Infinity Ward, developer of the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, returns with this year's Modern Warfare 2, after last year's Call of Duty game came from the series' other developer, Treyarch. Activision has confidently stated that it expects Modern Warfare to be the biggest games launch ever seen.

It's a challenge an no mistake, because the original Modern Warfare managed to sell 12 million copies, and what's more Activision has raised the price for Modern Warfare 2 to a "premium". So Modern Warfare 2 has to now sell more copies at a higher price.

Still, there's reason for gamers to be pleased with this because it's evidence that Activision believes it has a very good game on its hands. Modern Warfare 2 combines the same stalwarts of the series, and indeed an successful videogame, single player and multiplayer, and it was the latter that prompted the success of the original Modern Warfare.

Infinity Ward has shown off some multiplayer footage with the new chain bonus, and it does look phenomenal. The graphics have all been given a polish to improve on Modern Warfare, although there have been some rumblings about snow on internet forums.

To our eye, there's more destructive environments, more details everywhere and smoother animation too. It's not a million miles away from the original Modern Warfare, and let's remember it is a sequel, but it does show improvements. The other negative so far is that it will only run in the same resolution as the original - 1024x600 - not true HD.

All that we know about the Single Player game is that gameplay will vary from mission to mission and that the locations will take gamers from Afghanistan and its deserts to Russia and its frozen mountains.

As with the rest of Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward looks to have taken the successful elements from its predecessor and then looked to improve on them. It's more of the same, for sure, but better, and that's likely to be a big draw for gamers.

Modern Warfare 2 is coming to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on 10th November 2009.