My EXTREMELY late review on Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus. I already did a review on Fallen Nation, a review on Zero Hour, and a review on Blackout.
Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus, my second Modern Combat game and my second most-played Modern Combat game, with a total of 230 hours spent on this game. Revolutionary for its time, and still holds up as one of the best multiplayer shooters on the mobile platform to this day. So let's get into the review!
Aesthetics
Trust me, when Black Pegasus hit the App Store and the Google Play Store, there was nothing quite like it on mobile aesthetic-wise. Detailed, colorful, venues and decent details to the guns and scopes of sniper rifles makes Black Pegasus a real eye-pleaser, especially for its time.
Just like its predecessor, Black Pegasus features a fairly cinematic campaign, with quite a few cutscenes to help you really envision yourself as you step into the shoes of Anderson and Newman.
As for weapons, the weapons in Black Pegasus are well detailed and have good colours, making the guns as much as an eye-pleaser as the environments themselves.
And even if you go back and try out Black Pegasus, the game has aged fairly well. It still has great visuals, even when compared to Blackout. The color still remains attractive and charming to this day.
Overall, Black Pegasus is a game that stretched the boundaries in terms of aesthetics for its respective platforms, and is a massive leap over the great-looking Sandstorm. The game's graphics, in my opinion, have aged very well as well.
Aesthetics score: 9.5/10
Gameplay
Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus remains the same basic controls as its predecessor. The game is very fast-paced, both in single-player and in multiplayer, meaning that you'll almost never get bored with the fast-paced action that you are rewarded after purchasing the game. Just like Blackout, the gameplay is still bullet-filled, fast-paced, and explosions-heavy.
In terms of gameplay variety in the single-player campaign, I believe that Black Pegasus has even better single-player gameplay variety than its successor, Fallen Nation. You mount a minigun on a Humvee as you try to shoot down enemy barricades and helicopters, you cover the Humvee by sniping your way through the streets, and you try and stealthily take out the guards in Tracking the Supplier Pt. 2, meaning that you'll hardly find any generic endlessly respawning enemies in Black Pegasus.
Overall, Black Pegasus has fantastic gameplay variety, especially for its time, and still holds up today as one of the Modern Combats with the best gameplay variety.
Gameplay score: 9.8/10
Single-player campaign
Black Pegasus's storyline is fairly engaging, as you step into the shoes of Warrens, Newman, and Anderson as you set out to take down the rest of Abu Bahaa's associates. Pablo al-Banni is the main villain this time around, and the game starts with an action-packed prison escape that sucks you into the gameplay experience.
Single-player campaign missions in Black Pegasus are always action-packed and have great variety, as mentioned earlier. From trying to sneak as stealthfully as possible as you make your way to Nikitich in Tracking the Supplier Pt. 2, to breaking out of a camp in The Great Escape Pt. 1 and The Great Escape Pt. 2, Black Pegasus has an engaging and fun campaign that has quite a bit of replay value.
The final mission, Shanty Town, is one of my favourite campaign missions in the series. As Anderson, you chase down Al-Banni, while having to deal with wave after waves of hostiles and choppers you need to take down, Shanty Town is one of the most action-packed missions in the series.
Another thing I liked about Black Pegasus was that there was always a bit of a stealth aspect to it, which I feel has been missing from all Modern Combat games that came out after it. There's no more need to go stealthy in Fallen Nation, Zero Hour, or Blackout. For instance, in Tracking the Supplier Pt. 2, you have to try and go as stealthy as possible if you don't want the guards to trigger the alarms. In the first part of Oil Slick, it's always best to take the stealthy route.
Overall, Black Pegasus's single player is a blast from start to finish. The storyline has decent depth, and the gameplay never lets up. Black Pegasus still remains a revolution for single-player storylines on mobile devices, despite being a five-year old mobile game.
Single-player storyline score: 8/10 Mission variety score: 9.5/10
Multiplayer
Black Pegasus drastically expands on the already fun multiplayer that Sandstorm offered, and gave us fifteen weapons, a variety of variants with optics and silencers, a host of maps and game modes.
A new addition to the Modern Combat series, skills act the same way as Call of Duty's perk system, allowing for boosts during gameplay. However, as you could only have one skill, you had to choose wisely. Would you want more hip-fire accuracy, or would you like a faster movement speed? Skills, despite just being introduced in Black Pegasus, were very fair, and all of them were never overpowered. The skills would give you fair boosts during gameplay.
As for the gameplay itself, and this is without bias, Black Pegasus has FANTASTIC online gameplay. Better than Fallen Nation (in a different but clear way) and superior to Zero Hours gameplay (also in a different but clear way). As mentioned before, Black Pegasus expanded drastically on Sandstorms multiplayer, and almost all of that change was for the better. Upon starting the game, you are given an AK47 and a Beretta M9, two very good weapons that will keep you hooked. And as you level up by getting XP by getting kills and capturing flags and whatnot, you achieve new skills, new weapons, new variants of weapons, more grenades in your load out, that will surely keep you hooked on end for days, weeks, if not months. But unlike Modern Combat 5: Blackout, where you just need all the good items and no skill to win, you can still defeat veteran players with skill, even if they have more powerful weapons.
Multiplayer maps have decent variety, from long sightlines in Avalanche to the extreme close-quarters combat of Facility, Black Pegasus certainly did not disappoint me in terms of map variety.
For weapon balancing, most of the weapons are very powerful, and there are loads of them. SMGs, shotguns, sniper rifles, assault rifles - you name it. Earning better variants of stock weapons your reward to coming back and getting a lot of kills! And unlike the games that came out after it, the RPG-7 was never an overpowered weapon. It may have been powerful and easy to use, but it never was cheap or overused.
For me, there are only two problems with the multiplayer of Black Pegasus. One of them, are the shotguns. The shotguns in BP are just very weak! The S1 Custom is my least favourite shotgun in the series, even worse than the BMF-12 in MC5. It may be classified as a high damage shotgun, but it just can't secure reliable one-hit kills, even in close-quarters! The other problem are the grenades. The grenades in Black Pegasus are extremely powerful, and you can have up to 3 grenades, so people spam these things all day. And they explode on impact and work through walls, so maybe a nerf to the grenades would be great.
Overall, Black Pegasus has the fastest paced, most action-packed, the most balanced, and overall fun multiplayer in the Modern Combat series for me. Two niggles in an otherwise flawless ride can't hurt this game's monstrous fun factor. And unlike Fallen Nation, multiplayer servers are still online and functional and there are still an average of 5 matches that have 8-9 people per match.
Multiplayer score: 9.95/10
Verdict
Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus is an almost flawless game from start to finish. Aesthetics, gameplay variety, multiplayer, single-player campaign - you name it. It was a revolution and a blast back in the day, and still is one of the very best games you can get on the App Store. For any iOS users, if you have an iTunes gift card, skip Fallen Nation or Blackout or maybe even Zero Hour. Take Black Pegasus, you will not be disappointed. Black Pegasus has captured the hearts and souls of many Modern Combat fans out there, including me, which leaves me in no doubt that Black Pegasus is the best Modern Combat to date and one of the best games to ever grace a mobile platform.
Final score: 9.9/10 - It truly is undeniably undefeated and mesmerisingly brilliant.
After all, this is my opinion, so you don't have to agree with me on everything I say. Post your thoughts in the comment section - but for now, unless MC6 (if it ever comes out) is some god-tier game, Black Pegasus will remain my favourite mobile game.