1200 points for 5 maps seems like an okay deal until you notice that two of those maps appeared in the original Modern Warfare.  It’s bad enough that Infinity Ward takes overly long in producing additional content to support their games, but it is far worse to re-charge for content you have already purchased (assuming your bought the first Modern Warfare). In a better world, Activision/Infinity Ward would release 3 new maps at 800 points, with Crash and Overgrown released as a free download. Then again, I’m not a money-grubbing, greedy exec staring at the bottom-line like a mental patient.

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A wonderful surprise awaits Xbox 360 owners today, as the long-awaited multiplayer demo for Battlefield Bad Company 2 has finally arrived.

Bad Company 2 represents the biggest challenger to Modern Warfare 2’s supremacy. Though it is unlikely Bad Company 2 will remove Modern Warfare from its perch, it will hopefully make a large dent in its popularity. My dislike of Modern Warfare 2 is well-documented. I consider it nothing more than Halo in disguise with dopey gameplay, poor balance, sloppy design and worst of all, completely broken multiplayer (on every platform!).

Modern Warfare 2 was a major disappointment.

Bad Company 2 looks like a completely different beast.  Grit, carnage, tactics, teamplay, vehicles, aircraft, objectives….and a completely destructible environment. In my humble opinion, Battlefield Bad Company 2 will mop the floor with Modern Warfare 2, offering far more gameplay and variety, graphics every bit as good (if not better, considering the environmental destruction), and best of all: dedicated servers, so multiplayer will actually be smooth for everyone, not some illusion of balance that Modern Warfare 2 foolishly believes is acceptable.

Congratulations, Modern Warfare 2, you managed to disappoint the hell out of me in 2009, more than any other game I played. I couldn’t care less that you managed to sell more copies than any other title or that you’re #1 on the Xbox Live Activity Chart. That tells me more about the gaming public than the quality of your game. So what is wrong with Modern Warfare 2? Let’s see….

The Multiplayer Illusion

My biggest complaint of Modern Warfare 2 is the horrible net-code used in matchmaking and player hosting. This issue tarnished the original Modern Warfare and it seems to be even worse now. It’s so bad that I simply don’t play the game anymore. PC players know of what I speak because peer-to-peer hosting has been forced on them by Infinity Ward and this really makes the quality of multiplayer suffer considerably.

Now, a lot of you may have never played an FPS on the PC. Your only experience of multiplayer may indeed be on consoles only and as such, you are blissfully ignorant as to what is going on during a multiplayer match. As for myself, I’m an old-timer, someone who spent many long nights tweaking my Quake (or Counter-Strike) config file for the best ping, fiddling with QuakeSpy to reduce my latency as much as possible. Because of this past, I am acutely aware of lag, perhaps more than most.

Here’s the deal: I’d say a good 60-70% of the time I am picked as a host in Modern Warfare 2. I can tell immediately that I am the host as the game behaves slightly different. Sound-effects of an automatic gun become more compressed and, worst of all, it takes nearly twice as many bullets to fell an opponent than when I am NOT hosting. My average score in a typical, non-hosted game is about 20-8. If I am hosting, this reverses to 8-20. Every…time.

This huge discrepancy ruins the game and reveals the overall illusion that stinks up Modern Warfare 2. It tells me that when I think I’m doing well, it’s probably because other players are lagging and when I’m doing bad, it’s not because I suck.  In short, multiplayer is fundamentally flawed in Modern Warfare 2. Those of you with crappy connections will probably never be selected as host so you go on your merry way thinking you’re better than you probably are.

The whole thing is bullshit, especially when compared to Battlefield: Bad Company, which uses dedicated servers to offer a level playing field.  With all of the money Infinity Ward makes, you’d think they would invest in some dedicated servers, but apparently the industry is moving in the opposite direction, which is bad news for competitive gaming.

All The Other Stuff

Lame multiplayer code is enough to make Modern Warfare a loser in my book, but its problems don’t stop there. Lots of little things add up to crap.

Like…

Explain to me the logic of this: You create a collector’s edition of Modern Warfare 2 that ships with a stupid pair of night-vision goggles and yet….and yet….wait for it…here it comes….you don’t include one single night map? You have 16 multiplayer maps in this hunk of junk and not a single night map? This is modern warfare? Last time I checked, the majority of ‘modern warfare’ is conducted at night. Someone please notify our troops in Afghanistan they are doing it wrong.

Then we have the playlists, most of which no one cares about unless it says Team Deathmatch.  Want to play a large team deathmatch? Then you have to pick a different playlist that also includes Domination for some unknown reason. You can’t play one without the other. Infinity Ward has all of these under-utilized playlists and yet they don’t offer the most obvious choices people would want.

Need I mention the painfully short, poorly written campaign? Why even bother with single-player if you’re going to expend so little energy. Just make Modern Warfare a multiplayer-only game and have done with it. If people demand a campaign, release a stand-alone product priced accordingly. Everyone gets what they want and each gang gets their money’s worth.

So you like unlocking titles and tags but hate scrolling through umpteen pages just to find out what it is? Yeah, I hate that as well.  It appears Inifnity Wards spent a whopping 10 minutes designing their awards interface. It’s cumbersome, weak, inefficient and boring.

Then we come to the perks, which in my opinion has destroyed the integrity of the game. With so many powerful perks now, it forces people to “camp” just to keep their kill-streak going. Now I don’t have a problem with camping, but when you have large maps and the overwhelming majority are playing Team Deathmatch, there is simply no incentive to move. This is horrible design, perhaps made worse by Infinity Ward’s lack of focus on solid multiplayer objectives. I reflect back fondly on Counter-Strike, a game that had a simple objective that made all the difference: rescue the hostages or escort the VIP. Players needed to move. They needed to attack or defend. There was a goal, something to do, a reason to move and a reason to get involved. Here, you are rewarded for doing as little as possible.

Modern Warfare 2 just feels aimless and it doesn’t matter if you pick something like Domination or Headquarters, as Infinity Ward is under the mistaken belief that you can design one map and stick all the the game modes on it, whether it be Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch, Domination, etc. None of these game modes are entertaining, evidenced by the overwhelming majority of players sticking with boring old Team Deathmatch.

I could easily nitpick this game to death. Terribly disappointing title from top to bottom. Great graphics, solid sound-effects….but that’s it.

Once again Modern Warfare 2 is making the news and not for a good reason. Unlike last week, which found players exploiting a bug that allowed an individual to explode, this time around we have something more nefarious: a bug that spreads like a virus, infecting all players who come into contact with the carrier.

According to reports, players get “infected” by unwittingly joining a private match hosted by a carrier. They then get hit by the same issue — unlimited ammo and no reloads — and can pass it on if the end up hosting any games themselves. Allegedly, it’s “spreading like an STD.”

This unique issue started out as a mod on the PC version of the game, which we spoke about yesterday. It has been transported to the Xbox 360 and put to more sinister work. Infinity Ward is apparently “working” on the issue, and it appears that Microsoft is wielding its banhammer for anybody caught employing it.

Obviously, Infinity Ward has fucked up once again. Worse, they are threatening bans (once again) for anyone found exploiting their crappy code. How about we ban Infinity Ward for not open beta-testing their product like they did with the original Modern Warfare?

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