Modern Warfare 2, Prestige edition, -or- hey, blow your wad on this!

[Pennilenko]

As much as I smile over that, these bastards are legitimizing IW's point.

Paying customers need to be screwed because pirates?

No, I am saying pirates are douche-bags. The industry never needed to get to this point if it wasn't for pirate douche-bags enabling developers to be douche-bags. It's a damn vicious circle.

[jakonovski]

No, I am saying pirates are douche-bags. The industry never needed to get to this point if it wasn't for pirate douche-bags enabling developers to be douche-bags. It's a damn vicious circle.

The fuck it is needed, they're making a shit product that punishes only the paying customer. Pirates are having dedicated servers. I cannot. Hypothetically of course, because I'm not touching this turd of a game.

[jakonovski]

GAH

[Venkman]

No, I am saying pirates are douche-bags. The industry never needed to get to this point if it wasn't for pirate douche-bags enabling developers to be douche-bags. It's a damn vicious circle.

Piracy for piracy's sake is different from piracy that corrects some arbitrary/ill-informed/complacent decisions. Or, Blackbeard vs Robin Hood 

So, yeah. Suck it.

That's just Steam accounts. Go check the server list in the MP game. Tallying that would make CoD4 #4 in that list.

This doesn't disprove your point about Steam complainers being the same people playing it. But it also indicative of the game in general.

[Nightblade]

No, I am saying pirates are douche-bags. The industry never needed to get to this point if it wasn't for pirate douche-bags enabling developers to be douche-bags. It's a damn vicious circle.

The fuck it is needed, they're making a shit product that punishes only the paying customer. Pirates are having dedicated servers. I cannot. Hypothetically of course, because I'm not touching this turd of a game.

I don't think it's quite the simple, the work around floating around now requires you to be logged into steam; meaning you have to have a legit copy to use the work around ("at your own risk")... for the time being at least.

Of course, this is was my half assed google search yielded, don't hold me to this.

[GenVec]

No Russian might be.. affecting as a self-contained experience, but the context surrounding the 'event' is completely, absolutely, unforgivably preposterous. The singular justification for an invasion of the continental United States? Yeah okay. The entire motivation is slipshod and nonsensical -- as are the consequences. It is therefore a failure as a sum of its parts, and doesn't say very much more than literal murder pornography.

I'd say if anything it saved my opinion of Infinity Ward being capable of producing something a little more morally complex than another "hooray America!" shooter. An invasion of the United States by Russia is ridiculous for many reasons (today at least), but I still thought Red Dawn and World In Conflict were entertaining spectacles, and they focused on the exact same premise.

If you think a subtle exploration of the concept of blowback and the moral ambiguity of a CIA cover operation gone wrong is nothing more than "murder pornography", I think you're just not reading deep enough into it.

[Zane0]

A 'subtle' exploration of CIA blowback? Really?

Really?

The 'blowback' as envisioned is contrived and completely ridiculous because it's not realistic in any way to plan an airport massacre with the expectation that this will first stick entirely to an American CIA agent and second trigger the invasion of the fucking Eastern Seaboard by the entire Russian army. This thought process has zero connection to the real world and the entire scenario therefore has zero significance beyond its representation of the explicit killings of hundreds of helpless civilians in cold blood. Which, again, is affecting for its sheer brutality, but says nothing about our modern geopolitical condition, or the ethics of realpolitik, or anything of the sort.

Guh. If this was utterly without pretension it would be another thing, but it astounds me, absolutely astounds me that anyone can defend this scene on "the artistic merits" or "as a trenchant critique" or "in the wider context of the plot". No. The plot is fucking retarded. The technical verisimilitude of the event is impressive, if you could call it that, but it is not an artistic creation. What is wrong with these people? I say fuck gamers as a whole for this bullshit self-indulgence on the pretext of "advancing the artistic sensibilities of the medium". Ajhhhgggkk. Good God I can only imagine what is coming next.

[ahoythematey]

The invasion starts on the east coast?  Russians are going to go half the way across the world to invade the US when they could practically just jump across the Bering Strait (especially now that Palin is no longer keeping watch)?  Is that for real?

[Zane0]

You fight them on the outskirts of Washington D.C. first. Maybe they invade other places as well? I don't know. I quit after I started calling predator strikes down on Russian paratroopers at a North Virginia strip mall.

[SnakeCharmer]

Game.

[GenVec]

I can't imagine a nation would ever falsify a terrorist act against itself in order to provide a pretext for war.

In all seriousness though, as I already said, Russian troops landing at DC is ridiculous. Russian ultra nationalists staging an attack upon their own country in order to drum up support for war is actually quite imaginable, and not half as transparent as some of the historical precedents I can think of off the top of my head. I mean, who would ever think that anyone would ever believe the Mukden Incident?

