Modern Warfare 2: The Initial Verdict

cherryghost

So, yeah. I gave in to all temptations this morning and purchased Modern Warfare 2 for the PC this morning. Yes I'm angry about the dedicated servers, yes I'm angry about no leaning available, but damn, I was looking forward to this game so much that I couldnt walk away from it.

I ran the game on two different specced machines:
PC 1: Q6600 @ 3ghz, 8gb DDR2 RAM, GTX260, Windows 7 64bit Ultimate, 1680x1050 res.
PC 2: Pentium D 2.8ghz, 1GB DDR2 RAM, HD3650, Windows XP 32bit Pro, 1280x800 res.

Install was fine, smooth, no problems. What struck me straight away is that theres no flashy install interface which struck me already as 'its just a console port, they made no effort whatsoever with a flashy autorun file'. Launched into the single player campaign. Wasnt able to change the graphical settings at all until the first level (training) loaded. Ran flawlessly on PC 1 on max settings, and flawlessly on PC 2 on medium settings with no AA. Damn well impressive I must say, Call of Duty 4 struggled on those settings on PC 2 I might add.

Single player is rather short. I had it completed in 4 hours. But there is more of a replay factor than Call of Duty 4, I definately WILL be playing it again. The field of view was a bit of a hinderance, especially with PC 1. It was ok though, not a huge deal. While the single player was short, I must say it was rather good, and again, the end took me slighty by surprise.

Now, onto the multiplayer. I was dreading it to be honest. Such negativity to come from an element of a game undeniably had me thinking such negative thoughts on the game. Decided to start doing a ground war, which is the largest player vs player size you can use. On IW.net now, hit 'find game', and within 5 seconds the map was ready to launch. Impressive, but how will the gameplay stack up? The game loaded and I was right into the thick of it. Domination on a map called Invasion (Theres a voting procedure before the map launches what mode and map to play, I didnt pay attention to it at the time). I am impressed. Level design is great, whilst not huge, it was enough not to end up having a campabout with such little players in the server (9v9). Grenade spam wasnt an issue (YET!) and that was reassuring (FOR NOW!). Knifing is now E and flashing is now Q, while UAV/AS etc is 4. Took a while to get used to, but all was good.

The latency. I genuinely did not know who was hosting the server at all. Most people had 3 bars out of 4 on their ping, including myself (on a 1mb connection by the way, its the most I can get out here). I had no lag issues at all, and the eventual topper in domination had 3 bars of ping. There were a number of players with 2 bars, and that didnt cause any problems either. Very impressed.

Joined another match. Payed more attention to the matchmaking this time. Looking closely on the top right, IW.net pings your system and throws you into a match with people with matching latency, rather than random throwabouts. Theres an option to mute everyone in multiplayer before you join, so that was great. Both PC 1 and PC 2 ran multiplayer in full swing without a hitch, nor did I notice any lag spikes.

Now, the negatives. Single player was short. Inability to open console is annoying, but bearable. FOV takes some getting used to. I still want Dedicated Servers as an option running alongside IW.net. Recoil on the weapons I used was huge. Turret guns are blatently unfair, albeit weak and easy to destroy.

All in all, I was expecting disappointment, but ended up pleasantly surprised with the game. While for now the game is definately not aimed towards competitive Call of Duty, it does bring back the element of fun to the game.

Me thinks I'll stick to COD4 for competitiveness, but Modern Warfare 2 reigns supreme for enjoyment and no doubt will I play this game, ALONGSIDE COD4.

Kinetic^

cherryghost wrote: »

Knifing is now E and flashing is now Q, while UAV/AS etc is 4.

Wait, you can't change the buttons?

heebusjeebus

I managed to get a few MP games under my belt this morning before work and I agree with everything cherryghost says.
I was underwhelmed with the layout of the multiplayer options, very very basic and obviously a screenscrape from the consoles. Not being able to see a ping was annoying at the start.
The first "quickmatch" I tried was deathmatch and the server loaded instantly. I was very surprised as I tried this last nite around 2am and didnt get anywhere (I thought it was the NAT issue).
Gameplay was fine, the 6v6 or 9v9 games are probably suited to the size of the levels. There are a lot less cheap deaths when there are so few players in a server.
Create a Class gets unlocked at level 4 so its not too unfair for new players.
I didnt play long enough to try any of the perks or even any of the killstreaks.

The omission of lean is bizarre. I don't see how it could unbalance anything and I chalk it down to lazy porting from the consoles.

All in all, I'm enjoying the multiplayer experience and cant wait to get back to playing this evening.
Single player is fine so far (bout half way through), really no different from CoD 4.

Br4tPr1nc3

you can change the buttons.
the whole options layout is the same as the rest of the games.

cherryghost

Br4tPr1nc3 wrote: »

you can change the buttons.
the whole options layout is the same as the rest of the games.

yeah i was about to say that, but i was just stating the default buttons. its ok the way it is. reminds me of the Rainbow Six seies layout. grenade was Q :P

Kinetic^

No, it needs changing!

What about private matches?

cherryghost

Kinetic^ wrote: »

No, it needs changing!

