Earlier this week, I was invited by Gameloft to swing by their office in New York City to preview one of their upcoming games, Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus. Not only that, but I was also treated to some amazing home-made brownies that one of the developers brought in. With my belly full of a delicious mix of brownie and caramel, I picked up an iPhone and dove right into Modern Combat 2.
Modern Combat 2 is a First-Person Shooter (FPS) that takes place after the events of the original Modern Combat. The game has you playing as 3 different playable characters in 3 different environments: The Middle East, South America and Eastern Europe. There are a total of 12 missions to complete across the 3 separate locations. During the demo, I was able to play select missions in each of the 3 separate environments. The Middle East level contained a lot of sand and ruined buildings with limited cover. The South America level took place in what looked like Aztec ruins with a lot of foliage hanging all over the level. The Eastern Europe level was a snow-filled environment that took place in the woods and even had light snow falling. Each environment had distinct enemies that fit into the different environments (ex. In the Eastern Europe level, enemies were wearing white snow suits to blend in with the falling snow). Gameloft says the single player campaign should last players for approximately 4 hours.
One of the first things that I immediately noticed is how gorgeous the game looked on the iPhone 4’s Retina Display. Each character model, level, and weapon has received a lot of attention and it certainly shows. Gameloft even went and obtained the license to all 15 weapons that are used in the game to make the experience that much more realistic. Each weapon had a realistic look, especially when zooming in through each weapon’s sight or scope. Not only that, but each weapon’s sound and amount of recoil when firing were also accurately represented during my play time.
The game’s cut scenes are all performed with Modern Combat 2’s in-game graphics. For the first time in any iPhone game I’ve ever seen, each character has the ability to perform facial animations. If you’ve played as many iPhone & Android games that I have, you’d know that having characters speaking with no facial animation can take you out of an experience, especially when they’re bobbing their heads crazily in order to convey their emotion. This simple addition definitely helps in bringing you more into the game as the characters are now more believable.
One of the new features of Modern Combat 2 was the inclusion of the “instant kill slow motion”. This feature can be initiated when you perform a headshot against an enemy. The camera will zoom in close to the enemy to show where your instant kill landed, along with a nice splatter of blood at the bullet’s entry point. I was told the instant kill slow motion view will also be available during online multiplayer games. Another feature that was added to Modern Combat 2 was controlling the game through the iPhone 4’s gyroscope. I tested it out briefly and it worked as much as you’d expect it to, although I still haven’t gotten the hang of playing an FPS using the gyroscope. I quickly switched the controls back to normal.
The auto-aim in Modern Combat 2 was very forgiving if I wasn’t spot on with my target. The shooting cursor will wander over to an enemy that is within a certain range. Each shot makes your aim a little worse than the last, so letting go of the trigger every few rounds is definitely encouraged. You can also aim in closer by looking down your weapon’s sight or scope. Most weapons will target the nearest enemy’s chest, which allows you to fine tune your aim to any part of the enemy’s body. The sniper rifles don’t automatically target your enemies, but pulling off shots with sniper rifles wasn’t too difficult, especially since one shot anywhere on the body will most likely take down your opponent.
What’s an FPS without some multiplayer action? Modern Combat 2 features a multiplayer mode for up to 10 players that can be played both online through Wi-Fi, and local through Wi-Fi & Bluetooth. In terms of multiplayer modes, Gameloft brought back Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture The Flag modes which are currently available in Modern Combat. A new multiplayer mode called “Defuse The Bomb” has one team attempting to defuse a timed bomb while the other team attempts to stop the attacking team from carrying out their objective. Each multiplayer mode has received a boost in the of players that can connect from 4 to 10, so that will definitely make the multiplayer experience that much better. Modern Combat 2 will only use Gameloft Live at this point as the game was far too into development to have full Game Center support, but Gameloft assured me that doesn’t mean the game won’t support Game Center after it’s released.
Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus is planned to be released in early October. Unfortunately, no price has been determined yet.
