PSM3 Modern Warfare 2 Oct Issue (Info + Screenshots)

A highlight of CoD4's multiplayer has always been the unlocked one-time-use special abilities that can be accessed after uninterrupted killing streaks of three, five, and seven people- granting you UAV satellite data on enemy locations, an air strike and a helicopter gunship. Well now there's more on offer; you can select your death-spree rewards before entering the game. "You can have a three killstreak of a fifteen killstreak if you want, so something like the AC-130 is one of the highest killstreaks you can select." Explains Community Manager Robert Bowling. "You take control of that and can fire down for thirty seconds, blow guys up." As suck new players who haven't quite got the grasp of affairs can enter the fray with rewards associated with smaller strings of kills, while more established players can stick with the high-end super-power weapons reserved for the more almighty among us.

When playing through the Favela in Spec Ops co-op mode, where choice cuts of the main game can be sampled in a twosome either in split-screen or over the internet, the results are just as engaging. Earmarked as an "Elimination" mission you're tasked with taking out 40 Al-driven militia-men. Though it features a Left 4 Dead style companion rescue system, the way the game plays us pure and uncompromised Modern Warfare. This said, there are subtle differences. It's immediately obvious that the AI being paraded around the level are far in advance of their equivalents in CoD4 - they're far less tied to cover, and much more liable to take advantage of the level's cut-throughs and side-alleys to sneak behind you. Because of this, and the sandbox nature of the Spec Ops mode, the relentless forward push of the traditional CoD "war corridor" evaporates - the game feels more like a grim co-op survival. Another tangible change, small as it may sound, is the fact that grenades have been gifted the effects of physics - meaning they'll roll around post-lob, and even back towards you if you toss it up.

Five Spec Ops missions will be open to you when you first boot up the game, and you'll earn stars as you complete each one - with three on offer for the completion of the hardest difficulty, two for the middling one and a measly one should you plump for a simpler experience. Once the stars start pouring in further mission bands will open themselves up to you, going from the five-level strata of Alpha(easy), Bravo, Charlie, and Delta all the way to the summit of Echo's three level escapade of intense bullet torture. Contained within these will be the aforementioned Elimination and a few snowmobile time trials, but also scenes in which you and your buddy must fend of wave after wave of enemies with well-placed claymore mines and sniper rifles in the fashion of CoD4's Pripyat finale. Another whispered game style, meanwhile, will have on player high above in an AC-130 gunship taking out buildings and infantry with bleak monochrome visuals and inhuman battle-chatter, while the other dashes around an more explosive battlefield.