What about private matches?

gonna give it a whirl now with denny

Kinetic^

Ok cool, report back immediately!

cherryghost

Roight, you can create private matches, and its a case of inviting friends from steam onto the match to play, or right click your friend and join game. password can be set etc.

As for customisation, you can pick whatever mode, disable ALL perks if you wish, as well as headshot only, and 'hardcore' (which is actually minimum health and stuff.

Playing the match with denny felt like a lan game, im not sure whether it was online or not, there was no sniff of IW.net pinging either of our computers, so its probable that my pc hosted a non dedicated match. we're in the netcafe atm :P

i hosted a private match online though with some uk peeps, seemed to go through the same process. not sure who actually hosted though

Ricky91t

Hey any chance you could do a speed test?PC 2 is worse than my laptops spec,And I was considering picking up COD 4 used,But if MW2 runs better I might look into that

Problem is,My ping/connection isn't the greatest so If i could see your stats I'd be able to figure out if it's worth my while..

Cheers

Btw the site is http://speedtest.net/ (incase you didn't know )

cherryghost

im at work now, but i'll post my net connection later at home

EDIT: fyi, its 1mb connection, with 128kbps uploads. its pretty rubbish. i normally have about 90-110ms ping on servers with lag spikes of 150ms. im sooo far away from the exchange

heebusjeebus

I've got the 3mb UPC Broadband with 256k upload.
Playing this morning and I had 3 green bars in the first "server" I joined and 4 green bars for the subsequent games.
I noticed plenty of people with 1 red bar but didnt see any lag with them.

Did IW define what each green or red bar represents?

Blazer

Nedved85

Iv got the game, installed steam (First time, registered, bla bla) now its downloading updates/game for both single player & multiplayer...its taking forever...wtf i have the dvd version ??? Whys does it need to download more ? im getting 750k + and its only at 6% after 10 mins..

Blazer

Hell..I'm just installing it and it's telling me 24 minutes to install the ****in thing...:eek:

heebusjeebus

Nedved85 wrote: »

Iv got the game, installed steam (First time, registered, bla bla) now its downloading updates/game for both single player & multiplayer...its taking forever...wtf i have the dvd version ??? Whys does it need to download more ? im getting 750k + and its only at 6% after 10 mins..

I saw steam apply a small update after I installed it but it took 10 seconds at the most. That's very strange...

Nedved85

Its like i only installed Steam.. it doesnt appear to have installed the main gamefrom the dvd at all?

Blazer

try doubleclicking on the dvd and starting it again..
did it ask you for the serial key?
if not then it never got to the game.

Nedved85

I put in the serial key, shortcuts are on the desktop..

See picture here

http://s801.photobucket.com/albums/yy295/Nedved1985/?action=view&current=Steam.png

Blazer

something really wrong then...mine just finished...took about 30 seconds to unlock it once installed...

Nedved85

aha, for some reason it was downloading the whole game from steam, installing properly from the dvd and should be all set to go then, any lads up for some games let me know, Steam id Nedved1985

cherryghost

i can confirm that you can enable lagometer in mw2

Steam/steamapps/common/call of duty modern warfare 2/players and open config_mp

and change seta drawLagometer "0" to 1 instead and voila.


now you can see for yourself how IW.net actually performs.

EDIT: I also see that maxclients is set at 18, and default is set at 12. Me thinks that these can be easily altered. It just seems to be COD4 in sheeps clothing.

Blazer

Nedved85 wrote: »

aha, for some reason it was downloading the whole game from steam, installing properly from the dvd and should be all set to go then, any lads up for some games let me know, Steam id Nedved1985

sent you from steam id airblazer

Nexus

not impressed with the install at all. Steam is a pile of crap. a serious pile of utter tripe. i have the dvd and it tried installing from steam??? its rediculous. I then stopped it and opened the dvd drive and closed it and hit reinstall when the setup menu popped back up. It then loaded it from disk. took ages( i have a high end machine). Now in steam its dling updates. im sick of it already and might just go back to quakelive. Looks like a serious step back already and i havent even pld it.

IgsTer

Seen this post this morning and my mind got completly turned around by it, just had to rush out and buy this

I dont like supporting these guys for what they did, but I think its just too hard to miss out on.

Hopefulyl I dont regret it.

Ravage1616

My steamID is Ravage1616, if anyones up for a game!

pwwillia

steam servers still too busy when i go to load it:( load of balls

poncho000

WTF is going on here with this steam ****e! I have the exact same situaiton as nedved. I bang in the dvd, stick in my keycode and now steam wants to download the whole shaggin game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but it wont even do that because their "servers are busy" FCUK OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PLEASE DEAR GOD HOW DO I INSTALL THIS FROM THE DVD FFS
I AM ONE SERIOUSLY ANGRY CUSTOMER

ShadowHearth

well it took awile to install, but come on its 11gb of data!


Was playing online, and all this matchmaking system is not that bad! I was expecting it will be crap, but it actually not... I wasnt fan of those respawn kill fest,hely and airstrike spams on 40++ people servers which were just xp farms... So its not a big loss for me...

