Modern Warfare 2, however, certainly does look spectacular and will most likely be worth every penny. Visually the game is essentially unsurpassed, featuring a brand new graphics engine with ridiculous amounts of texture detail and superb special effects. One look at the in-game footage from the trailer or the flurries of screen shots floating around the web should suffice to convince even the most demanding aesthete that this game is the real deal, destined it seems to set a new benchmark for the FPS genre.

Story-wise we’ll be getting what you’d expect – more of the same adrenaline-pumping action that made the first Call of Duty: Modern Warfare so addictive and realistic. The bad guys you defeated earlier, with Zakaev in charge, are back in full force and your quest to hunt them down and prevent nuclear armageddon will again take you around the globe, from the snows of Kazakhstan to the slums of Rio. This time around there will also be more vehicles for you to use, including some rather exotic ones like the snowmobile.

Interestingly, the developers at Infinity Ward insist they have engineered a brand new AI system that will make gameplay much less predictable than it has been so far in most previous first person shooters as enemies will not pop up in the same locations and react the same way each time you play a level. As a result, you won’t see hordes of zombie-like adversaries bluntly charging at you in wave after wave or frantically trying to run through a wall as you stand back and take aim, but the bad guys that do show up should be much more lethal than usual, and – due to their smarter AI – considerably tougher to dispatch.

With its addictive special ops campaign mode, high-tech weaponry and improved enemy AI, Modern Warfare 2 looks set to offer FPS gamers many hours of engaging gameplay and, for aficionados of the series, a welcome break from crappy World War II era guns and floods of brainless adversaries so prevalent in Activision’s most recent Call of Duty outing, World at War.

Modern Warfare 2 is set to hit the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC platforms on November 10, just in time for the holidays.

Much like its opening track – The World Is Gray – suggests, the rest of the album is rather bleak and characterized by a certain emptiness with repetitive undertones. Somewhat reminiscent of both Iron & Wine and Coldplay, Ghosts from the Past sounds sadly derivative, lacking the distinctly Icelandic mysticism of Bang Gang’s earlier works. Far from Inside’s emotive talk of lost dreams or the joyful liveliness of Stop in the Name of Love, the lyrics remain steadily uninspired throughout as demonstrated by the melancholic tone of the titular song Ghosts from the Past.

Having set the plank for themselves so high with Something Wrong, it should come as no surprise that Bang Gang’s new album fails to live up to the standards of its predecessor. Yet, with that said, it is still difficult to forgive the shallowness of this offering’s lyrics and the lack of the ethereal style which made the group’s previous album so beautiful and unique. Recommended for die-hard fans only; others would be best advised to wait until Bang Gang’s next album.

Since all of these vast subjects are clearly interconnected and spread out far beyond the borders of any one nation state, we will strive to offer new insights into cultural fusion arising from commercial globalization and shaping the transnational mosaic of the modern world. So – expect to see plenty of materials on faraway places and people with names we, English speakers, may be prone to mispronounce!

In providing a trustworthy and frequently updated source of information on the latest trends in modern world culture, we hope to create an intellectually-minded online community for people who like to think globally – outside the box – people like you.

Alors, bienvenue!