So does it? Oh boy does it.

From infiltrating an oil rig via a submarine to fighting through suburban streets in Washington, the player is consistently drawn in and left breathless by the action. The set pieces are scripted almost perfectly and once the player settles into the game's shooting model they will be wrapped up in a breakneck story that uses the traditional Call of Duty style of switching between characters to play out two sides of the story. Modern Warfare 2 is the very definition of blockbuster and no other game attempts to portray action-movie-style war with the same level of bombast. The player sees and does things no other game has even attempted and the execution throughout is astonishing.

The preposterous nature of Modern Warfare 2’s plot line would leave even the script writers of 24 with their jaws on the floor. After Call of Duty 4’s bad guy Zakhaev has been elevated to the status of war hero by Russia and US satellite components are stolen, America organizes an undercover op to get near Makarov, the new threat to national security. The op goes bad and leaves America being blamed for a mass murder on Russian soil and war breaks out between the two countries. The story then goes into full roller coaster mode as it goes up and down and literally loops the loop with betrayals, set-ups, surprise resurrections of old characters and a horrifying depiction of what one man will do to wage war.

As well as epic scenes of heroism and military bravado the developers have included several bold scenes in the game that are major milestones in the much discussed maturation of stories and content in videogames. Some will decry the scenes as being in there for the sake of controversy and to score easy headlines but the game is undoubtedly artistic in its portrayal of some of the horrors of war. Being party to a mass execution is shocking and comes as a gut punch in a medium that normally doesn’t take mass murder seriously.

Underneath the spectacle lies the shooting mechanic that Infinity Ward has honed to a point where every publisher imposes the Call of Duty control scheme on any developer working on a shooting game. The core mechanic of firing an assault rifle at a bad guy has quite rightly not been overhauled, but perfected. As soon as the player picks up the pad the timing on everything they do feels almost perfect with every animation and action taking just the right amount of time. The player quickly feels like a pro as they whip up their iron sights, headshots an armoured Russian and then casually throws a grenade over the top of a barricade thanks to the gratifyingly generous aim assist and damage radius. Some people complain about the level of assist that Call of Duty offers but this isn’t a game about realism; it is a game about the player feeling like an action hero. Modern Warfare 2 doesn’t add much in the way of how shooting enemies actually works and instead of expanding the player’s combat options with vehicle jacking and the sandbox style of Halo’s combat, it perfects the two-second action of moving, acquiring a target and dropping it and fills the void of extra mechanics with a series of incredible spectacles.

The first Modern Warfare was a multiplayer phenomenon and has defined how a generation of shooters are structured with its levelling up, unlocks and challenge system. When compared to the first game’s multiplayer, everything and nothing has changed. The players still fight in all the standard online shooter modes and still unlock new weapons and perks but the additions to these dramatically shake up the battlefield.

The game introduces death perks which gives players that continually die a most welcome helping hand after they have had a streak of deaths by boosting their health or letting them take their killer's loadout. Players can also unlock new kill streak rewards that let them call in and control missile drones, gunships and even a game-ending tactical nuke should they get 25 uninterrupted kills. At first glance this all appears to unbalance the game but Infinity Ward has done a fine job of balancing the game once you start levelling up.

The problem with the multiplayer lies in the fact that rookie players are several orders of magnitude weaker than players that have started unlocking weapons and perks. New players are forced into picking pre-made classes with set skills and weapons whereas players that have hit level four can tailor-make their own classes and use different and more powerful weapons. The first couple of hours spent with Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer can be frustrating and painful, especially as the matchmaking system will always put players in a lobby with players that are far more skilled and tooled up than they are themselves.

The developers opted to forgo a cooperative campaign and instead decided to create a large number of coop challenge maps with each one pitting a pair of players against specific scenarios and rule sets. One map sees the players defending an area from waves of enemies much like Gears of War 2’s horde mode, while another places one player in the gunner seat of an AC 130 gunship and tasks them with escorting the other player who is on the ground, trying to get through a Russian village full of enemies. The Spec Ops challenges are utterly excellent and really showcase the breadth of experiences available in the game. The levels are truly cooperative and when played on Veteran difficulty with a friend they are tense, action-packed and exhilarating.

Modern Warfare 2’s campaign is over quickly but is the epitome of short and sweet. Infinity Ward has made the wise choice of not padding the game out to satisfy angry internet comment posters but has instead provided a completely satisfying experience that sits beside the vast multiplayer components perfectly. It maintains the traditional Call of Duty problem of some gamers not jiving with the pace and flow and seeing the cracks in the set piece scripting, but for the majority of gamers who get swept up in the tidal wave of bullets and conspiracy, Modern Warfare 2 delivers an explosive blockbuster that will be continually talked about until Modern Warfare 3 sees Captain Price kill God.