I'm hardly calling MW2 a masterpiece of modern storytelling. I'm simply saying "No Russian" was strikingly atmospheric and enjoyable, and a triumph of plot and ambiance over the repetitive crap that's usually handed out.

[Mosesandstick]

I found it curious that they gave you the option to 'skip' the level and not do anything. I can understand you finding the level atmospheric, but enjoyable? The first half of the level is shooting civilians and watching them die.

[NowhereMan]

I honestly don't see how it's a triumph of plot unless the absence of any real gameplay=plot. The level is basically an interactive cutscene and while that's not entirely new in CoD games at least others make a show of you being a participant in some grand cinematic battle. This one starts off as just massacring civilians (which you don't even need to take part in, your squadmates are capable of doing it all on their own) and seems to move on to some arcade shooter type section with you shooting and grenading Russian SWAT guys. Die Hard II has a fuckton more artistic merit than this. I'm not utterly opposed to the thing but frankly it seems gratuitous and I imagine is there far more for the sake of generating controversy and interest than any real importance to the plot.

[Phire]

I'm simply saying "No Russian" was strikingly atmospheric and enjoyable, and a triumph of plot and ambiance over the repetitive crap that's usually handed out.

Does not compute.

MW2 (And the CoD franchise really) is THE definition of repetitive crap handed out each year to the frothing masses.

[waffel]

MW2 (And the CoD franchise really) is THE definition of repetitive crap handed out each year to the frothing masses.

What about the Madden series of roster-update games?

[Ookii]

MW2 (And the CoD franchise really) is THE definition of repetitive crap handed out each year to the frothing masses.

What about the Madden series of roster-update games?

He's the token guy who rails against everything popular because it makes him seem discerning and interesting. There is no talking sense with him.

[NiX]

MW2 (And the CoD franchise really) is THE definition of repetitive crap handed out each year to the frothing masses.

What about the Madden series of roster-update games?

He's the token guy who rails against everything popular because it makes him seem discerning and interesting. There is no talking sense with him.

Wat? He's right. CoD does repeat the same crap over and over. Heck, in MW2 it was blatantly apparent with how many people died the same fucking way and each time you were helpless from the ground. Cliche and we've seen it all before.

As for the Madden comment, don't be a retard. It's football.

[K9]

War, war never changes

[LK]

I enjoyed Modern Warfare 2's story and execution.

You guys didn't.

I'm willing to leave it at that!

[Teleku]

Yeah, was playing this at a friends.  Single player is bland.  Wasn't impressed with the game at all, beyond the graphics.  I might actually take the time to pirate it and fuck around with pirated(IE Good) multi player, but the game itself is pretty derivative and boring.  Definitely not buying it.

[tgr]

Installing COD1 and COD2 now, which were "game of the year" in 2003 and 2005 I believe, with 24 and 27 "epic single player missions". Let's see if there's been any improvement over the years apart from graphics.

I'm thinking no.

Also, aww how cute. 2 CDs.

[LK]

Not being in World War II. I consider that a monumental achievement for the franchise.

[tgr]

Not being in World War II. I consider that a monumental achievement for the franchise.

That'd be your opinion. I am curious why you think WW2 is such a bad setting though. The setting doesn't really matter that much to me, apart from the fact that the rifles in WW2 were more of a single shot deal, with a few (slightly inaccurate) automatic weapons so they make combat slower and harder.

So anyway, CoD1 doesn't want to start in 7 it seems like, something about a buffer overflow. CoD2 does start, so I'll postpone fiddling with getting CoD1 working for now.

Anyhow, played 2-3 missions quickly, and the thing that struck me was that it felt like a proper battle, and I could lean and take advantage of cover (oh my god what innovation), and I was reminded why I could happily start up a CoD2 SP mission and just run it again, and again. Kind of like SpecOps, I suppose, only by the time I got to MW2's specops (I went for the SP missions first), I was a bit fed up with it. I might try again in a few days, but not holding my breath.

I didn't feel like I'd stepped backwards, even though there were a few issues that I noticed (like being unable to shoot enemies which are jumping over obstacles for example), but everything felt more visceral and skill-based. When I shot someone, it felt like I'd done that, not that I'd just sprayed tons of bullets in a direction and scored a hit. And if I missed, it gave me a proper "ohshitohshitohshit" feeling, because I had literally a 1-2 second delay between each shot, so I had to make them count. And the ebb and flow of battle seemed to feel more logical in CoD2 so far, more of the "take it easy, you're actually a soldier in an army, not a 1 man rambo machine whom is supposed to run around going 'YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA' all the time", which was more a feeling I got from MW2.

The only thing I got from the favela level in MW2 was "holy fuck this is a clusterfuck" and "hey, why the fuck can those guys duck and shoot over cover while I can't?!", which again didn't make me feel like I was playing at my best.

