Modern Combat: Shadow Operations 2 (2006) (PS2/XBOX/Gamecube/PC/J2ME/PSP/X360)

Modern Combat: Shadow Ops 2 is a third-person shooter video game that is developed by Mojang Italia and published by Mojang Interactive for PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Windows, J2ME and Xbox 360. It is the sequel to Modern Combat: Shadow Ops. Modern Combat: Shadow Ops 2 shipped on February 12, 2006 in North America and February 8, 2010 in Europe.

Modern Combat: Shadow Ops 2 focuses on two-player cooperative play and employs a cover system. It features Jason Grebin and Iroquois Salazar as combatant partners who, with the assistance of their handler Trish Clyde, must fight to survive and prevail over invading forces that have engulfed London, England in a devastating man-made disaster. A demo of the game has been released on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.

Gameplay
Gameplay will be further enhanced such as being able to feign surrender in order to outflank the enemy, using human shields, and automated covering. The refined controls now only require one button for any particular action. Melee has been mapped to a face button, and rifling through weapons can be done with one hand. There will also be a sprint function in the game. Partner AI has also been revamped to be more responsive and intelligent allowing the player to direct their partner into performing specific actions such as stealth kills or feigning surrender.

More weapons and upgrades will be available, adding interchangeable upgrades between weapons, such as adding the barrel of one assault rifle to another. The "pimped" option returns with new camouflage schemes. Weapons can now also be obtained from downed enemies, increasing the player's arsenal to four weapons (up from three in MC:SO1). Bullets will be able to penetrate weaker materials such as wood and sheet metal.

Co-op Playbook
Shadow Ops 2 expands on and refines the cooperative play featured in the original game. Unlike in Army of Two, where cooperative moments were primarily predetermined at particular intervals in the game, in Shadow Ops 2, players can use co-op moves at any time. For example, players can mock surrender or setup simultaneous sniper shots. This is in addition to using Aggro as a mechanic for tactically engaging enemies in the midst of combat.

Aggro
Aggro is a system that allows two players to tactically control the target of their enemy's attacks. Aggro is measured by a HUD element that displays which player the enemy characters are currently focusing on. By performing aggressive actions, such as firing one’s weapon, a player generates aggro and in turn causes enemies to focus more of their attention on that player. While one player has Aggro the other is being ignored and as a result can then freely perform actions such as flanking. In Army of Two: The 40th Day, additional non-aggressive actions can affect aggro. For example, by performing a mock-surrender the enemy combatants will focus all of their attention (and aggro) on the player that is surrendering.

Morality Moments
In Shadow Ops 2 players are forced to make moral decisions that affect the story of the game. At pre-determined points in the game players will be presented with a choice, for example whether they should overtake a security guard and steal weapons or vacate the premises. The decision is not a vote between two players. but instead either player must decide while the other player is forced to accept the ramifications of that decisions regardless of what their preference was. The outcome and presentation of these morality moments takes the form of comic panels created by the popular artists Chris Bachalo and Jock.

Dynamic & Variety In Gameplay
EA Montreal has taken steps to ensure that the gameplay in Shadow Ops 2 is more dynamic than the original. This includes the environment, where some objects, such as wooden walls and crumbling mortar can now be penetrated by bullets. Likewise, there are now noncombatant NPCs that players will be forced to engage with. Players can simply ignore these civilian NPCs and allow them to be killed by combatants (or their own fire), or alternatively players can decide to deliberately rescue them. This sort of interaction can also occur in specific hostage scenarios where players must use coop moves to successfully overcome the situation. This is distinctly unlike the original Shadow Ops, where the enemies existed in the world solely to attack the player. There is also a lot more variety in characters, as there are more than twice as many different types of NPCs in Shadow Ops 2, when compared to the original game.

Multiplayer
Multiplayer mode in Shadow Ops 2 has received significant changes since the original. These changes included region-free play client-server connections (as opposed to the original Army of Two’s client-to-client connections), and an increased number of participants (up to 10).

Shadow Ops 2 maintains its focus on co-op play by requiring that players play in a partnership. Partners are a source for ammunition and are able to revive their fallen team mate. There are a total of four multiplayer game modes:


 * Co-op Deathmatch pits teams of two against other partnerships.
 * Control awards points to teams for capturing and defending randomly spawned points.
 * Warzone has players battle over various objectives.
 * Extraction is a game mode where teams of four fight waves of increasingly powerful enemies in order to progress through areas of a map with the goal of reaching an extraction point.

Background & Story
Jason Grebin and Iroquois Salazar begin Shadow Ops 2 a year after the story of the original game ends as self-employed private military contractors who run, with the aid of Alice Murray, their own private company called Global Operations Corporation (GOC). They are engaged in a routine mission in London when things go very bad. A competing German PMC named Omega Axe attacks the city, causing mayhem and destruction and threatening Salazar and Grebin’s survival. Amidst their efforts to survive, Salazar and Grebin will also have the opportunity to take up missions in order to earn money.

The story finds Jason Grebin and Iroquois Salazar in the year 2018 as self-employed private contractors, who along with Trish Clyde run Global Operations Corporation (GOC). Their second mission as the newly formed company takes them to London where they are tasked with meeting a contact named Matt. Upon meeting him it is revealed that he was once an NSSI Operative. Matt leads them to a back alley where their gear and weapons have been stashed. They then proceed with the second part of their mission in the form of planting locator beacons throughout strategic locations in London. After planting the last of the beacons and an encounter with overzealous security guards they regroup on a rooftop of a building.

