7 months later: Modern Warfare 2

A post-launch review of Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare written by GK's very own Jim Hargreaves. The review details how the online mutliplayer may have rubbed COD fans the wrong way, as well as how the unconventional story-telling was a saving grace for the the title.

[Alcon Caper]

FIX THE ONE MAN ARMY CHEAPNESS! It's ruining my fun!!!!!!!

[FishCake9T4]

Lol. The One man army noob tubes sure do ruin fun even though i still have fun on it. IMO the bet way to have fun on COD is to be a noob.

[booni3]

played bfbc2 once....
and again
and again
and again.....

[claterz]

"IMO the bet way to have fun on COD is to be a noob." change that to "The only way". that's the problem with MW2, I can have fun on CoD4 no matter what map,class,game mode..

[KillerBBs]

It's the only way this game is fun.

Fix Akimbo while your at it. How can you stab with two shotguns... let alone climb over a wall. and why is it if you point the cross hairs at someone feet... pull the trigger and you nail them in the chest. Auto aim is ridiculous with Akimbo.

Stabbing lame. I die all the time when someone cuts the buttons out my uniform or they miss completely.

Fix the quick scope sniper. This is the most unrealistic snipers ever. I'm sure they don't teach sniper in the military to look thru the scope for a spilt second and let the auto aim do the rest.

And why is it, that the people with the most lag the hardest to kill and are often the kill leaders. Should I down grade my IP service.

I love most of the changes from MWF1 to 2 but this game just doesn't play right after the Javelin glitch fix.

[Hank Hill]

^^^^I agree with everything you said but let me add a few.

-Akimbo weapons should be reloaded one gun at a time(taking longer as a drawback) like you would have to do in real life. You shouldn't be able to point two shotguns down to the ground and they magically reload on their own.

-Bullets should be able to break up the knifing animation. I want you to get the fastest man in the world to run at me with a knife and let's see if he can teleport through my bullets and knife me.

-Shotguns should be primary weapons and not secondary weapons.

-Grenade launchers and launchers should replace perk 1 like in COD4 and WAW and that will prevent infinite noob toobs from scavenger and one man army.

-Claymores should explode instantly and kill any and everyone in it's way. Again, get the fastest man in world and let me set up a claymore and let's see if he can run right through it unharmed.

-Cold blooded should keep you off of the heartbeat sensor. You shouldn't have to use a perk just to stay off of the heartbeat sensor.

[toaster]

7 months later: still crappy.

[gamekudos]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thought this.

[Crystallis]

Dont fix it ... get rid of the whole damn thing. People just sitting up top firing unlimited noob tubes is just dumb and cheap..

[zeeshan]

It was crap when they launched it, it's crap still!!!

[PantherDST]

I stopped playing a long time ago, after the glitching, boosting, and cheating effected just about every game I played. Ruined it for me and I havent been back since.

[tdogchristy90]

yep same here. And if it wasn't for the lag I'd be on BFBC2...but alas, I'm on Red Dead Redemption atm.

[Brklynty1]

Still a glitch fest....
Still crappy......
Still at full retail price....
Still over priced DLC....
Still not in my games library....and its staying that way...

[BeaArthur]

That about sums it up. The game received all those great scores and nobody knew what a mess it was going to end up being.

[Hideo_Kojima]

In UK it the price is £25
Not that bad...

[Pika-pie]

Yep, couldnt agree more. MW2 was my biggest disappointment of last year.

I purchased this game for full retail price, completed it in 2days and sold it on ebay straight after.

It was really really bad!

[spektical]

7 months later...

IW broken up
still milking MW2 with $15 map packs
unbalanced perks and killstreaks
too much noobtoobing
too much camping

sometimes when i play MW2, i get a sniper kit thinking i have a motorstrike to get rid of some campers. :(

[gamekudos]

Unfortunately, I didn't mention the IW break up or map pack in the review, though we will be getting a Stimulus review up shortly.

[Baka-akaB]

Expecting anytime soon "Modern crapware 2 Game of the year edition" .. with the two map packs

[sak500]

yes priced at 100$ for limited time only you get nukes for free.

[Hideo_Kojima]

But then again I never had Cod 4 and they look pretty much the same.

