Infinity Ward has done it again. They made a direct sequel to their famed Call of Duty 4: modern warfare game. This time they are just calling it Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and leaving out the number 6 in the Call of Duty title. I’m guessing they do not want to confuse the gaming public too much with different numbering systems. This is supposed to be the first direct sequel game in the Call of Duty series; where some of the major characters from the first story are also in the second story. It’s similar to the sequel setup in Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2. This game has barely been out for a week and already has caused controversy and huge sales and maybe even huger (if huger is even a real word) sales because of controversy. And yes I was there too for the midnight massacre on November 10 at a local game store.
On Nov. 9, at around 8 p.m., a friend and I went to two different game stores, looking for a particular game and found no lines forming for the game. We thought this was cool; until we went to a third game store. This was the actual store my friend had pre-ordered his copy of the game. Let’s just say he chose the wrong store.  We were at that third store at around 8:30 p.m. and the line was already forming for people to pick up their copy of the game. When we went inside, my friend made a comment to the store clerk, “I didn’t know there was going to be a homeless convention here today?â€Â The store clerk did not know how to reply, because he already knew what it looked like; people were already leaving trash on the sidewalk and setting up grocery carts as mini tents. My friend and I ended up returning by 12:15 a.m. and the line almost wrapped around the building! Take a look at the pics I took on my phone. This was no Union Square like the release in New York, but there was a fair amount of people for one little game store, especially when there were 2 other game stores about 10 min away. We basically became the “end of the line†folks and finally purchased the game about an hour later. I did not go to sleep until 8 a.m. that same night/day, because I got sucked into playing the campaign mode.
My first thoughts on the game were that of amazement. The general feel and play control is totally the same as the last game and in some aspects, vastly improved upon. The campaign story mode will draw you in and gives you the feeling of not wanting to stop to play. There is a feature that will allow you turn your point of view into Third Person Mode. The co-op mode will have you and your friend playing all night. The system link and online modes both are rock solid.
You can tell that the story is totally fiction; yet it makes you think in the back of your head that this “conspiracy theory†could totally happen. The realism of the game is that good. Throughout the whole campaign story mode, you will be thinking or yelling aloud plenty of WTF’s, OMG’s, and HBM’s (Holy Bowel Movements)! As soon as you place the game disc into your system, you know you’re in for a treat, because you get big fat warning that states:
DISTURBING CONTENT NOTICE
Some players may find one of the missions disturbing or offensive. Would you like to have the option to skip this mission?
(You will not be penalized in terms of Achievements or game completion.)
Yes, ask me later
No, I will not be offended
Of course I chose “No, I will not be offended.â€Â I just made sure kids were not around when I actually played, but I wasn’t really sure when it would happen. When it does happen though, you surely will know what they are talking about. Without trying to spoil the story for anyone, in one of the levels you basically get cornered into a moral dilemma. Do I kill civies or not?
This question actually came up in our last Warzone podcast at the Bit Bag and some people were actually putting there moral foot down and stated that they will not kill any civilians when the time comes. I really did not know it was going to be a big deal, until I saw the fox news clip here on The Bit Bag. The guy they chose to represent us gamers for the counter point really farkled it up for us. This guy was a total numb nuts and misrepresented gamers across the globe by choking on national television. Score one for Rupert Murdoch and the conservatives at Fox News. I recently attended an XBOX 360 LAN party and actually asked everyone there this same question: to Shoot or not to Shoot civies? I was surprised at the responses. I asked about 14 people and almost half stated that they will not or did not shoot any civies. One guy thought that he would get an achievement by not shooting any civies, ended up not getting one, and then went through the level again shooting them. There was a lot of heck ya’s and fuck ya’s, but a lot the players stated that they will attempt to follow the direction of the game, whatever that may be. The totals ended up being 8 for shooting and 6 for not shooting. Check out some of the vid clips I took on this subject while I was there. When I went through the level, I was actually confused at first, I mean really confused; but as the level progressed I figured it out. We all just have to remember that this game is just that, A FREAKING VIDEO GAME. So please people do not get evercracked on this game and give more ammo for the conservatives to use against us.
