Tuesday, August 31, 2010

View: What I Don't like About MW2 (even though I still play)

Modern Warfare 2

Since I stopped playing WoW I've exclusively been playing this game. I find it to be very fun and a nice change of pace from Halo 3. I made this post to discuss Modern Warfare 2 and also to talk about Black Ops (the next game in this franchise, will be released in November).

Before I go any further I want to point out what I think is not fun about MW2. I will not include any of the weapons or perks anywhere else in this article as I refuse to use them and won't be recommending them.

Bad Aspects of This Game:
  • Care Package/Emergency Air Drop: Basically hand out kill streaks to players who have not earned them.
  • Chopper Gunner/AC130: Blatantly overpowered killstreaks. Stay up entirely too long and net the controlling player tons of kills.
  • Tactical Nuke: This killstreak is ridiculous. It is generally earned by someone camping out a 7 steak. After that the remaining 18 kills are done through air support while they player hides.
  • Any Sort of Hacking (10th Prestige/Multiple Perks/Leaderboard Info/Etc)- Ruins the quality of the game. 10th Prestige should mean something. Right now the vast majority of 10th prestige players (hundreds of thousands) all earned it in a single hacked lobby. Players also hack other parts of the game like having multiple perks in the same tier. And to add insult to injury the players achieve impossible high scores and ruin the rankings for honest players.
  • Thermal: This is just too noob friendly. It's contrast allows bad players to succeed.
  • Heartbeat Sensor: Also noob friendly. Gives off enemy locations (except for the players using the ninja perk).
  • Grenade Launcher: This is probably the worst part of this game. It is the cheapest way to earn a kill. Combine it with some of the cheap perks and it gets ridiculous.
  • Akimbo Anything: Just is not fun. No one in a war would be running around like a maniac with two guns. Especially shotguns.
  • Riot Shield: Very cheap. Sure you can flank them for the kill if you see them coming but if they sneak up on you two little taps results in your death (but snipers can get hitmarkers??). The hits can come very fast if the riot shield player abuses weapon swap mechanics (double tapping Y after the first hit allows for an almost instant second attack).
  • Tactical Insertion: This is normally used by boosters (players join their friend's game, find each other, tactical insert, and feeding the player kills). Get that out and the boosters will pretty much disappear.
  • Claymore: This can be placed in two places by a player with scavenger. It guards the players flanks passively and nets them completely skill less kills and allows them to continue camping.
  • C4: Pretty much like a claymore except players love to place this on objectives and wait for the game to announce that a base is being stolen (just an example) and they just blow up the package.
  • Marathon+Lightweight: I don't think the perks (if used by themselves) is a big deal. But if you combine them it just makes the player too fast.
  • One Man Army: Pretty much only used for nube tube spammers. They will constantly switch to the same set and just sit still aiming at the same spot.
  • Danger Close: Again used by one man army nube tubers to amplify the blast radius of each shot.
  • Commando: Gives players an outrageous melee range. I would say I've been knifed from 3-4 yards away and you can't do anything about it because they basically just teleport.
  • Last Stand: If a player gets a kill shot on someone they should get the kill. They shouldn't magically get extra health. This results in loss for credit on the kill half of the time and others they kill you from the ground.
  • Death Streaks: The whole concept of these is stupid. You shouldn't award a player for bad play. On top of that everyone of them is cheap and overpowered (except copycat). Pain killer is the worst of these. What would normally kill a player barely hurts them. It takes three kill shots with a sniper to give you one kill while the enemy has this on. It's pretty much juggernaut from COD4.
  • Spas 12: This shotgun's range is what makes it blatantly overpowered. It's range is probably double the rest of the shotguns.
  • AA 12: This is just a complete noob weapon. It pretty much sprays an entire shotgun clip in a couple seconds.
  • Tactical Knife/ Melee Lunges: Tactical Knife combined with Marathon/Lightweight/Commando makes for an annoying game. Players just run around running super fast and knifing very fast from an impossible range. Also some knife kills lunge without commando but go pretty much just as far.
  • AT4 HS/RPG-7: These are pretty much rocket propelled nube tubes. Some players just run around with these out instead of using their primary weapons.
  • Thumper: As if we needed another nube tube. Nuff said.
  • Javelin: This combined with Danger Close is pretty much like a predator missile. Players just sit back and lock onto a location over and over. It would be fine if it could only be used on air support.
  • The "New" icon appears after you unlock new things. You would think that's not a big deal but if you don't get rid of it, it becomes hard to find what you just unlocked. It wouldn't be so annoying if it didn't include Titles/Emblems/Challenges.
  • Spawn System: The spawn system on this game can get pretty terrible. Enemies can spawn right in the same room as your on FFA
  • No dedicated servers
  • Joining games that are 95%+ of the way done
Options

In your options you need to change your button layout from Default to Tactical. Tactical switches the buttons for toggle crouch and melee attacks. This is going to allow you to be very quick and mobile with your crouching/proning. A side effect of this is that you will be a bit slower on melee attacks but (unless you're running around with a Tactical Knife class) knifing it is rarely used.

Your sensitivity is a personal choice. If you can succeed with a slower sensitivity, more power to you. I personally play on 5 most of the time. Now, I'm not saying you should get on and just change your sensitivity to that. You need to work your way up to a number that is comfortable for you. Increase it one at a time over a few days so you can become accustomed to each level before changing it. The advantage of playing on a higher sensitivity is that you can point your reticule to a point quickly and you can turn around faster if necessary.

Monday, August 30, 2010