It is my birthday and i got an 1920 x 1080 screen from Hewlett-Packard, nice isn't it Could game very well now

The back of the box asks us to "think like a manager". Now that's just asking for trouble. We don't want to end up the subject of a Panorama expose - not until we're close to making our first billion, anyway. By then we'll have a castle in space and find ourselves eating dates off the toned backsides of nubile princesses and will laugh in the face of financial investigations. The Wikipedia entry will read like Hunter S. Thompson's secret life as Ron Atkinson's therapist.

Let's think [sharpens knives]. Dare we even speculate how a football manager really thinks in this money-obsessed age of bungs, divers and prima donna underwear models masquerading as professional sportsmen?

Okay, let's get into character. This could be fun.

I didn't see the incident. They're all honest lads at this club. Early doors. It was clearly offside/onside. It was a blatant penalty/handball. The referee's had a shocker. There was a divot in the penalty area. Our away strip's unlucky. Our studs were too short. He covered every blade of grass. I've never been offered a bung. How can I be a racist? My son was exaggerating. £4.8 million after tax you say? Untraceable?

"No-one hands you cups on a plate."

We could be flippant for the entire review, but the truth is that Sports Interactive know better than anyone that the relationship side of the game is practically half of what the job entails these days and it's no surprise to see much more effort going into this side of the game in this year's version. You might recall that last year's incarnation was a tentative step into the world of manager mind games, but this year's ups the ante considerably by extending the idea to players too. It's an idea that has a subtle but ultimately profound effect on your ability to gee up your squad and unsettle rivals. It's possibly one of the most brilliantly evil ideas that Sports Interactive's ever come up with, and of course we couldn't wait to put it to destructive use wherever possible.


Boring old 4-4-2. The...

Wait, didn't everybody already buy this?

Even if your willpower or geography has kept you from picking up Modern Warfare 2, you're probably reading this as you drive to go do just that. Activision's marketing people like to call this one the most anticipated game of the decade, and there's no doubt it will sell oodles of copies from now until Modern Warfare 3: Even Moderner. But is it worth the hype? I spent some serious time pounding plastic to see if Infinity Ward's latest has the fun to back it up and you can find out what I thought right after the break.

Just pull over first, okay?



Single Player

Modern Warfare 2 picks up five years after the ending of the original game, and there's a montage to bring you up to speed and introduce returning favorites like "Soap" MacTavish (now a Captain), Nikolai and Captain Price. Though, for the most part, you play as Sergeant "Roach" Sanderson, you'll again embody different characters and encircle the globe in the process, touching down in places like Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, Washington D.C., Kazakhstan and ... Virginia.

The global conflict centers on a full-scale war that whisks you through characters and exotic locales at a dizzying pace, and that's the heart of the campaign's only real stumbling block: It has so much story to tell that, at times, it feels far too frantically paced. What's the hurry? Personally, I'd like more time to enjoy some of the jaw-dropping levels Infinity Ward has created.

The most prominent example is the controversial Airport scene, which seems sorely out of place here. Sure, the entire plot of the game hinges on it, but did we need to play through it? Served up early in the game, it's not only one of the shortest scenes you'll play, it also feels incongruous to the point of being jarring: one minute you're training in Afghanistan as Private First Class Joseph Allen, and in the blink of an eye you're asked to kill dozens of innocents. A cut scene (which is what you get if you skip the scene)...

Formats: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Developer: Infinity Ward
Publisher: Activision
Released: 11 November 2009
Score: 10/10

So here it is at last; the biggest game of 2009. The sequel to one of the most successful first person shooter (FPS) titles of all time. The most anticipated video game release of the year. The title which looks set to break international sales records in spite of the fact that its publisher has decided to charge £10 more than the standard price for a new release. The game that may yet reanimate the recently (and hopefully still) laid-to-rest debate on video game violence. The first video game of this year to receive its own premiere in Leicester Square. While it arrives creaking under the weight of its own hype, the press accolades and advertising campaign that herald its arrival make Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sound like the entertainment revelation the whole world has been waiting for; it swaggers into retail outlets with all the confidence of a rock star taking the stage in front of its most committed fans. But can it possibly hope to live up to the ludicrous expectations heaped upon it?

In a word, yes, and however irksome the submit-or-die nature of the publicity swirling around its release may be, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 really is one of the best video games released all year. Naysayers may point out at this stage that 2009 hasn't exactly been a banner year for the gaming industry. But consider the obstacles Modern Warfare 2 has to conquer; not only does it have to satisfy the demands of one of largest and the most fanatical fan bases in gaming, it has to go one better than Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, a game that is still selling very respectably a year and a half on from its release (largely thanks to its incredible multiplayer mode). It's a testament to abilities of Infinity Ward's talented pool of developers that Modern Warfare 2 doesn't just surpass the quality of its predecessor, it flies past it like a ski-jumper.
This is largely due to the fact that...

I LOVE ENEMY TERRITORY