Overall the story was very good and will have your heart beating at different rhythms throughout the game. The music is very orchestral and movie-like. One thing I did notice is that there isn’t much variety in the music. A lot of the music gets repeated and semi-remixed in later levels of the game, but will still draw you in and make you nervous at different points.  But I will give kudos to the team that did the audio effects for the game. At the party, I did not have any speakers to listen to sound, so one of the co-organizers of the thing let me use some special surround sound headphones (Tritton AX360). You basically hook up the “optical out†of the xbox into the “optical in†of the converter box for the headphones and boom!, instant surround sound blasted right into your eardrums! You will hear shit that you’ve never heard before. I actually heard frogs croaking in a swampy area of one map and another guy using similar headphones stated that he actually heard flies buzzing around one of the oil drums on another map. The sound is very directional and can actually help you in the game. The guy sitting next to me had speakers that weren’t marked “left†and “right†and we were able to position them correctly by having him look left and right in the game and heard which speaker produced what sound in what direction. If opponents are walking behind you to melee attack you, you can actually hear their footsteps in the rear.
The graphics are tight and fast. I didn’t notice a single slow down throughout the whole game; and there were some crazy arse parts in the game in which you would think it would slow down, because the enemies keep coming out at like freaking roaches! According to the back of the manual they used “software technology†licensed from Id Software.
I actually had a great opportunity to experience the multiplayer function of this game to its fullest extent. This game scales very well in an internal LAN configuration. At the LAN party I was at, we all played in the same virtual room using the system link option. One person would create the room, the other people would just join the game and we would go at it. One suggestion, do not allow people to stream music from their PC to their XBOX nor download any torrents on the same LAN that everyone else is playing on. It will suck the shit out of the bandwidth for the game and just cause many hiccups all over the place. Just trust me on this; this is what happened at the party I was at. We did not have enough people attend to max out the room at 16, so I really don’t know if the max size of the room is really 16. If you look at the gameplay video I took, it actually shows a new multiplayer game mode that is new to Modern Warfare. Yes, it’s capture the flag. I had asked around and everyone stated that they loved playing that mode. Why this very basic FPS game mode was not included on the first game is a mystery to me, but it’s here now and people will start stealing flags and giving frags for a long time to come. One thing I did notice was the fact of picking up the flag; it allows the flag carrier to continue shooting his guns and blasting people out of the way. This is different compared to the halo multiplayer and some other similar games, where the flag carrier cannot shoot any weapons.
The bonus system is simply crazy. You will get points towards achievement for assisting people, for creating diversions, for being the lame duck, and for crushing people with the riot shield (which is really freaking fun and effective on domination games if you ask me)! They have many different killstreak options to choose from, you are not just stuck with jets and a helicopter. This really adds variety to the game and makes the visuals less boring to look at, even if you are on the receiving end of an ac130 attack or nuclear bomb. The game has also included a new emblem and title system; basically more eye candy for your pop up name tag for your opponent to see when he kills you. One of the funnier name tags that I saw was called “Joint Ops†and this thing had cannabis leaves surrounding the name tag.
One of the cool things about the multiplayer modes is that the game separates your stats/achievements for playing online and playing internally. So what happens is this: all the weapons and modes that you unlocked while playing online cannot be used whiled playing internally. It’s almost like playing with two different sub-profiles, a system link profile and an online profile, but with the same account. So everyone at that LAN party basically started at Fucking New Guy, level one and progressed to higher levels as we played system link more throughout the night. Alas, the game does give you choice; it will allow you to use your online profile stats and weapons in a system link match, but will not allow any leveling up to happen to that part of your profile. Everyone in the party just stuck with basics and kept their two sub-profiles separate.
