Modern Warfare 2: First Thoughts
Finally got my mitts on a copy of Modern Warfare 2 last night and had a pretty good time. The majority of my time was spent playing co-op in Special Ops mode. It was challenging and fun at the same time. It requires a much closer collaboration with your teammate than multiplayer and allows for more of a safety net then single player. It was fun to go through the play list of levels because there is an abundance of variety - not every mission requires you to go from point A to point B.
I spent less time in Multiplayer, but wasted enough time to recognize that XBL and this game are not designed to handle 2+ million different players at the same time. I was in a large group of players for 20-30 minutes and we were never able to get a game going. Tons of time was wasted waiting for the matchmaking system to get everyone together and the system just out right failed. Fortunately, we split our team into a much smaller crew and had far better luck getting into matchmaking then. I was the only level 1 player in a room full of 15-35 ranks. Still, I was able to stay in the middle of the pack for most matches and had a strong enough final game to wind up as the top player in my squad.
Overall, the maps are good... but perhaps too detailed for their own good. By having maps as open and vertical as Modern Warfare does, the game struggles to justify its mobility engine. In an era where players can jump onto any ledge in HALO or climb to the top of a skyscraper in CRACKDOWN, MODERN WARFARE 2 limits what you can climb on, over, and through. For a game meant to be the premiere multiplayer and shooter experience, this is a major miscalculation. Furthermore, add this problem to the game's lack of destructive environments (and I mean really destructive), keeps this from game from being the best multiplayer experience out there. Is it great? Abso-frickin-lutely. Is it the best? Nope.
I have only played through the first mission on single player and it was tutorial.
Chillin'
