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| Spoon 1852th Post
 
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
  
    
    
    
    
|  "MW2 and me" , posted Mon 16 Nov 03:28:
We mostly rant about Japanese games around here, so for a change I'm going to rant about a rather definitively North American game, Modern Warfare 2. This game is the biggest release of the year (calendar or fiscal), commercially speaking.
Curmudgeonly complaints:
- the single player makes all the guns they give you feel weak and samey. Aside from vehicles which simply aren't hurt by the bullet shooters, every enemy you fight goes down in one burst or one headshot. They die so fast, there's rarely any time to play any kind of hurt animation. They all die with largely the same death animations. They all draw the same blood splat SFX. The weapons are surely deadly (it'd be odd if a game touting the power of the American military would give you guns that weren't deadly and couldn't shoot straight after all), but you don't really get a sense of how they are powerful.
- the single player scenario doesn't seem as impressive as MW1. After the training/tutorial stage and the usual killhouse, MW1 opened with a visually stunning, highly cinematic, brief and exciting mission on a container ship. MW2 opens with a mission that is... alright, I guess. MW1 tried to make a plausible story. MW2 jumps the shark and has Eastern Europeans invading America complete with a stage called "Wolverines!"
- unlocking weapons/modes in multiplayer. This is supposed to give you a sense of achievement and progress, as well as that "I want that!" longing for the toys your higher level teammates/opponents (or even the ready-made loadouts) have. It feels like a slog to me.
- the same game modes as in MW1. New maps, to be sure, and at least they didn't pull something like Unreal Tournament 2003 which actually removed a significant number of modes and features from Unreal Tournament.
- no dedicated server support for PC. This may sound like a whiny, tech-geek complaint, but try playing it on PC and you'll soon see why it's important: you'll use the matchmaker to join a game mode, then the matchmaker will examine each user to see who is the most suitable host (hopefully it looks for a balance of network latency, network bandwidth, and computing power... but who knows), and then your game MIGHT START. Yes, MIGHT START: it may deem that nobody is a suitable host, and then boot you all back to the lobby. If the host drops in the middle of the game, the game may be interrupted for a whole minute as it determines who should be the new host, migrates that over to that computer, then allows the game to continue... except that you should keep in mind that whoever is picked was not picked as the host in the first place, so the gameplay almost invariably suffers afterwards. Having no dedicated servers also removes some of the experience that PC FPS players have grown used to; if we want to play on a server that's de_dust2 24/7, we get to. Here, the matchmaker demands map rotation (unless you are playing a private game), and pubs are never unified enough to go to the trouble of voting maps down. There are just so many good things about dedicated servers, from reliable uptime and performance to customized experiences to administration. Consoles at the very least sidestep the issue of whether or not anybody has suitable computing power to be the host (as everybody has the same hardware), but they still miss out on many of the benefits of dedicated servers.
- game is $60, and that makes me compelled to spend time with it because it cost me $60.
Miserly praise:
- killstreak/deathstreak bonuses are a good feature, as are customizations that affect them.
- customizing your character perks and putting them into preset loadouts is a good feature... just like it was in MW1.
- the graphics are still good. But though the developers claim that the game's technology is a generation ahead of MW1, the game doesn't seem to really show it.
- the UI will ROCK OUT whenever you level up or get some other big achievement in multiplayer. Perhaps I should be bothered by how that seems to electrify me more than the actual gameplay.
- Map intelligence/counter-intelligence equipment/streak bonuses are good. I just wish that I didn't have to unlock them all.
- it gives me something to play with my friends... but not my co-workers, because they all seem to play the Xbox 360 version.
Maybe after I put in 100 hours into the game I'll appreciate it more. On the other hand, maybe I'll shoot myself trying to do that.
Or maybe I'll go free up 20GB of hard drive space and try playing Dragon Age, instead.
[this message was edited by Spoon on Mon 16 Nov 03:29] |
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| nobinobita 653th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member
| "Re(1):MW2 and me" , posted Thu 19 Nov 13:18
quote:
Maybe after I put in 100 hours into the game I'll appreciate it more. On the other hand, maybe I'll shoot myself trying to do that.
Or maybe I'll go free up 20GB of hard drive space and try playing Dragon Age, instead.
I just finished posting my thoughts on the game's visuals in another thread (they are top notch!) and thought I might as well discuss the other aspects of the game here.
I'm not really the target audience for this game as I don't specifically like FPS games or military games, but I was still able to have fun with Modern Warfare. I thought the story was kind of dumb at first, but then it got so over the top that it became fun. It helps that alot of the game takes place in my home town, making for very surreal experiences like tearing up the National Art gallery. Any old game can blow up the Washington Monument, but it takes some guts to take the action to the streets (which are very accurately and lovingly crafted).
Another plus for the game is that the characters are likeable. It's nice to play a new game where the hero is neither a brooding hard ass or a sarcastic smart ass.
My only gripes about the game are pretty much gripes I have about every shooter. The guns all feel the same and it's not much fun spending half the game wondering who is shooting at you and from where. It's a very fast paced shooter too, so it ends up being more about trial and error than feeling "in the moment". There's really no penalty for dieing over and over again, which stops the game from being infuriating, but also kind of diminishes any sense of danger or commitment for me.
Also, I think it's funny that everyone I know who's bought the game feels obligated to play it for hours every day even though they already beat it the day they got the game.
In conclusion (boy I haven't written that since elementary school!), Modern Warfare 2 is fun and exceptionally well crafted, but you should be playing Demon's Souls instead.
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| Grave 1246th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(2):MW2 and me" , posted Thu 19 Nov 21:06
Not a huge FPS fan outside of Valve games and Halo, but I think MW2 is great fun. It's like Red Dawn 2! That means something.
I don't know what... but something!
quote:
In conclusion (boy I haven't written that since elementary school!), Modern Warfare 2 is fun and exceptionally well crafted, but you should be playing Demon's Souls instead.
But the difference here is that my roommate bought MW2 and he is not going to buy Demon's Souls. He also bought Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin's Creed 2! I like my roommate. He buys fun.
Onsy, to answer your question from XBL, yes, I do think it's that good! And yes, we're still playing... two friends of mine have been over practically every other night to play it, and since we all have extremely flexible schedules and/or severe sleep difficulties to begin with, it's been great! Except right now one doesn't want to give up the controller and the other is asleep...
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