a complete overhaul. Capt Price’s iconic moustache looks fancier than ever, and explosions are particularly gorgeous, shaking the screen and almost blinding your character with bright flashes of light and falling debris.įind out the definitive list of 2016's best PC games
In-game cut scenes look remarkably better in Full HD, too, with the difference between then and now like night and day. It’s these moments of contrast and expert pacing that define Modern Warfare, and they’re just as impactful now as they were nine years ago. The first half of the mission is deathly quiet, but when the terrorists catch on, all hell breaks loose, with thousands of bullets piercing the darkness. Here, you’re sent in to infiltrate a terrorist-ridden cargo ship in the Bering Strait to help secure a nuke, all the while silently dispatching enemies in their beds and wandering the corridors with bottles of booze in your hand. The first SAS mission, for example, remains one of my absolute highlights.