A starter guide to the Single Player Campaign

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

A Starter Guide to the Single Player Campaign

Developer: Infinity Ward
Publisher: Activision

Sequel to the 2007 smash hit 'Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare', 'Modern Warfare 2' picks up the story five years after the events of CoD4's 2011 geopolitical nightmare. Things have somehow managed to get worse, and as you will soon see playing through MW2, they will get worse than that.

Thankfully, the real world isn't directed by Michael Bay and scored by Hanz Zimmer, and this sort of thing is relegated to videogames.

Modern Warfare 2's content is divided into three 'sections': A single player campaign "For The Record", a Special Ops series of challenges that can be tackled with an ally, and Multiplayer content providing the by now well known experience that millions have taken part in. This mini-guide will cover the first quarter of the single player campaign, telling you where you need to go, and where you can locate the hidden intelligence cases within those missions. The version I played for this mini-walkthrough is the PC edition, but as far as single player is concerned, aside from obvious differences in control methods, there are no serious content differences.

Something to consider: If you are just playing the game to experience the story and iconic set pieces, I recommend playing on the Regular difficulty. Why? Because despite the relatively short nature of the campaign, if your proficiency with first person shooters is not the best, you can oftentimes find yourself killed and restarting at a checkpoint with little to no warning. The grenades seem to flow like water on higher difficulties, providing additional frustration. Where do you these people store all those grenades!?

There are achievements for playing on Veteran, however. If that's your thing, knock yourself out. Just be prepared to see plenty of 'inspirational' war quotes between lives as you go back to the last checkpoint. If you're intent on a Veteran run, playing on Hardened can give you a preview of what to expect on Veteran, and I recommend that as a warm up.

SINGLE PLAYER HINTS:

Cover. Cover. Cover.

You can't lean in the PC version (a big loss, in my opinion), but in all versions, you can still duck and go prone behind pieces of terrain for added protection. The game seemingly likes to punish specifically the player if he runs out in front of all of his AI buddies, out of cover wide out in the open. Cover gives you relative safety from incoming threats, though bullets can still piece many pieces of terrain. Cover gives you a chance to recover from being shot up. Cover is something you can use to funnel aggressive enemies towards you. Use it, most of the time it's not going to go away.

Aim.

Seriously. You can hipfire through the game if you want to try, which can lead to some pretty amusing moments. Aiming down the sight is pretty much going to be drilled into you by the time you complete the single player campaign. It will make life easier.

Watch the grenade indicator.

no, REALLY watch it. The game will tell you this almost every time you are killed by a grenade, and will encourage you to throw back the grenade to the enemy. This isn't always the best call. If you see multiple grenade are near you and can be thrown back, it's safer to fall back towards another piece of cover.

Manage your ammo!

While it's true there's tons of ammo lying all over the battlefield, your big concern in any given firefight is how much you actually have left in your current magazine. Reloading at the wrong time can leave you open for a counter attack. Switch to a secondary to finish a kill or to cover your retreat. Use grenades or flashbangs to give you breathing room. Never charge into a situation without a full magazine, or you're asking for trouble. This tip is especially important for multiplayer, not just for Modern Warfare 2, but for pretty much any FPS in general.

Grenades are meant to be used...

...so use 'em when you have to. Use them wisely, of course, but don't hold onto them for the entire battle. You're making things harder on yourself and easier for your enemies. Like Number 4, this is a tip you can take with you into multiplayer. Smart use of grenades can give you that extra edge.

Your knife is last resort...

...but an excellent final option to have available. It will kill an enemy soldier instantly, but can leave you vulnerable. It's best used to deal with someone who surprises you as you come around a corner, or if a hostile gets too close while you are trying to reload. Like 4 and 5, this tip works in multiplayer. With the right multiplayer perks, the knife can be a monstrous weapon and the source of much rage from your opponents.

SINGLE PLAYER MINI-WALKTHROUGH START

Mission 1: S.S.D.D

Enemy Intel: 1

The quintessential tutorial level, S.S.D.D. is designed to ease you into Modern Warfare 2, as well as serving a method for the game to suggest a difficulty level for you. You begin as Private Joseph Allen, conducting a brief weapon seminar for locals at the behest of Sergeant Foley. Follow his instructions until you are freed from this call of duty and ordered to The Pit.

Do not go straight to The Pit! As you leave the firing range, you can see the firebase spread out all around you. If you check the map, you'll see how far you can actually explore. The Intel case is located in the north east corner of the map, almost directly across from The Pit entrance. You will find the Enemy Intel sitting atop a series of shelves before sandbags that cut you off from the guard tower.

With the first Intel of the game located, go to The Pit. Follow Corporal Dunn's instructions and run the course.

