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Modern Warfare 2

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Here are some quick impressions from the single player so far.

After playing the single player for a little bit (on Act 2 of 3 now) I have to say it's definitely a step backwards. CoD 4 felt much more immersive and the story was intriguing with a main goal. There was a feeling of "we trust you to know how to get from a to b" and you just had the little blip on the compass at the bottom of the screen that told you which direction to go in. That has been replaced with a GIANT white circle that shows through everything and says things like "FOLLOW", "Protect", and "125 m". These things are then placed right on top of what you need to find. It takes all of the fun and immersion out of the game b/c it's basically become connect the dots, with them telling you exactly how to draw the line. I'm sorry, but if you can't find a glowing yellow suitcase in a room you should go find another hobby or a better level designer. I don't need a giant marker placed on top of it.

I have to say, the PC version definitely lacks any real "features" that are specific to improving the PC version (some features that used to be considered standard). The loss of leaning, even in single player, kills me. You also have no ability to customize the hud. I for one like to play without crosshairs or any ammo information. This cannot be turned off. The only options you are given are the ability to change the screen resolution and the quality of the graphics (textures, aa, etc.), remap the keys and play with the audio. Pretty sad that all of the features that were in CoD 4 didn't seem to make the transition over to this one.

This game feels like they tried to turn the dial up to 11, but in doing so went for the Michael Bay approach to story telling (aka big explosions and special effects over a coherent story) rather than creating new features and telling a compelling story. The overall story feels rushed and scattered, jumping from one person to the next very quickly. The missions don't feel as connected as they did in CoD 4, and a lot of details are left up to you to fill in, which could have easily been added in as more missions. You do one mission and all of a sudden something HUGE has happened, but you never have this looming "something bad is about to happen" feeling. It just happens and you are left thinking "really? Where did this come from?" I've already played as several different people and I've only played 4 or so levels. It's hard to really form any attachment to a character when you are constantly playing some random person. Seeing a name displayed of who you "are" doesn't really make me feel attached to some random soldier. I've read that the campaign only last for about 4 hours or so, and at the pace I am going that seems about right. So far each mission has lasted about 10 - 15 minutes, counting the intro cinematics.

I will say though that the game does look really good as far as character / weapon models and environments go. The animations are also top notch.

It's too bad they didn't give this game some extra time in the cooker to really polish it for the PC. I've read a lot of the horror reports of the mp, and doubt I will play it. I'm sure their matchmaking is great for people that don't know how to use a server list and don't know what a good ping is, but as I mentioned above, I don't need a game to hold my hand to do the most basic of tasks like finding a server with people I like on it. If you are more of a single player person and aren't interested in the multiplayer I'd have to say this game is not worth the $60. Wait several years until it's on sale for 20 bucks.

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I bit the bullet and got the game today for multiple reasons...

1) I had a gift card from a few months back I hadn't used yet

2) I need a game to play on the 360 when my wife takes over the PC

3) I played the multiplayer at a friend's place and it was actually a ton of fun, similar to COD4 in many ways, but it did have variation to it.

I haven't gotten to see it yet in HD, nor play singleplayer. But the impression I got from my multiplayer session justified getting the 360 version to play when I can't be on the PC playing ARMA2 :)

When it comes to the 360 I actually enjoy the easy-going matchmaking and all that stuff. I had both COD4 for PC and 360 and loved the variation of mods/gamemodes and large player servers COD4 offered for the PC, but also enjoyed quickly grouping up with friends and jumping in a game on the 360.

I can't wait to start playing this on the 360, but I hope for all that is holy that no one gets this game for the PC. What made COD4 on the PC worth getting for me is all gone in MW2.

If you have friends that have a 360, odds are they all are playing this game, and it's good fun to play together and great fun to play when you just want to relax for a bit. When I want to turn my brain on, I then go to ARMA2.

So what I'm saying is...if you don't have a 360 don't get it, if you don't have a giftcard that either pays for the game or makes it substantially discounted, don't get it. If you didn't like COD4, don't get it!

---------- Post added at 05:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:20 PM ----------

Not usually a big Onion fan, but that was quite enjoyable, thanks for the link :)

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Heh, awesome find. Quite hilarious.

I must say though, I'm enjoying the game a lot more than I initially thought I would.

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Just finished it there, and it was really good. No lean was incredibly annoying at times, and the story seemed to falter during the second act. Multiplayer is decent, but I was saddened by the fact that:

*MAJORSPOILER*

They seemed to think that killing nearly every major character made the game better. It didn't.

*ENDSPOILER*

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One thing I found bothersome is the sheer ammount of times your character(s) are saved - It is very dramatic and effectful, but when your character is dramatically rescued like five times in four hours it gets old.

