Modern Combat 5 Review

Like a great many developers, Gameloft has resorted to rolling in-app purchases into most of its games. One notable exception to that de facto rule is the new installment of the Modern Combat series. These games have much more production value than any other mobile first-person shooter, but this is a genre that's notoriously hard to adapt to touchscreens. So, can a big production budget make Modern Combat 5: Blackout worth your time?

Modern Combat 4 focused on an intricate and ultimately uninteresting story about a terrorist who took every opportunity to remind us he was the bad guy through the use of torturously long cut scenes. Modern Combat 5 is still about terrorists blowing stuff up and shooting people, but there's less time spent on an attempt to flesh out everyone's motivation for shooting stuff. If you ask me, that's a good thing. The story is no more compelling in MC5, but it stays out of your way more than in the last installment.

The game's story mode takes place across six different zones including a Buddhist temple, a bustling metropolis, and a military base. Each area has 4-6 missions that advance the story, which is mostly about figuring out what these terrorists types are up to (it doesn't really matter—you still just shoot all of them). After finishing those missions, there are a few "spec ops" levels to go through in the same zone. These are quick one-off missions that might call upon you to cover your team from a sniper perch, breach and clear a few rooms, assassinate a target, or rescue a hostage. The level design is reasonably good, and the spec ops stuff is surprisingly fun. I actually replayed some of these missions just because.