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One of the biggest games of this holiday season, Infinity Ward's follow-up to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, was shown off in a behind-closed-doors session at Gamescom 2009 this year, with a focus on the co-op special ops mode. From the main menu of the game you get single player, multiplayer, and special ops, which for Infinity Ward indicates special ops is just as important a mode as the other two. It's a completely separate mode, meaning it doesn't link with the others for unlocks or anything like that, and in it you've got the option to play split screen locally, solo, or online with a friend.
The mode is broken into different groups of missions, and for the demo in the Charlie group called Breach and Clear which is meant to be a high-intensity but brief segment of gameplay in the vein of something like the mile high club in Call of Duty 4. Regular, hardened, and veteran difficulties are available, and you earn stars by completing the mission on each difficulty setting, with veteran earning you three. These stars are then used to unlock more special ops missions. The Charlie group is the third group of missions, so they're more difficult, so the Infinity Ward player set it to regular.
The objective in breach and clear is simply to survive and make it to the end point of the level. There's a section in the beginning you can choose from a few different weapons strewn about on the ground, reminiscent of Left 4 Dead. After a red dot scope assault rifle was chosen, a charge was placed on a wall and the action kicked into gear. An explosion busted apart the wall and a slow motion effect took over to give the player a better look at the initial guards. Firing grenades from the launcher mounted under the gun, the slow motion effect wore off as enemies poured into what seemed to be a shower room that looked almost identical to the one from The Rock. Enemies took cover on the ground behind walls and fired from a balcony above, with laser sights making their line of sight more obvious.
Also in the stage was a riot shield, which could be picked up and used as mobile cover to enter into crowded rooms. It could also be used as a melee weapon, bumping into enemies to stun them, and slamming into them again to knock them out for good. Stun grenade detonations and melee knife kills rounded out the fight.
Then the demo player dropped down a hole in the floor and the stage was over. A stat screen showed the total run time had been two minutes, 20 kills were made, and the demo was over. While Infinity Ward isn't yet saying how many missions are being included in the game, it seems like there'll be quite a few. Unfortunately no details were made available concerning the rest of the single-player campaign or multiplayer, so we'll have to wait for more.
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