Here is my review of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

First, a bit about my background so you know where my point of view and thoughts come from. As a former US Marine Corps Infantyman, I have had years of weapons experiance, CQB (Close Quarters Battle) and MOUT (Military Operations Urban Terrain) trainning, etc. I have always wanted a good, realistic, squad tactical, first person shooter game.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was hyped as the most realistic combat experiance game ever made in the history of ever. Well let's just see how it measures up.

Single Player Mode
Pros
-Audio/Video: The combination of audio and visuals in the game are top notch and are super realistic. It does a great job of immersing you into the game and making you feel as if you are in a realistic combat situation. So real in fact that the audio could also be considered a con as they did not include a "say again" button. Just like a real combat situation, your superior is barking orders at you and sometimes you miss exactly what your objective is.
-Voice Overs: The game uses some familiar hollywood voices to cast an overall top rate experiance such as Keith David (Platoon) and Glenn Morshower (24).
-Storyline: The storyline is pretty immersive and easy to follow, although some of it leaves something to be desired (see below).

Cons
-Weapons Handling: The game does try to give "bonuses" to different firing positions. However, if you use the "sight view" your character slows down to a crawl. The whole purpose of the Spec-Ops weapon sights, is easy target aquisition while moving at speed. Firing your weapon without the "sight view" or at the "ready" position, you can't hit the broadside of a barn. I'm not saying you should be able to engauge targets at 200m at the "ready" but you can't hit someone 5-10m away.
-Squad AI: Pardon my french, but your squad is as useless as tits on a boar. Now I'm not saying I should be able to just sit back and let my squad do all the work, but they can't hit anything. You end up having to kill all the enemies yourself. Sure they may get one or two once they get within 5m of you, but other then that they are pretty worthless. When approaching a danger-zone, your squad mates automaticly take all the good cover positions, leaving you to hang out in the breeze. You cannot direct your team to take certain positions or cover certain fields of fire. It's basicly just you vs. the world and your squad is just there for fluff.
-Storyline: ***WARNING SPOILER*** The game does give a warning at the beginning of the game that some missions may be found "offensive" and gives you the option to skip said missions. One of the missions is that you are an undercover agent working with some russian psycho and you have to go through an airport killing civilians. Now this really isn't that offensive, it's a game, I like the GTA series so meh. What I find offensive is that undercover american takes part in this operation. What is it that they are trying to say? The end justifies the means? Americans will do anything it takes to win even it it makes them just as evil as the people they are fighting? It just bugged me.

Multiplayer Mode
Pros
-Audio/Video: The same effects from the singleplayer mode carry over to multiplayer mode.
-Ranking System: Tracks kills, headshots, rank, etc. so you know how PWN you are, if you care about that stuff.
-Kill Streak Meter: The more kills you get in the game the more powerful extras you get access to, such as the UAV, etc.

Cons
-Servers: There are no dedicated servers for the game. With no acknowledgement of dedicated servers in the future. Only player hosted servers, with the owner having a slight advantage over everyone else with lag.
-Number of Players: With no dedicated servers, the standard 32 players per server has been limited to 16 players per host.
-Clone: Basicly the same as any other multiplayer FPS. A bunch of individiuals running about on their own program. No squad tactics. No fear of dying with the respawn in effect.

Overall it's a decent game maybe a 4 or 5 out of 10, but if you are looking for a squad based tactical combat simulation game, I would stick with the Ghost Recon Series.

Good review of it, haven't played it yet but looks great. The squad AI, an important thing to me, makes me feel like a squad when they're intelligent. I'm still going to have to try it.

I hate this, I'm really good at strategies/tactics and want to try and have my team win.


BTW: I love Ghost Recon. And what do you think about the Rainbow 6 games.

I come from a strong Battlefield and Enemy Territory background so gungames such as Counterstrike and well, now Call of Duty may be 'fun' for 2 minutes but isn't rewarding at all. The Battlefield players are really looking forward to another solid release, not some junk like Bad Company or 1943. COD is not a Republic Commando eh gents?
Ghost Recon is always good but they need to step up again. Advanced Warfighter was underrated and I'm looking forward to a new release.

Actually, a small group of my friends and I work together fairly well. Then again we aren't big Death match/Team Death match players. Just have to find the right groups, get some voice chat going and a decent mode.

Republic Commando was pretty amazing. CoD is a game that I wouldn't mind playing if I was bored or something.

I totally agree, I have always loved Ghost Recon and would love to see more. I'm thing about renting Advanced Warfighter 2 for the ps3 tonight. Kortel, I wasn't saying everyone did it, just the majority. Maybe you, your friends, and I could do something sometime. Still working on getting voice chat though.

Still waiting for my old-roomie to mail me my copy back, add me on the PSN and I'll get back to you. =)