The additional perks, equipment, and weapons in the game add much more variety and just make it much more fun. One thing I did learn, though, is that everyone’s favorite weapon additive is the thermal scope. Smoke grenades simply do not work with this baby attached! Something that made happy was the addition of the AA12. This fully automatic shotgun was displayed on the show Lock n’ Load, and is a real life weapon. I remember talking with my friend about this weapon before this game came out and told him that I had hoped this weapon shows up in the new Modern Warfare and BAM!, it did. Another thing I learned at the party was the fact no one found a way to have more than 1 grenade in your inventory. Perhaps that will show up later. Everyone loved the new options.
In this sequel, a new multiplayer mode was created and it is called “Special Ops†aka spec ops. This is a multiplayer mode that is similar to the Horde mode on Gears of War and Firefight mode in Halo 3: ODST. This is a mode that no one seems to know what to call but can only describe as something similar to another game. Well folks, I have an answer to this conundrum! From this point on, we the gaming community shall call it…………… (trumpets blaring) : Human Vs. Computer or HVC. Yes you heard it first here at THEBITBAG.COM people. DO NOT FORGET THIS! DO NOT DENY YOUR ROOTS MY FAMILY! Let me use this in an example sentence:
That new game that came out last week had a freaking awesome HVC mode!
Well, the HVC mode in Modern Warfare 2 does not really have any side stories, as many were led to believe. The mode takes maps played in the campaign and online multiplayer modes and re-configs them to allow 2 humans to be on the same team versus the computer. Each level will have a number of subsequent “waves†and the difficulty will become harder and harder. Gone are the days of me just watching my friend play online while I go visit him at his house and switching the controller every now and then. We both now play against the computer and both have fun at the same time. Playing split screen multiplayer with just 2 people is just plain boring. My friend would screen look and would kill me continuously. With this new HVC mode, we’re both on the same team and I won’t get my ass whooped as much. There is one special ops mode where one player is in the AC-130 and the other player is running through the wilderness killing bad guys. The strategy becomes something way different from the norm. There is another level that is similar and one player in the helicopter shooting the mini-gun and the other is running through a damn American suburban neighborhood. Trust me, there were many WTF’s and HBM’s shouted out that night when we found this out. But the only downfall for the HVC in this game is the fact that only 2 players can play at the same time. You can have 2 players play on the same xbox or play across online by inviting a friend to play with you. You also cannot connect via system link to have 2 xboxes and 2 screens play in
Special Ops (we attempted this at the LAN party). This is a co-op mode that will last for a while, because of the different difficulties and unlocks, and will definitely add tons-o-value to your $60 + tax investment on the game.
I had purchased a box of energy drinks for the LAN party and found out something interesting. It was a 4 pack box and the cans had the MW2 digital camouflage laced around them. This energy drink company was promoting MW2 and listed various MW2 prizes. One of the prizes listed was the download code for the new map pack that was slated to come out in spring of 2010. So I am guessing, come spring of next year, we will all have to purchase a new map pack that Infinity Ward will release on us for the game, unless one us wins that download code from the energy drink box.
There were many things I disliked and thought that could have been easily included in the game without any extra energy spent in doing so. If you look at some of my pictures as you are reading this you will sort of understand my frustrations. The first thing I noticed when I purchased this game was the weight and how light it felt. After feeling it, I kind of foresaw that this game was going to have a P.O.S. 5000 (Piece Of Shit) instruction book. I opened it up and found out I was correct, but I found another issue. The actual case got cheapened up to a drastic level. There were holes cut out in a daisy flower fashion on both sides of the game case, right where the game disc is locked into place. The freaking case looks like a damn losing, empty game piece from the game trivial pursuit. I don’t know if this was a Microsoft decision, an activision decision, or something else; but I do know that some company somewhere is saving like a billion dollars on shipping and NOT passing the savings on to us, joe consumer. I had showed this to my friend and he comedically replied, “Well maybe they needed to save money so that they can put more money into developing the game!â€Â It’s like they cut out holes exactly where the damn game needs its protection the most. If the game is ever dropped or sat on or stepped on while still in the case, I’m freaking toast! The second little erk and jerk that is killing me is the damn instruction book. It doesn’t really say shit about the game, just a basic controller map and how to choose options. On the back it says:
“To view a full length manual, including credits, visit www.activision.com/en_US/manualsâ€
When you go to that damn URL you get this error:
404 – Not Found
WTF is up with that shit! Then I went to the home activision site and chose Modern Warfare 2 in the games list and found that the manual tab for the game info section is actually grayed out! I actually went to the activision support site and logged in a question about this and wanted know how to actually acquire a “full length manualâ€, which in turn emailed their support staff. The first response that they gave me was “We do not give out hints for the game.â€Â They then went on in the email to tell me to go to my local game store or bradygames.com to purchase a strategy guide. I had to go back to my original entry in the support site and reiterate and update my question, basically asking the question again, but in moron-ese this time. This time they got what I was asking and replied:
“There is no “full length” manual available from activision. Refer to the previously linked walkthroughs for information. Should you have any further need of assistance, feel free to contact us again via email or phone.â€
Basically they told me that they lied on their own manual and that I am shazbotted. All the knowledge I acquired on the game was basically through a trial and error, hunt & peck method. I just hate going through a game, playing it and picking up a new bonus that unlocks some weird game mode, and not knowing WTF it is. I mean Halo did a better job of making an instruction manual and that manual still didn’t reveal everything, but at least the links that bungie gave actually fucking worked and gave nice elaborate info about the different modes. There was a third erk and jerk for me in the freaking game. Again on the back of the P.O.S. manual, there is a 20 character code and it states right above the stupid code:
“Enter this code at InfinityWard.com for exclusive accessâ€
I go to the freaking site and there is no place or prompt for me to input this crazy 20 character code to get “exclusive access.â€Â You would think a well put together game like this would have a decent manual, no dead links, and an easily accessible place to enter a “super secret squirrel decoder code†to get some damn info!
Now onto the complaints about the actual gameplay itself. Here is a riddle that can never be answered:
Why does Infinity Ward allow only one player per xbox to play online in the XBOX Live multiplayer mode?
They did it Call of Duty 4 and they did it again here in this game! They have the technology to allow more players play on a single box. It’s proven by the split screen mode; it allows up to 4 people to play locally on the same machine at the same time. They already pissed off people by not allowing co-op play on the campaign mode. This move I understand; they stated that it would have taken too much away from the story and it probably does. I mean, even the editor-in-chief of xbox magazine was asking about the question: why wouldn’t they allow co-op campaign mode. But to allow up to 4 players on a single box to play across the internet is possible. Halo 3 does that shit all freaking day. I’m tired of going to a friend’s house only to wait for my turn to play online. It defeats the purpose of “social gaming†and that is what they are attempting to go for, because they have more multiplayer modes than single player modes; special ops and multiplayer options outnumber campaign options. I should be able to login as an XBOX Live guest and we should be able to kick ass together in a non-ranked game on the internet. And if I am not mistaken, Call of Duty 5 allows this and co-op campaign. Why can’t Call of Duty 6 have these options? This question was brought up at E3 by the G4 T.V. guys and the Infinity Ward reps skirted around this question. After watching that, I knew I was not the only one wondering about this. Even while waiting in line to purchase this game, the people waiting in line were asking this same question and hoped that it allowed more than one person to online at the same time. It’s a great riddle, because no one can answer it.
On a scale of 1 -10, I would give this game an 8.5. Don’t get me wrong, the game is phenomenal. Some may think this will be the greatest multiplayer game of all time. To me, there are too many little things that this game missed. I paid $60+tax for this game, received shitty customer service from Activision, was lead to a dead link, was not allowed more than 2 people to play the HVC mode,  and the game did not allow me and my friends to go play on the internet at the same time on the same box. I feel like that dude from the PS3 commercial (Kevin Butler VP of Enough is Enough), called “upset girlfriendâ€, when he starts talking about bathroom aroma therapy candles and yelling out “Come on!â€Â I mean “come on†, if you can put the option to change from First Person mode to Third Person mode (which most FPS gamers do not like); you can allow more than one person to be on the online multiplayer at the same time.  “COME ON!!!!!!!!!â€
[video http://blip.tv/file/2869128 nolink]