The Pit itself is quite simple to run through. Shoot the targets as you advance as quickly as possible through the obstacles. There are some targets that pop up that are not valid, so check before you shoot. A hit 'civilian' will dock your overall score! At the end of the course, Dunn will comment on your run, and the game will suggest a difficulty. You can either accept the difficulty, or run the course again until the game suggests a higher difficulty if you so choose.

There is an achievement available here, 'Pit Boss'. It requires a time under 30 seconds including bonuses for accuracy. This means you absolutely cannot misstep once during your run, you must be accurate, you cannot miss a target, and you cannot hit a civilian target. Good luck with this one.

Once you finish running The Pit, follow the ramp up to trigger a short scene. A convoy has been struck hard by insurgents, and you're about to roll out to mete out some payback.

Mission 2: Team Player

Enemy Intel: 2

Throwing you directly in the thick of things, Team Player starts off with Private Allen recovering from shellshock, looking up at General Shepherd as he calmly stands amidst incoming fire and deliberately reloads his pistol, apparently trying to unlock his manliness achievement. Once he pulls you to your feet, the fight is on. Head straight ahead and engage the enemy on the other side of the river, using the rocks for cover. At some point you'll be prompted to use your M203 on the enemy. Feel free to pop off a few grenade rounds to kill clusters of them. You have to deal with them while the bridging unit tries to deal with the destroyed span.

Meanwhile, the situation at the bridge intensifies as some insurgents get brave and try to directly attack the bridging unit with close range RPG strikes, standing opposite of the bridging vehicle on the broken overpass. You're prompted to engage them, eliminate them quickly. Some insurgents will try to put a rocket in your face.

Eventually, soldiers call out that the enemy is retreating. Follow the objective indicators to the top of the newly bridged span, and enter the humvee that is marked for you. An F-15 fighter will pass overhead shortly and put a bomb into a building to your one o'clock on the other side of the bridge. Once the smoke begins to settle, the task force is ready to move forward. Welcome to the 'Wild West'. Your orders now are to not fire until fired upon.

The uneasy quiet obviously doesn't last long. Shortly after you spot militia who are unarmed, the convoy comes under fire. You'll be told to 'spin 'em up', and then all hell breaks loose. Shoot at anything that threatens you, and try to keep a good eye on threats in the direction your humvee is traveling, particularly militia with RPGs. Eventually, an RPG ends your ride. Get inside the building next to where you are knocked out of the humvee quickly; staying out in the street is asking to get killed.

Follow your allies upstairs and clear out the second floor. From your position, a school holds a number of militia who will be firing on your through the windows. Neutralize them, and enter the school on the ground floor. The hall leading to a stairway has a number of militia behind cover, but your chosen weapon should be able to punch through it. Take care that on your right side, there is a small classroom with more militia inside. A flashbang will stun them, allowing you to clear it.

Once the ground floor is clear, follow Foley and Dunn up the stairs and into another cluster of militia. Wax them as you advance, and make sure they are dead! Wounded soldiers who are crawling away will often bring out a pistol in a last ditch effort to kill you. As you move down this corridor Dunn will cut through classroom on the right. Follow him, you can find the mission's first Enemy Intel along the northern walls of of the classes as your work your way forward.

Once the school is secure, the second Enemy Intel is just outside as you exit the building. You can find it next to the yellow taxi atop of what appears to be an ammo crate.

Continue forward in pursuit of the enemies who have retreated. The alley you fight in can be dangerous, as it has lot of little nooks for hostiles to fire at you from. You can make this section MUCH easier if you are on the ball and take down the group of enemies that burst from a court yard to the right. If they are downed early, they can't take up positions to make life difficult.

You're already past the rough spot now, though. Press forward until you find a room full of friendly soldiers. General Shepherd congratulates you on a job well done and tell you that you're now taking orders from him personally. Mission Complete!

Mission 3: Cliffhanger

Enemy Intel: 3

We now move away from the action in Afghanistan to deep inside Kazahkstan, now taking the role of Sergeant Gary 'Roach' Sanderson of Task Force 141. Your leader is Captain John 'Soap' MacTavish, one of the main player characters from Call of Duty 4.

You start off literally hanging out on the edge of a cliff. Follow Soap until he begins to climb up the ice. Once he says it's safe, follow him up. Climb expediently, you can fall to your death here. Once you get up the first wall, Soap will sprint and jump across a gap to cling to a far ice wall, and tells you to follow. Your own attempt will not be as smooth, but as soon as you are able, scramble up this last wall. Now you can begin the mission proper.

The heartbeat sensor your silenced ACR assault rifle comes equipped with will come in hand quite soon. Follow Soap's lead and snipe the guard he assigns you on his signal.

