I Stand Corrected

After giving in selling out and purchasing Modern Warfare 2 for the 360 to play with some 360 friends (I 3N3MY I from http://backseatgamers.blogspot.com/) I realized how mistaken I had been about this game. Bobby Kotick still may sturggle public relations is still a huge douchebag but Infinity Ward definitely made a great game. In the end, I just had to purchase this game for the PC as well so instead of boycotting, yes, I purchased the game twice.

The single player is very short but full of fast, furious action, several twists and turns, and a cliffhanger ending that makes you shake your fist in the air and curse Infinity Ward for the time it will take to make Modern Warfare 3 Call of Duty 35. Without ruining too much, it's an action movie, a rollercoaster ride that will leave you wanting more. I already played through it twice. Unfortunately, the Regular difficult on the PC version was easier than the Recruit version on the 360. At least, for someone like me who is used to the mouse and keyboard. For those of you who scoff at the difficult level I play on, I play single player games for the story, not to be continuously killed by A.I. enemies with aimbot programming HAXORS! on Veteran difficult. I guess it gives you something to brag about but online is where the challenge or lack thereof is at.

The co-op is enjoyable as well though I have yet to play it with another person. I've done several solo and they are fun but quite challenging. You also see some different scenarios from the single player campaign, such as the fight across the bridge.

And then there is the breath of fresh air that is the multiplayer which more than makes up for the short single player campaign. It appears that Infinity Ward listened to gamers' legitimate complaints and created a multiplayer experience that puts the shooter back into First Person Shooter. The first Modern Warfare, in my honest opinion, replaced shooting with frags, air strikes, frags, juggernaut, aimbot choppers, frags, spammage, frags, noob tubes, frags, and martyrdom frags. With everybody running around with 3 frags and another one not included in their inventory but magically appearing as martyrdom when they died, the game was full of people without skill 10 year olds who could only get kills by spammage and not actually shotting someone with a gun... in a First Person SHOOTER.

The perks are balanced better, there are more guns, deathstreaks help you comeback, awesome maps, killstreak rewards not adding kills on to the next killstreak reward, titles, emblems, and numerous weapon unlocks all create a experience that can only be summed up with one word. Scrumtrulescent. I have 49 hours into the PC multiplayer and I'm level 54 I think and I'm still addicted. It's been a long time since I was truly blown away by an online FPS game. Modern Warfare was addicting until you realized how full of spammage it had become. World at War kept me occupied but I could only play it for an hour or so before it became annoying.

On the downside, there are no dedicated servers. The matchmaking isn't nearly as bad as I originally expected it to be but it's still kind of... meh. It's nice to all join the same side but we are constantly leaving the so-called servers to make a party as another clan member jumps into Ventrilo and wants to play with us. And with smaller groups, maximum of 18, we are forced to play Ground War if we have more than 6 people in our group or we must split. Then again, the game splits us up anyways sometimes. Then there are the disconnects which makes the game pause to find a new host (very similar to the occasional crash of a dedicated server). And let's not forget the hackers that still proliferate PC gaming no matter what Steam or IW or Punkbuster or any other alleged "security" does. And without dedicated servers, we are forced to leave or play with the hackers as they can't be kicked/banned. I'm still hoping that IW opts for dedicated servers which I doubt or maybe they'll utilize them again in the next Call of Duty after they see the success of dedicated servers in Bad Company 2.

Regardless, Modern Warfare 2 is a fun and addicting experience that we'll keep me busy for quite some time. It's enjoyable and rewarding to earn a new title or emblem or complete a challenge or achieve a pro-perk (which is pretty easy). Unfortunately, the problems with the game are ones that could've been easily avoided had Infinity Ward decided to follow in the foosteps of numerous other shooters on the PC. Hackers continue to taint PC gaming. Having started out with Battlefield 2 with rocky play completely sucking and working my way up to be the player I am today, I still have yet to grasp the appeal of replacing skill with hacks that are usually bought out of pocket or using a hacked dedicated server to "rank-up" and earn Prestige Level 10 in no time at all. It's great to be called a hacker when you are playing so good (with skill, not hacks) that you receive that kind of immature reaction. Someday, maybe the hackers will realize they can't hack their way through life and will actually have to develop skills and learn things, very similar to improving gaming skills...

...but let's address hackers in a later blog.