Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 debuted last week in a huge splash that Activision is calling the biggest launch of anything ever. Unfortunately, this debut is a bittersweet one for me and my brethren who play on PC. Not a month ago, I was sold as a day one purchase of this game. However, many unexpected, negative things have cropped up about the game, and it is no longer even on my purchase list. Were it not for a roommate buying it for his Xbox and letting me get a quick playthrough of the campaign in, I'd not even have this review.So what are these blights on the PC version? Firstly, MW2 is priced at $60, $10 above the standard for a new game on PC, which is unheard of; I do not want to support a price hike. Secondly, Infinity Ward, the developer of MW2, has stripped all control away from the end-user with MW2. All support for dedicated servers has been replaced with a matchmaking service, which means there will likely be no user custom content. And worse, within the service, multiplayer has been capped at 9v9. One of my favorite things about other war shooters, like Battlefield 2, are massive battles like 32v32. Taking that away from me was what really did MW2 in for me.
Once again, I played Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox. As I mentioned in my prior review of Call of Duty 4, console FPS isn't really my bag, so my thoughts on the game only touch base with the campaign. And with regards to that, Infinity Ward's got a pretty sweet formula down (for those unfamiliar, it involves lots of explosions and dramatic narratives). It kept me pretty enthralled throughout the entire game, though that's really not long, maybe 5-6 hours tops. Unfortunately, the story in MW2 is extremely convoluted and left a good experience somewhat marred. The gameplay hasn't changed much from the original besides the addition of a few new interesting weapons and technologies, but when you're making a sequel to a near-universally acclaimed game, there isn't much you need to innovate on. One other small bright note though; the grenade spam so prevalent in the first game seems much toned down here.
Moral of the story; if you really need some Modern Warfare 2 in your life, get it on the consoles. Activision is attempting to set a very dangerous precedent with this release, and it is my fear that it will be successful. If not with MW2, than perhaps with publishing Starcraft 2? I know I have not the willpower to resist that purchase. Oh well, only time will tell.
