Gaming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 PC Review

Who needs piracy when you've got a cousin that'll lend you it on the 360? /putsupfirewall

 

+1, The game looks exceptional so much so that i have used the term "pretty game" far too much since it's release. The fact i can run this perfectly on my 8800GTX is a big win for me.

 

Wow. A lot of hate in this thread. Certainly an interesting review. Whilst I understand both the viewpoint of the reviewers and that of people not happy with the multiplayer experience, my biggest gripe is the lack of LAN support. That's just ridiculous. Consequently, I will not be buying this game. End of.

 

Greetings!

Yep, seems the best approach.
Single-player is minuscule and multi-player is questionable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_37pYlEc74s

Amazing performance from Activision/IW on the hype machine, though.
Dont remember seeing such a marketing campaign for a game.

 

I think GTA4 had a bigger marketing presence, and it's certainly questionable how well Activision have marketed the game to PC users...

Incidentally, if my numbers are right MW2 on PC sold 840,000 copies on PC...in it's first day (not including Steam). that's only 12% of the 7 MILLION copies sold on launch day, netting Activision (at the guess of $30 on profit per copy on average after retailers have had their share) $210,000,000 in ONE DAY.

That's a bigger opening than The Dark Knight ($158,411,483 opening weekend) or Spiderman 3 ($151,116,516 opening weekend). Gaming - it's big.

 

And just 1/7th of the market share despite that having the largest user base and most difficult to please audience is probably why they've been moving more towards consoles as a publisher...

 

This is not just a PC community, even the logo on this page has a console controller as its backdrop. You can tell by anti PC gamer comments made by console users its also used by console people.

 

Greetings!

Numbers from... ?

 

I think I'm in danger of being the only person in the world who thought the single player was not very good at all. But I did think so, and here's why.

1. Bad controls. No leaning. No ability to get into cover and blind fire. You never get the sense of being 'in cover', because your character is just a lump. You're either hidden or you're in the open, and there's precious little middle ground. If MW2 had the graphics that it has, coupled to the control system of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 it would have been immense. It is really behind the curve on that score.

2. No fire select on the guns. They want me to shoot a guy in the leg to take him alive, great, takes me three goes because I keep bisecting the guy with bursts of fire. Small detail, but annoying nonetheless. It's not even a realism thing per se, it would just be more sensible to have a fire select for rifles.

3. The environments look, feel and indeed are just completely solid. I just did a level in a Brazilian shanty town (I guess the devs watched Tropa De Elite too) and it felt like navigating a succession of brick s***houses. In Crysis (which is how many years old now?) fragile buildings like that would collapse if you chucked a grenade in the window, not here. Equally the airport. I fired a grenade into a shelf full of magazines and nothing happened. Not even a change to the texture.

4. It's been a long time since I was last engaged in a running battle through a Brazilian slum, so maybe times have changed, but it does strike me as a little odd that everybody and his brother is carrying either a completely random weapon or an AK-47 with a state of the art and immaculately zeroed-in US made ACOG sight on top. Suspension of disbelief and immersion, which let's face it are what this game is meant to be selling it's campaign on just go out the window when details like that are ignored. A little authenticity goes a long way.

5. The Humvee section might as well have been a Generation Kill themed expansion pack for classic coin-op shooter Operation Wolf. Again I wonder how the walls of an crumbling Afghan apartment block can withstand minigun fire without so much as crumbling a little bit. The cars exploded though when I shot at the guy standing next to the boot. So that was fun.

6. Stupid plot. Not stupid in a cool way. Stupid in a stupid way. LOL I R IN UR AIRPORT KILLIN UR CIVILIANS does not make an amazing storyline. The OMG THIS MAY SHOCK YOU!!!! warning before you actually start playing is reminiscent of those really crappy horror movies from the '70s where the trailer says a trained nurse will be on hand in case you die of fright. It's really tame and nothing we all haven't done before in any given GTA or Saints Row.

7. Fights are chaotic in the worst sort of way. Rooms that you clear, you physically go into and shoot the baddies within, will be spawning baddies again two seconds after you leave. If it was ninjas I could understand it, but it's just regular goons. Oh wait, you don't clear rooms by shooting the people in them, you clear them by walking past them. Why didn't I think of that?

8. Combat lacks atmosphere. There is no sound of bullets passing by, not much by way of sounds of bullets hitting the surfaces around you. When a bullet passes by, it makes a sound. Get somebody to shoot and you and you'll hear it. Because this is missing from MW2, and because you are basically Robocop anyway, the combat just feels dead. Equally the sure and certain knowledge that fighting is merely an exercise in activating the next script really saps the fun out of it for me.

None of these points is a massive game breaker for me, but I certainly would not consider MW2 a good game by PC standards. If it had multiplayer then yeah, it would be better, but it's not a step forward in my opinion. It's not a step in any direction at all from the first game except for some improved textures and a retarded (in the literal sense) multiplayer functionality.

 

I must say that my inital experience with the game had not been an overwhelming one of joy.

I notice that when you start the game, it is locked to a single resolutoin, you get to the first game menu.... where are the game options, controls etc?

All that is presented is 4 options, co-op, normal, multi, and quit?!

So at this time I am thinking surely the controls and settings are here somewhere, surely they cant possibly be once your in the game ie, in a rendered map part of it.