Following a sequence in which Matt's fate is decided, a cut scene triggers showing the city of London under attack as buildings are bombarded and all hell breaks loose down below. Salazar and Grebin escape the rooftop and ascend the building encountering groups of mercenaries that have specifically targeted them. They manage to contact Trish who informs them that she is alive and is trapped in the Embassy of Germany. They set course for the Embassy, dispatching waves of mercenaries through toppled and burning buildings as well as encountering civilian hostages. Salazar and Grebin discover Trish being held hostage in an office. After freeing her, they fight their way to the main hall of the consulate where a cutscene triggers a helicopter crashing through the building and subsequently creating a hole on the floor for them to escape.

They flee through the hole and wind up on the outside of the building where Trish instructs them to get on an elevated platform as she lowers them via a crane. They eliminate countless waves of mercenaries as Alice lowers them to the bottom of the building. A quick exit is created as a bus crashes through a wall. Salazar and Grebin exit through the hole in the wall and encounter more mercenaries as they traverse a highway. After eliminating the last of them, they escape through a utility door beneath a tunnel. Salazar and Grebin push forward through the streets of London encountering more mercenaries and civilian hostages. They make their way to the entrance of the London Zoo where they encounter a zoo employee who guides them via television monitors and speakers.

Salazar and Grebin rescue a trapped zoo worker who leads them to an exit. After departing the zoo, Salazar and Grebin are contacted by Trish, who has found safe haven, and informs them to locate a communications tower to hopefully signal for help. Salazar and Grebin march forward, traversing rooftops as they eliminate enemy waves. They finally reach the communication tower only to discover an empty room. They decide to continue forward and jump to an adjacent balcony. The balcony suddenly gives way and Grebin plummets down to the ground and is knocked unconscious. Grebin awakens 24 hours later in a hospital. They are met by Dr. Cullum who asks for their help in evacuating the patients. After restarting the generator, Salazar and Grebin encounter more mercenaries. They fight past them and meet up with a small boy named Thomas who guides them through the hospital.

Salazar and Grebin proceed through the halls of the hospital eliminating mercenaries as they go, and eventually meet up with Dr. Cullum. They reach the reception room and defend it from waves of invading mercenaries. Once the opposition was eliminated, they exit the hospital and take a shortcut heading toward the mall. Salazar and Grebin fight their way through countless waves of mercenaries as they head for the mall. They fight off as many enemies as they can, but are overwhelmed and captured. Salazar and Grebin awake in the mall, stripped of their gear and weapons and separated in custom holding cells. They are freed by a mercenary named David who leads them to their gear and weapons. David informs them that he has secured three bombs that, if placed in strategically marked locations on the upper floor, will destroy the communications center down below.

Salazar and Grebin plant the bombs as they encounter more mercenaries, and ultimately destroy the communications center. David leads them to an exit, and they go their separate ways. After exiting the mall, Trish once again communicates with Salazar and Grebin and informs them that she managed to convince a pilot to fly them out of London, but they must reach the extraction point quickly because of the heavy enemy presence. Salazar and Grebin fight their way through the Bunds, encountering heavy waves of mercs. As they near the extraction point, Trish informs them that the pilot will not land the chopper until they destroy two anti-aircraft guns. After doing so, they reach the extraction point only to have the chopper shot down and destroyed. Trish is presumed dead at this point.

Salazar and Grebin bunker down to rest, and, realizing that there is no escape, decide to exact revenge on the man responsible for this nightmare; They decide to kill the leader of the 40th Day Initiative, Kyle Norris. They track him to a Cargo Ship in Southampton that is heavily fortified. If the player saved all of the civilian hostages, they will appear armed and ready to back up Salazar and Grebin. If the player did not save enough civilian hostages, then Salazar and Grebin must take on the enemies alone. The pair infiltrate the ship and eliminate wave after wave of mercenaries until they reach the inner sanctum. Salazar and Grebin blast their way through a large door, and finally come face to face with Kyle. Kyle delivers a monologue justifying his actions as a violent social experiment to force the world to turn back from the moral decay that is destroying it. Kyle is holding a device which he claims is the trigger for a nuclear bomb located in the heart of the city.

He offers Salazar and Grebin a choice to make an "Act of Sacrifice" by having one of them shoot the other, or choose to kill him and his invading force, which will detonate the bomb, killing 7 million people. Choosing to kill one's partner will lead to Kyle revealing that the bomb was a hoax and you kill him anyway. Choosing to kill Kyle leads to the bomb still being a hoax but the invading force continues to plague the city. Killing one's partner ends the game with an epilogue where the surviving partner laments for taking the life of his friend. Killing Kyle ends the game with an epilogue where Kyle quotes the Holy Bible as his inspiration for his actions in London.

Weapon Customization
A predominant feature in the Modern Combat series is the ability to customize weapons using money that is earned in-game. As the official Modern Combat blog describes it, "it's like Lego with Guns […] every part of your weapon is customizable and interchangeable with parts from other weapons.” The changes to weapons are not only for appearance, but also affect the performance and the amount of aggro that they generate. Some weapon characteristics that can be changed are handling, accuracy, ammunition capacity, and power. Rios and Salem wear ballistic masks as part of their combat gear. By logging into the Modern Combat: Shadow Operations 2 website, the player can create custom designs that appear on their masks in both single and multiplayer.

Weapon Design Contest
Like for the original Modern Combat: Shadow Operations 2, a community-oriented weapons design contest was run for Modern Combat: Shadow Operations 2. The contest challenged fans and enthusiasts from North America, Italy, France, and the UK to submit an image and brief description of a weapon that they designed. Two weapon designs were chosen as winners and will appear in the game for those players who have a saved game present on their game console from the original Army of Two. The winning entries were chosen on August 6, 2005. The winning entries were the AS-KR1 "The Ass Kicker" Rifle (submitted by the AngryJoeShow) and the "Grand Pinger" Sniper Launcher (submitted by Uberblargh).