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I just played the first few missions of the singeplayer. I have to say it is quite fun and I actually love the story so far. But these things just bother me:

-I do have to admit at times it is overchaotic with no order

-I didn't like being babied through the missions and told exactly where to go

-I am spoiled by ARMA2 and BF2 that has actual maps

Oh well, back to multiplayer

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Well, apparently SAS peeps are made from the same stuff as Terminators.

Still SP is an entertaining little jaunt through the gaming equivalent of processed cheese.

MP horrifies me. Is this really how things have evolved? Even Counterstrike had more tactical depth than this pokemon inspired campy killstreak spam abomination..

kinda addictive though :( lvl42 now

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Well, apparently SAS peeps are made from the same stuff as Terminators.

Still SP is an entertaining little jaunt through the gaming equivalent of processed cheese.

MP horrifies me. Is this really how things have evolved? Even Counterstrike had more tactical depth than this pokemon inspired campy killstreak spam abomination..

kinda addictive though :( lvl42 now

Hahaha yeah it may be a little nuts but it's hard not to admit the MP isn't fun.

I took a quick peek on the xbox forums for this game and there are people complaining that the maps are too big and the gameplay too slow...while I can barely keep up and the maps are small enough to enable ~15 seconds of walking at the most before contact

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I have to admit, I submitted to peer pressure yesterday and finally bought the COD MW2. My friends who bought the game kept insisting that it's totally awesome and worth the money. And I must say I agree. Haven't played single player yet, but multiplayer as a group of 4 peeps worked like a charm. We never experienced any lag either, probably because one of us was always hosting.

No regrets so far. ;)

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I have to admit, I submitted to peer pressure yesterday and finally bought the COD MW2. My friends who bought the game kept insisting that it's totally awesome and worth the money. And I must say I agree. Haven't played single player yet, but multiplayer as a group of 4 peeps worked like a charm. We never experienced any lag either, probably because one of us was always hosting.

No regrets so far. ;)

Yeah I got it to play with friends mostly, late last night I discovered the spec ops mode that is quite awesome especially the sniping/sneaking around one. On your own is okay but with two people is sick...one guy goes around to one side, another on the opposite side of the road as a patrol pass synchronized knifing/sniping it's pure greatness really.

I really hate how the singleplayer game treats you. It's good fun and plenty points of immersion and if there can be a single thing that ARMA2 can take from COD is some of the radio calls, most are scripted but some of them are rather clever...you use a laser marker to mark a house for a stryker to attack and it goes "Targetting infantry in grey house 3 o'clock" or if you mark a small car it goes "Targetting small green car at my 2 o'clock" it rather clever as it must have names attached to each major object you can target in that vicinity.

Did COD4 have the "FOLLOW" tag over the lead member of the squad?? I hate hate that, I know who to follow, the one I'm taking orders from no need for a big annoying dot with FOLLOW on his head really kills it. Sames goes for OBJECTIVE HERE.... I mean you can give me a general direction and I'll find it myself thanks, but I guess single player has to cater to a 10 year old that their parents let them buy it.

It shows just how Dynamic ARMA2 is with the single player..if only Chenarus didn't kill my PC and it wasn't so dynamic that you can break the campaign every 5 minutes I'd love to finish it!

Matchmaking on the 360 is pretty much the same as COD4 except better in that if a host leaves the game pauses find a new host and syncs so that the round can continue which is really nice...on the 360 side of MP no complaints...if you're on the PC you're pretty much screwed I've heard.

Is there a zombie mode like COD5 going to be coming for MW2?

Edited by cjsoques

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Is there a zombie mode like COD5 going to be coming for MW2?

CoD W@W = Not so much

CoD W@W "Zombie" mode = Worth the price of CoD W@W

It's Treyarch that seem to do the "zombie" thing so it'll probably show up if they do another CoD game :)

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Meh played it...story was ok, although it is now crashing on me which is odd. It still doesn't compare to CoD1 or even 2 and MW1 was ok i guess. Maybe i'm just getting old but it seems like all the missions are 5 mins long and enemy spam fests.

Also its good to see the good ole brit LSW make an appearence even if the model is truly awful.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m140/Aeneas2020/LSW.jpg

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No wonder IW laughed at the boycott. They knew all the FICKLE pc gamers would buy it anyway. We sure made alot of noise though.:(

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Was there really any doubt? I mean seriously. It's the COD franchise. COD4 and WaW sold like wildfire, so why would MW2 be any different?

Apparently it's raised $310 million in the UK and US alone. GTA IV, it's nearest competitor, sold that much world wide. Activision and IW are quite happy right now, I'd imagine.

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considering the petition was around 200,000 players (rounded) to get dedicated server support for PC version, we see how much 200,000 players out of $ 310,000,000 really mattered, I'm sure that was IW/Activisions view point as well.

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Suffice to say the stray cat population should be manageable for some years to come. We could cut the budgets of the shelters.

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