I know for some people it killed community, but you can still play with your lads...


And yeah, hadnt any lag problems or host issues so far...

poncho000

ShadowHearth wrote: »

well it took awile to install, but come on its 11gb of data!


Was playing online, and all this matchmaking system is not that bad! I was expecting it will be crap, but it actually not... I wasnt fan of those respawn kill fest,hely and airstrike spams on 40++ people servers which were just xp farms... So its not a big loss for me...

I know for some people it killed community, but you can still play with your lads...


And yeah, hadnt any lag problems or host issues so far...

how the hell did you get past this steam crap?!?!

ShadowHearth

poncho000 wrote: »

how the hell did you get past this steam crap?!?!

came home, Poped thed f*cker in, and press install game...

dunno i just did not had any issues, and i have steam for ages and loads of games on it. I actually like idea of STEAM, but i allmoust newer buy any games from it, as its rip off.

IgsTer

Having that steam crap meself, says system is too busy. Its Stupid, why did they need the crappy steam integration.

cherryghost

IgsTer wrote: »

Having that steam crap meself, says system is too busy. Its Stupid, why did they need the crappy steam integration.

- the punkbuster

+ the VAC


thats the only reason i can think of anyway :pac:

Xyo

i've been playing multiplayer with 2 friends for most of the day and have really enjoyed it.. the only problems so far has been two host migrations which only took like 10-15seconds apart from that it's been lag free cod

pwwillia

whats the big deal? pop in disk-install-input key-game works.......why does steam need to do anything at this point bar acknowledge your purchase

ShadowHearth

Xyo wrote: »

i've been playing multiplayer with 2 friends for most of the day and have really enjoyed it.. the only problems so far has been two host migrations which only took like 10-15seconds apart from that it's been lag free cod

i was playing from 00:30 till 8:00 in the morning, then had some sleep and went back on killing fest. In all this time i hd only one host migration, which took 15 secs max. Lagg free gaming aswell...

pwwillia

reinstalled it and it seems to be doing its thing now....hopefully be playing it soon

IgsTer

Same here, I think the issue is at the moment the steam servers are getting overloaded due to people downloading the data instead of installing from the disc they have, thus when people go to install they only get to the activation keycode stage and then they hit an error. All you have to do then is to make sure there isnt any local data stored and then hit reinstall when your disc spins up again, the disc should then takeover and install

Sierra Oscar

pwwillia wrote: »

steam servers still too busy when i go to load it:( load of balls

Try following the solutions outlined here.

Bicky

I read that the pc version of the game will have a multiplayer similar to consoles. Was this done so that users different platforms could play together?

BlitzKrieg

Bicky wrote: »

I read that the pc version of the game will have a multiplayer similar to consoles. Was this done so that users different platforms could play together?

hahaha

god no...

I still hurt from the days they let dreamcast players play pc players in quake 3, those pc boys didnt treat me too nicely, made me squeel like a pig behind the quad damage shed.

IgsTer

Just had a quick go there, played for around 20 mins. Ill admit its not that bad.

Seems to be just like CoD4 once you get into a game. The FoV was the first thing I noticed yeah, should be able to get use to it though. The lack of customisation isnt good but Im sure we can mess around with the config and hopefully it wont kick us from games.

BlitzKrieg

Just had a quick go there, played for around 20 mins. Ill admit its not that bad.

hmmm

phlegms

Is anyone else having issues installing the game?
Mine keeps crashing on the install when it gets about 2/3 through on the first disk..

Hellm0

phlegms wrote: »

Is anyone else having issues installing the game?

Yeah I sure am, issues of conscience. As in I refuse to buy the game. Like so many claimed they would:(

IgsTer

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

hmmm

lol fixed!

I know, im a muppet for caving in but just couldnt resist on the day

humanji

I got to play this a little earlier and I loved it. I only got to play the second (or maybe third) level in the snow and it was fantastic. Great effects, great animation, great sound and great action. I can't wait to give it another shot.

I also got to play the MP a little and it's great so far. Simple to start a game and it's possibly the first time I've ever ran any sort of multiplayer game on my home PC without any sign of lag. I don't know how any team players found it, but for a casual player the MP is a dream. No messing, just straight into the action in seconds.


edit: oh and I also had issues installing it, but I have those for every Steam game since Half Life 2. Steam is a pile of sh*te.

pwwillia

finally got playing it and wow! i just finished the brazil section and what a cool game:)

2smiggy

pc gamers not finding to too bad after all :eek:

playing on the ps3 myself, can still play with your friends, just cannot play against your friends for xp points. can still play private matchs though

Adriatic

I might actually buy it now once I get my desktop pc fixed, the hard drive with vista kicked the bucket after 2 years exactly, constant bsod on start up. MW2 sounds good so far. :pac:

el dude

Ridiculously short single player campaign. What is there though is extremly well done even if the "story" non-existant.

I know this is all about the multiplayer for many gamers and fair enough, just wish the developers spent a bit more on the single player side, maybe hire some good writers to work with. Because throw in a good engaging story, and you'd have something truly very special indeed.