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More maps

Here’s our question of the day: Should you, as an owner of the genre-standard first-person shooter “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” buy its new pack of supplemental maps? Answer: It depends.

The risibly named “Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package” includes five levels, three of which are new to “MW2” and two of which came from its classic predecessor, “Call of Duty 4,” the original “Modern Warfare.” If you read that and said to yourself, “Hey, these guys are just recycling old stuff and selling it to me again!” and that angered you — as it has many people — you have an excellent point.

Your next question would probably be: How cool are the new maps?

Answer: They’re not bad.

The king of the new set is “Bailout,” a multilevel apartment block with a venerable design that shooter players will appreciate in the way the ancient Greeks appreciated the Golden Rectangle — a long, open killing-zone corridor with narrow, parallel passages on either side to give access and points of attack. If the basic test of a multiplayer map is whether you’re willing to play it again right after the game before, “Bailout” is a good contender to enter your regular rotation.

The second-strongest new board is “Salvage,” a snow- and ice-choked junkyard where towering piles of scrap metal and shipping containers create a miniature Afghanistan — not to be confused with the actual Afghanistan map that came with “MW2.” This map has narrow alleys of fire and endless nooks and crannies for the kind of hiding-crouching play that I despise, but which is the stock in trade for most young deathsmiths in the “Call of Duty” world.

The third new map is an abandoned industrial yard, “Storm,” in which you play during a rainstorm, although with visibility that is better than earlier precipitation levels. “Storm” is all right, but it’s one of those maps where all you can do is play it repeatedly to get your bearings and get an edge over your enemies.

The levels the “Stimulus Package” has imported from “COD4”:

“Crash” is a set of city blocks surrounding an open square with a crashed Marine Corps CH-46 Sea Knight, with a large building on the periphery that affords beautiful sniping of almost the whole map. “Overgrown” is a wooded European village bisected by a dry creek bed, and it’s so comfortable and familiar that a generation of gamers could draw you a detailed diagram, including their favorite spots, on request. Although old, both boards are still very fun.

The levels imported from “COD4” permit you to use all your new weapons and toys from “MW2” and include the new gold-standard fixed miniguns in place of the earlier game’s fixed M249 machine guns. The “Stimulus Package” doesn’t include new weapons or accessories.

The map pack made me wonder why developer Infinity Ward and publisher Activision can’t give people some real value for the $15 to $20 they’ll be spending on these downloads: If they can just import “COD4” maps to “MW2,” why not bring them all in? The answer is obvious — the companies can’t make this update too fun or nobody would buy hard copies of the inevitable sequel.

So should you buy the “Stimulus Package”? Hardcore gamers already own it, and they rightly grumbled about being fed leftovers. Casual players should ask themselves whether they’ve really exhausted MW2’s original maps — chances are good that yes, they have. Then again, three new maps can’t save a game if you’re already over it.

If you’re an addict like the rest of us, the “Stimulus Package” gives new venues to master and new variety to your online death delivery. Not bad since, let’s face it, you were going to be playing no matter what.