Since we can't have a Call of Duty mission without some complications, a blizzard rolls in and reduced your visibility severely. Soap will order you to split off from him to navigate through the base, evading patrols the whole while, as you go to set explosive charges on the designated target. He will cover you with his sniper rifle and thermal scope. For the moment, do not, under any circumstance, pick up a weapon the enemy is using. You need silenced weapons for this portion!

Now, there are two achievements you can unlock in this mission, one of which is mission specific, and one of which is just simply easy to get done here. If you infiltrate all the way to the fuel tanks without being spotted, you will unlock the Ghost achievement. The other achievement to try for on this mission is No Rest For The Wary. Simply sneak up on a guard who is not alerted to your presence, and use your instant-kill knife on them.

The first of three Enemy Intels is available right after you separate from Soap. As you move forward, you will see a watchtower with a small road around it, a snowplow on your right, with a single guard. Evade or kill him, then move to the watchtower. Climb up its ladder to find it. Proceed into the base, following the onscreen indicators as the appear, while evading detection. You'll have to cross the runway to get to the fuel tanks, so watch that heartbeat sensor.

Once the explosive is set, make your way back across the runway to the hangar marked for you to meet up with Soap. Before following him inside, check the windows of the hangar next door. Sitting on a barrel inside is the second Enemy Intel of the mission. Break glass to reach it. Now go back and follow Soap.

Inside, Soap will ice a guard for you, then go to work on the satellite, ordering you upstairs to find the ACS module. Once you get the item, things do go south, as the hangar doors open, and you are cut off by dozens of troops. Soap says to go to Plan B. Set off those explosives you placed at the fuel tanks when prompted.

The detonation distracts the troops, and gives you and Soap a chance to shoot your way out of the hangar. Follow Soap, and keep your head on a swivel. Enemy troops are all around you. Soap will alternate with you between running to the next piece of cover, and covering the other man as he makes his move. Watch out for troops on snowmobiles, they can run you down and kill you instantly.

You eventually fight your way to a break in the fencing and slide down a hill. Kill the troops at the hill, and engage the snowmobiles that follow.

Soap will take out a snowmobile in rather convincing fashion, and tell you take one for yourself. It's time to leave, and the next objective marker is thousands of meters away. Troops will try to stop you as you race down, but you have a rapid fire sub-machine gun that you can use to spray troops as they accelerate ahead of you. Aiming does not need to be precise, just spray away when they get in front of you.

The third Enemy Intel is coming up, incredibly easy to miss and widely considered to be the hardest to find in the game. As you approach the 1900-1800 meter mark, look out for a cabin near a fence line on the right. There is a smaller fence at the center of the path, placed horizontally, that is partially broken with a cluster of trees behind it. The third Intel is just past this fence slightly to the left, just drive over it to pick it up. Slowing down before reaching it helps immensely with spotting it.

Now floor it! Evade all incoming threats or obstacles, and neutralize them if possible. It's pretty straight forward from here, you just need to survive. Once you get to the Landing Zone, the mission is complete!

Mission 4: No Russian

Enemy Intel: 0

There are no Enemy Intels, no special objectives, nothing but pure carnage in this mission. As Private Allen, undercover with Makarov's terrorist outfit, follow his lead as he and his men (and you, if you choose to) open fire on hundreds of defenseless civilians at a Russian airport.

Once you make your way through the airport terminal, you'll find yourself outside where the aircraft wait for passengers. Russian security forces, the FSB, will arrive to put an end to the madness (and to see how tough you really are when the targets can actually fight back). Fight your way through them, taking care to use cover as necessary. You meet your first instance of Riot Shield using soldiers in this mission, use grenades to deal with them.

Be aware that the armored vans the FSB arrives in have a tendency to explode under sustained fire. You'll know this about to happen when flames begin to issue from the vehicle. Avoid approaching them like this, make sure they've already exploded first.

Continue to follow Makarov until you get to the extraction point. Following a stunning twist, the mission is over, and the world is poised on the brink of another world war.

Mission 5: Takedown

Enemy Intel: 4

Perspective has once more shifted back to Roach of TF141. You're in Rio de Janeiro, in pursuit of the man who armed the terrorists in the airport attack, Alejandro Rojas.

On a side note, all levels that take place in Rio arguably are the hardest in the game. The favela encourages vertical combat, with enemies often appearing in various passages, windows, walk ways, doorways, alleyways, all around and above you. On higher difficulties, these stages can be among the most frustrating simply because of how fast you die from seemingly random angles. I said keep your head on a swivel in one section of the Cliffhanger mission, Rio is like that almost as soon as the shooting starts, and lets up only very little.

You start off in a car tailing a van. Things get started right away as the meeting you're trying to observe goes south and Rojas' lieutenant opens fire on your car. Duck when prompted so you don't share the same fate as your driver, and then get after him in pursuit.

