Modern Combat 5 is the latest in a long series of high-quality first person shooter games from Gameloft. The whole Modern Combat series shamelessly riffs on popular shooter franchises like Call of Duty, and has been doing so well before official mobile counterparts for those games were made. Even now that Call of Duty has come to mobile, Modern Combat 5 still manages to give it a run for its money. By and large, Modern Combat 5 is lock in step with Modern Combat 4. It boasts bar-setting graphics, rich multiplayer, familiar experience and achievement progression, a dazzling array of weapon customization, and top-notch voice acting. That's great and all, but there is one distinct difference in Modern Combat 5 which could easily stand as the sole selling point: there are zero in-app purchases. Get an iPhone SE with Mint Mobile service for $30/mo

Gameplay The line between single- and multi-player in Modern Combat 5 has been made sufficiently fuzzy, though the overall formula really hasn't changed much. Your progress in terms of leveling up and unlocking weapons carries over between the single- and multi-player missions. There are six chapters all told, and each has story missions, spec ops single-player challenges, and online multiplayer matches. All of those missions are scored on a familiar three-star system; you earn one star for getting to the final objective, and earning the other two for completing secondary challenges. You can always go back and have another go at stages you haven't been able to complete yet. Unlocking new chapters requires you to finish the story missions and either the multiplayer or the spec ops missions.

The storyline of the single-player campaign is about as hoaky as you'd expect from a modern military shooter, but that certainly doesn't cramp the production values. There are massive explosions, strong voice acting with excellent lip syncing, and lots of varied scenarios to work your way through. The odd quick-time event will have players make precise swipes as quickly as possible in order to make their way through some of the more cinematic sections of the single-player campaign. I've found the campaign plenty challenging, especially if you're a stickler for getting all three stars. The spec ops missions are one-off and bite-sized. Often they'll simply be about clearing a room of bad guys, or you'll have to breach and clear rooms in tense hostage situations, assassinate a particular target, and lots more. In the single player missions, you'll also have access to a cool bullet-time ability that switches your view to behind the projectile, and allows you to steer it to its target in slow-mo. Thanks to the quick turnaround time on these missions, I've found myself trying more to get three stars in these than the story missions. There's one caveat for both types of single-player missions: you still need to be online. That's bad news for a lot of folks that play on the go, but this is likely an effort to maintain constant authentication of someone's purchase in order to cut down on piracy. A bit more on that later.

For most folks multiplayer will be the meat and potatoes of the game. In addition to the handful of multiplayer missions in each chapter, there are all of the traditional game modes you'd expect, like capture the flag, free-for-all, VIP, and team battle. There are also familiar killstreak rewards, such as spy drones, sentry turrets, and air strikes. The most welcome addition on the multiplayer front is squads. These are as close as you're going to get to clans. A special Squad Battle mode issues a call to arms for any of your fellow squadmates that happen to be online to take on rival squads that are also in-game. Taking on these match types during limited-time events offers up a ton of rewards. There's also voice chat enabled, for those that really want to get coordinated. Keep in mind that your notification tray may get full up with a ping every time one of your squadmates is ready to play a group match. Though the pool of players online at any given time for multiplayer was small (since we were in pre-launch), the competition was very stiff. This is pretty standard for most first-person shooters; if you're going to go online, you better have thick skin and expect to lose often.

In addition to earning experience points and levelling up as a whole character, every weapon and weapon class has its own progression. As you play more with a particular gun, you unlock new attachments for it. The attachments don't cost anything, you just swap them in and out when you get access. Most attachments, particularly extended magazines and foregrips, are straight upgrades with little incentive to pick anything other than the most recently unlocked one. That's too bad, because it's fun figuring out which tradeoffs to make. There's no currency of any kind, and that means no early access to unlockables, but it does mean that those that simply pour time into the game will naturally have a leg up on you since they'll be better geared (as opposed to simply having more tactical options). Playing with a gun will also make progress towards unlocking new weapons of its type, like assault rifles, submachineguns, pistols, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, and shotguns.