[EliteAssassin81]

7.5 is way to high of a score for this game, cheaters and perks has ruin the multiplayer part of this game. The perks themselves are not bad but you shouldn't be able to combine them the way you can on this game. I had such high hopes for this game, but I would much rather play cod waw instead of this game, at least when there was a problem with that game (such as ppl lauching grenades right at the beginning of the match and killing half the other team right off the bat) it would get patch

[HungPHAT]

I'm a huge COD fan and always will be ! But MW2 left a bad taste in my mouth and by far Bad Company 2 much much better in terms of what you can do and so ! I play it once a week 30-60 minutes and I'm done , doesn't have that damn I need this tonight when I get home factor ! Call of Duty: Black Ops will not make the same mistakes that IW did , all in all the single player and spec ops were great and worth the buy ! But online just didn't have that BAM factor like COD4 had .

[jeseth]

But through all the BS, its still fun to play with your friends.

Double Shotguns are rediculous (the average person can't shoot a single shotgun without gun blown back), Commando is the worst perk ever (I'd rather have Martyrdom back, at least you could see it really happening in real battle), Getting a Chopper Gunner in a care package sucks . . . except for when it happens to you!, Heartbeat and Thermal are just for people with no skill . . . . same as GL's.

But, through all this, its still fun. If you get killed by a camper more than once, its on you. "Hey, I just got shot around this corner . . . I'll just go right back there and see what happens". Go a different route and catch the camper on his blind side.

I find most of the complaining comes from people that get beat down in this game. I pretty much use Assault Rifles exclusively and do just fine.

I'd give MW2 an 8/10 now that we've had time to let it all soak in. And unfortunately for the gaming community, the people here on gaming sites are the minority. Everyone loves COD, its easy to play and pretty fun with your buds. Its not going anywhere and no Multiplat shooter is going to dethrone it. Unfortunately thats just the way it is.

Hopefully they tighten Black Ops up a but and get back to the original MW style of play.

[Checkmate]

I play this game everything day with my friends. And yes, it can be very very annoying at times when I encounter the "noobers" or when there is lag. But I find it's a challenge to figure out how to get past it and still kick their ass. That's a very good feeling.

[Saryk]

I still haven’t bought MW2 (boycotter) but played it on Steam’s free weekend.

I don’t know which is worse. MW2 with their no dedicated servers or BF:BC2 with their no LAN play. However I did buy BF:BC2 because it is a better game, slower paced, but better. While MW2 is more fast paced and small mapped, but lacks in the other areas where BF:BC2 shines.

[HemDroid]

One Man Army all the Way
Noob tube my Ass off all Day Long

[cyborg6971]

You have the most skill ever. And a legend in your own mind.

[DarkSpawnClone]

i think from now I'm going to stick to first person shooters that are exclusive like kZ3 and R3 :P whit the exception of Battlefield and Battlefront,might check out crysis.unless COD:black ops is a change for the better,i hope it has a zombie mod, i play that a lot lol,Der rise FTW!!! i love the Reaper and upgraded ray gun!!

[zeddy]

the most frustrating, unfair and broken game i've ever played.

[AliTheBrit19]

Lol damn it's been 7 months already?

[XxMajeSteRxX]

now that's a cool game

[KillerBBs]

am I the only one having problems killing people with lag in this game. Should it be the other way around. Where the advantage in having a good connection?

[crapgamer]

It started out great, then came the glitches and problems. Right now it's as fun as it's been in a while, still over 1 million users daily on the 360 version, so it's still got the most players of any online game.
The party system is still messed and my biggest complaint. You can never get a full party in a room together, sometimes players in your party wind up on the other team or not in the room at all.
I'd say it deserves a 9 or so now. Still better then BFBC2 etc..

[Moragami]

Massive clusterfark 2

[IHateYouFanboys]

seems like im in the minority but im having more fun with MW2 now than when it came out.

theyve fixed all the glitches, theyve added region filters meaning i get full green connection every single match, and theyve balanced everything out well. the ONLY thing that needs changing are the commando-stab distance and how you can do it while getting shot, and the quick-scope sniping.

apart from that though, im having a blast. 4 level prestige and cant see myself stopping any time soon. its an arcade shooter, was never meant to be anything more - treat it like that and youll have a ball. go into it expecting slow paced tactical realistic gameplay and of course youll be disappointed. you dont play Madden if you want a soccer game, so dont play MW2 if you want a slow tactical shooter.

[gamekudos]

Thanks for the response. It's great to hear that so many of you are longing for Activision to steer the series back to its original roots.

[BlitzPoisonPunk]

Still a little high score for my liking but at least the issues have been addressed in this review rather than just glazing over it like a lot of people did on release