Lightloch's Domain

Modern Warfare 2 was released on 10 November, and as projected broke previous entertainment sales records with millions of copies sold for major gaming systems in the first twenty-four hours alone (and even this was only in the North American region alone). As for myself, I eagerly bought it for the PC and would like to share my first impressions of the game and its features.

First of all, controversy and disappointment spread throughout the PC world as gamers slowly learned that the computer version would be “dumbed down” to a mere clone of the console versions, with no dedicated servers, no console, no leaning, player limits imposed on the match-making servers, and the necessity of using Steam and the internet to even play the game. I was irritated myself at first, but now after having completed the single player and tried its other modes, I must say that I am willing to at least partially forgive its seeming shortcomings. Additionally, many PC users encounted various errors upon trying to run or even install the game, such as graphics freezing, setup errors, crashes, etc. I finally managed to get past the freezing logo error by just letting it sit for two minutes. Hopefully patches will be released through Steam soon to fix these embarrasing launch problems.

The game’s graphics seem to only marginally improve upon the first game (as far as maximum settings on PC go), and although it is not a whole world of difference, Modern Warfare 2 is in many ways more refined and cinematic than its great predecessor. But graphics alone don’t make a game, so I’ll go into the other bits too. The storyline is dynamic and engaging, with more twists and turns a speeding Paraguayan transport bus. I relished every second of the gameplay. Another feature that Call of Duty 5 gamers will be familiar with is the Spec-Ops mode, which offers a variety of missions to be completed at different difficulty levels, even offering an online 2-player mode. This feature promises many hours of strategic gameplay. The multiplayer, despite my initially low expectations, seems to function well overall and I find it entertaining (although still a surprisingly different feel in some ways than Call of Duty 4).