I start normal mode, the opening video starts, again at this inital locked resolution.
I dont know what res it runs at im guessing 1024x768 or 1280x1024??, but what about folks whom have monitors that dont support this resolution?!! Its a bit short sighted in this respect.

Once in game, you can then access the settings and controls where by one can increase the resolution and graphics settings, ok great, notexactly where I would expect these controls, but lets battle on.

Other things I had noticed, I dont know if this is just me but I found the following keybinds kind of incorrect, but agin it might just be me.

Use (F) and Meele (E) are initaly the wrong way round, I would normally have here Use (E) and Meele as (F).

Crouch (C) and Prone (CTRL) are initially wrong way round, here I would have had these swapped round so that Crounch is (CTRL) and Prone is (C).

The mouse wheel is not bound to changing of weapons.

The mouse view was inverted.


When I joined a multi player server for a wee bit, the first 2 servers that I had tried where rather laggy unfortunately, I tried again and got a nicer smoother server, although also had a like 5or6 less players.

This ran much better, untill the fact that some of the players started calling hax on another player... I thought nothing of this, untill I got killed by said player, several times while behind walls, which im sure the guy did not see me.

Other plays had then started to claime the same.
The fun did not really last that long being owned like this I will admit, folks raged quit, and I shortly followed giving up on MP for the time being.

Possible that there is an aim bot for this already?? I thought IW was making the game unhackable like this to prevent cheats etc???

- - - - -

So overall my intial impressions of the game had not been that fantastic.
Single player mode when you get everything configured and get going seems to be quite fun so far, sepite the lack of real world realisum, ie (as pointe dout before) game objects not being effected by weapon fire, or granades, such as walls and surrounds.

I feel it really is hit and miss, good story/game play, but fails with placement of settings and controls, and of cause the multiplayer side I will need to spend some more time with, hopefully once IW address some of these issues.

- - - - -

 

Complaining about default control binds? Seriously? Just change them. The defaults are exactly the same as they were in COD4. I changed them around too, but you don't see me docking the game a point just because I prefer Crouch on Ctrl and Prone on X. Default mouse view is not inverted.

Spoiler

Though admittedly, the lack of option to switch through all weapons with the wheel is annoying. Again though, it was like that in COD4 too.

 

As I say it could just be me, Its been a long while since I played cod4, so I dont recall chaning them, of cause its no large feat to have to change them, each to there own of cause, but as I stated it could just be my own personal preference, its not something to dock the game in points for

Im merly expressing my experience of it, not complaining about the key binds.

Things like locked resolution at the begining of the game, and game settings only once in a map, and lack of reactive world objects to weapons etc are some complaints mind
I cant really speak for multi player yet untill I have more experience on the matter, allthough my initial perceptions of it has not been to great thus far.

 

Greetings!

Enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_37pYlEc74s

 

Not to worry, the server admin can kickban them...

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

 

That could explain things.... *insert epic facepalm*

 

All that video does is shows is that you can enabled the predator missile's red box around players. It's not an aimbot. Give VAC a few days and it'll be fixed. Anyone who'se played TF2 or CS:S for extended periods will atest to the rarity of hackers - Valve has a decent track record on this part.

There have, and always will be hacks and cheaters in games - it's countering them that's the important bit.

 

After playig MW2 for a few hours on Multiplayer lastnight I must say that IW.net works well enough just get into a game and play in. The whole time I was playing I had only one connection issues, which was actually due to a problem with my wireless.
The game play is fast just like the original MW.

For people who wanna get online and just play, it just works and is great fun.

 

I've been playing through the single-player campaign on X360, and I've been far from impressed. I absolutely loved COD4's campaign, but this is just leaving me cold. Here's why:

1. There's no sense of drama, only action for its own sake. I don't understand why anything is happening. I don't know why I've had to do the missions I've done. The "story", if there really is one, is so badly presented I haven't a clue what's going on, and I couldn't care less for any of the characters. All the reviews I've read, including this one, suggest that the reviewer didn't mind this, but for me it ruins the experience.

2. There's very little variety. Barring the climb up the ice cliff early in the game, there's nothing that isn't just wandering through some passageways blasting away at everything that moves. Where are missions to equal the cargo ship, the AC-130 gunship and All Ghillied Up from COD4? Where are the slow, quiet moments that create atmosphere? The lack of variety hurts the pacing of the game, which just ends up reinforcing point 1 above.

My impression is that IW got complacent and have rather self-indulgently created a series of meaningless blast-fests divorced from any sense of reality or imagination. The basic mechanics for a fun shooter are there, but they were there already in COD4. MW2 adds nothing to the experience, in my opinion.

 

I dont care how good this game is.
Ignoring the wants of it's core players and consumer base by dumping dedicated servers sets a dangerous presidence that other developers will follow, something that must not be allowed to happen.
Unfortunately developers only listen to sales figures, so for that one reason alone I shall not be buying the game.

Yes I may be missing out on a very good game just to make a point, but there are enough other great games out there.
No it's not likely that my 1 loss of sale will make any difference at all, but if enough other people think like me then it might.

 

What makes you think that we're the core market or consumer base though? As Harry pointed out, 7 million pre-orders across just three system and PC has only 1 million of that.