If you liked this, fine, good for you. I felt like I went up a notch on the quality scale when I went back to CoD2, not down a notch (well, except graphics, but in a twitch game, any graphics beyond "good enough" doesn't really matter), and that makes me a sad sad puppy. I expect improvements in sequels.

[Teleku]

The hate for the WW2 setting is from the fact that everybody and there mother was making nothing but WW2 games for awhile.  Setting isn't bad, it just got stale.

[Mosesandstick]

Without going in to something massive de-construction of the game, I think the most obvious point you could say about MW and MW2 is the best bits happen when you're not in control. IW still has their flair, for example the bit where you end up staring at a guard's ghostly, dying eyes after you kill him. The game really plays like a James Bond movie with a couple more allies.

[LK]

The hate for the WW2 setting is from the fact that everybody and there mother was making nothing but WW2 games for awhile.  Setting isn't bad, it just got stale.

This. Omaha Beach as the new Hoth, etc. At least CoD5 went the Pacific Theatre but I'm fucking tired of killing Nazis and I'm fucking tired of being in Europe.

At least with the fighting in places like the North Virginia Strip Mall, I felt like they were trying to say something with the fact you were fighting it out in Americanized versions of bombed-out commercial centers. Having the military guys take these locations extremely seriously ("RAMIREZ! TANGO BEHIND THE BURGER HUT SIGN!") felt a little humorous and entertaining beyond normal level design, more so than anything else I experienced.

Rio de Janerio and the favellas also felt very cool and interesting in its vibrant, obviously Brazillian color scheme and design. Good urban fighting.

[tgr]

The hate for the WW2 setting is from the fact that everybody and there mother was making nothing but WW2 games for awhile.  Setting isn't bad, it just got stale.

I didn't find the other WW2 titles as good as CoD1/2, so I didn't really play them much. Guess that's part of the reason I'm not "oh my god another WW2 shooter, /wrist"

Rio de Janerio and the favellas also felt very cool and interesting in its vibrant, obviously Brazillian color scheme and design. Good urban fighting.

It wasn't a bad setting, but it felt smallish, claustrophobic and very chaotic. Although to be fair, that's what fighting in a favela looks like it is like as well (having watched a documentary on BOPA I think they were called). But this doesn't change the fact that the AI was still leaning while I wasn't (which pissed me off as I too wanted to use cover effectively), and that to me ruined most of the experience.

I guess you're just more set on how things look than I am, while I'm just more set on how things play, and in that regard I personally think they've taken a step or two backwards with MW2.

[LK]

The play always felt solid to me, especially when compared to other turds. I may have impeccably low standards. But my attention on particulars in a single player campaign isn't as strong compared to a multiplayer competitive or sandbox (Dawn of Discovery) environment. Effective cover has a different meaning in multiplayer vs. single player where the AI can usually pinpoint any exposure, even if you were leaning. But yeah, there could be better cover systems, but I work with what I'm given in most cases.

I imagine there was a lot of internal pressure to do things a certain way given how this franchise is being developed and pushed towards a more yearly release schedule instead of consistent, quality releases that are farther apart and garner more respect for the developers and their games. Just look how the name played out. "It's Call of Duty 6!" "No, it's Modern Warfare 2! *cheer*" "We need Call of Duty on there. *whine*"

[Phire]

MW2 (And the CoD franchise really) is THE definition of repetitive crap handed out each year to the frothing masses.

What about the Madden series of roster-update games?

He's the token guy who rails against everything popular because it makes him seem discerning and interesting. There is no talking sense with him.

What makes you think I hate popular games? Some of my favorite series (God of War, Final Fantasy, Halo, Uncharted, Resident Evil) are the most popular gaming series out there.

And from someone who plays literally, and NiX can attest to this, every shooter out there MW2 just feels rushed with nothing memorable about it.

[LK]

The Price reveal was pretty memorable to me. But you'd have to be invested in the characters for that.

[Nightblade]

http://www.modernwarfail2.com/2009/11/17/unlocking-hidden-mw2-game-types/

Apparently, the planned DLC comes already bundled with the game. Unlocked via the console hack. It just gets better and better the more time passes.

[tgr]

Erm. I'm starting to wonder if they've come down with a bad case of the stupids.

Lawsuit under the pretence of breach of the DMCA in 3, 2, 1 ...

[LK]

Ok, yeah, that's pretty fucking terrible.

[snowwy]

Add that todays small patch did nothing what so ever except disable the console-hack.........guess fixing XP-'sploits etc ain't all that important.

[jakonovski]

A trojan is plaguing IW.net users, apparently spreading through a host vulnerability. This thread is supposed to have better info, but I can't get it to work: http://www.infinityward.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=181646