For all the melee Timmies out there...
Well, I finished the single player campaign. I got POed enough that, for the final mission, I ramped down the difficulty to Recruit to get past the point where I got stuck. The reviews were right about the ending; it's open-ended (as in Halo 2 open-ended) to guarantee a sequel in 2 years. Overall, the campaign in MW2 doesn't rise to the level of the original CoD4: Modern Warfare. There are some astonishing visuals that will really stick in your mind long after you've finished the game. But there's nothing as awesomely cinematic about the finale of MW2 as there was in MW.
Don't get me wrong. It's legions better than Halo 3: ODST as a single player experience. But if you were looking for some sort of closure, forget it. And have I mentioned how little I like mini-games like "repeatedly press this button to keep the Nazi from bashing your skull in" which featured in other CoD games? Bashing a button until my finger gets tired isn't my idea of fun. It's a really good game. But there's no way it could live up to the hype it had going for months and months. And, like Halo 3: ODST, the overall package includes some nice Spec Ops action, and great multiplayer "right out of the box", as Fourzerotwo is wont to say.
Is that enough? The jury is still out. I enjoyed the single player, but I was disappointed by the repetition of stale CoD formulas. The storyline was intriguing, but overly complex. Events in the single player sometimes edged on breaking one's suspension of disbelief. Some characters which seemingly got a big build-up prior to the launch did little in the story somehow, and some characters were very, very Hollywood stereotype...
- The Modern Warfare 2 PC Dedicated Server Petition has reached 207,000 sigs.
- Modern Warfare 2 is looking to be the biggest single day entertainment launch of all time. Best headline: Analyst believes a lot of people bought Modern Warfare 2, from Destructoid.
- MW2 PS3 players had a hard time yesterday as, despite over a years lead time, the PSN MW2 Twitter presence servers went down in flames as PS3 players rushed to play. As this link notes, IW Creative Strategist/PR guy, Robert "Fourzerotwo" Bowling, poured oil on the troubled waters via Twitter.
- MW2 launch reports: Times Online has a report on the London MW2 premiere.
- MW2 Reviews: Gamespot. Cnet unboxes the Prestige Edition (the one with the cheesy looking infrared NVGs). Wired gives the NVGs a test drive.
- MW2 merch reviews: The Throat Communicator (which kinda sounds like a joke nickname for Fourzerotwo) on Gamespot.
- MW media reactions: Washington Times hand-wringing from Marybeth Hicks. She says it's a known fact ™ that "young people -- specifically young men and boys -- whose behavior is known to be influenced by extreme violence in video games, are playing these games." Comments from the readers? A hearty round of STFUs. Destructoid comments on Ms. Hicks' column. My reaction: What's the female equivalent of "douchebag"?
- BASHandSlash's Saturday livecast will feature Ars Technica reviewer Ben Kuchera. The cast starts at 10AM US Eastern Time, 14 November 2009.
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