Be very careful in your pursuit! Civilians are in the area and shooting them is not acceptable (unlike at the airport). Eventually you will have the lieutenant trapped in an alley, and you are told to 'disable' him. A bullet to the leg will suffice.

Once you capture him, the pursuit of Rojas begins. Meat and Royce will accompany you for this first part. This is where the fun begins.

Meat and Royce will clear out the civilian presence in the small shanty town area. This summons apparently half the militia in the entire city, and the fight is on. Enemy Intel 1 is also within this collection of small homes, but be VERY cautious as you move through here. Enemies are on the roofs, on the ground, behind doors, and windows. Careless advances can find yourself flanked and dead.

It is best to stay on the upper level and clear out the initial wave of militia. Watch for snipers in the distance, those with sniper rifles and those without. This can take some time. You also have a shot gun when starting this mission for close quarters combat, but its usefulness is arguable. It's very slow to reload, and the enemy will rush you down before it's totally ready.

There are two distinct routes to take once you jump down with Meat and Royce. Straight ahead there is an alley. To the right seems faster, but there are more ambush points from that side. Go straight from where you drop down, following the alley and killing militia as you advance. Make a right when you have to, you will see a motorcycle against a small house, almost pointing to the yellow house where the Intel is. Enter it, clear it, and you should find the Intel on a table waiting for you.

Meat and Royce are not going to make it. Fair warning in advance, so don't get too attached to them. :(

With the first Enemy Intel in hand, get to the navigation point. You might find yourself being shot at from behind, with little cover to fall back on. You can elect to engage your pursuers, I usually sprint on to the next section. Soap will eventually call you just in time as a group of attack dogs make their way to you. Kill them before they get close, otherwise you are caught in a short quicktime event that is easy to lose (and lose your throat in the process).

Once past the dogs, you'll find yourself in one of the tight series of alleyways, with potential ambush points being all around you. Advance forward with caution, always checking the rooftops for militia. You'll eventually come to a small fork in the alleys. The first left you can take puts you in poor position to be attacked from behind if you don't go around to the farther left you can take and clear out the troops there.

Watch the rooftops and the makeshift bridges for foot traffic, and eliminate them. Also be on the look out for windows that will open, revealing snipers. Sniper rifles reveal themselves with a glint of sunlight from their scopes, meaning they are aimed at you, and you need to find cover to shoot them if you have a shot. You are closing in on Enemy Intel 2.

When you see a set of stairs on the left, and another path to the right, check right. Eliminate the militia on the rooftops (get used to this), then take not of the ladder on the right. Climb it, and find yourself ambushed by a man shooting at you by sticking his gun out through a crack in the door. Kill him, enter the house quickly to avoid other fire from the rooftops, and clear it. The second Enemy Intel is on a table inside.

Exiting the house to the southwest puts you once again under heavy fire from the ground level, with troops behind a waist high brick wall, and others firing from windows and doorways directly ahead and to your left. Use the house where Intel 2 was located as a small bunker to clear as much militia as possible, and keep moving.

NOTE: Soap and Ghost (who totally isn't Gaz from CoD4, even if he sounds like him) will chatter quite a bit during this mission, and urge you to hurry. Do not let that sense of urgency rush you, as it will get you killed more often than not.

Now, from the house where Intel 2 was, on the left you will see a multi-story brick house. Enemy Intel 3 is inside there, along with a clown car's worth of militia. Be careful as you enter (a flashbang works nicely to cover you) and do not go up the stairs immediately. On the first floor, nearby a bed on a small stand, is Intel 3.

Exit the Intel 3 house the way you entered, and keep moving. You will see Rojas, marked with a Capture symbol. DO NOT SHOOT HIM. Just follow the alley. To your left there are stairs leading to another home. As you climb the stairs, check the rooftops and clear them. Take special care to nail RPG troops, they can end your run in short order. Enter the house via these stairs, clear it, and note the ladder. DO NOT CLIMB IT IMMEDIATELY. You are vulnerable during this. Again check the rooftops and kill all militia you can see from there. Then climb the ladder.

You'll come under fire as soon as you get to the roof and will not have much time to choose your cover. There is a stack of bricks near the ladder exit, and there is a small bridge leading to another location you can take cover at. Eliminate the militia on this rooftop, then move forward to the north-east. Make another right, and you will find yourself looking at a stairway leading higher into the favela.

Straight ahead, there are even more militia on the roof tops and in doorways. To your left, there is a burning car. You're close to Enemy Intel 4. Just past the burning car on the right is a house you can enter. Do so, take the stairs down, and check the bedroom below for the last Intel of the level.

With that done, just exit the house at follow the Capture marker, taking care to watch out for any further militia that impede your way. Rojas has a run in with Soap, the mission is complete, and Act 1 is complete as well.

This concludes the mini-walkthrough! If you've followed it this far, you should have ten Enemy Intelligence packs in your possession.