When you're one of the first in the world to be shown what'll likely be the most successful shooter of recent history, it's bad form to repeatedly point at the game and excitedly bark which movies you've seen its setpieces in before. And, indeed, for flecks of your spittle to land in the eyes of its designers.

After 45 minutes in front of Modern Warfare 2 I'd stopped to excitedly bite my fist no less than seven times to stare with strange intensity at Infinity Ward's studio head Vincent Zampella and community manager Robert Bowling, and yell things like: Goldeneye! Police Story! Vertical Limit! Die Hard 2! To this Infinity Ward return a shrug.

"I don't know that it's intentional... though we watch a lot of movies," offers Zampella by way of explanation, with perhaps an underlying glimmer of alarm that the feverish individual sweating into his leather couch is listing increasingly bad '90s actioners rather than marvelling at the updated graphics, remarkable motion capture and breathless innovations in level design on show.

Yet this isn't a criticism on my part; it's the recognition that more than any other game Call of Duty - or what was once Call of Duty - has increasingly pitted you as the star of the most visceral, imaginative and adrenalin-ripped set-pieces ever committed to 3D engine, or indeed celluloid.

That it occasionally stoops to cherry-pick the very best moments of violent popular culture is an affirmation that Modern Warfare 2 is aimed squarely at fulfilling the Action Man fantasies of a generation. The fact that I'm dribbling as I type this is proof enough that it will hit its target.

Read the entire article at CVG.