Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

My favorite competitive FPS games are this, and Battlefield 3. Quickscoping peaked in this game, and the glitches and hackers just gave the game character and made it funny. Back in these days when the thunderstorm took your wifi network down and you and your friend just split screened some spec ops, and when you had no friends, you played a great campaign. But the treasure in this game came when you had friends and your wifi was up. Great maps, fun gameplay, fun game modes, same old toxic COD community.

This game had too much shit going on: killstreaks that never ended, sniping was too easy, people would just play this game all day for nukes.

This game was ridiculous but also terrible, introduced a lot of bad habits like camping which have kind of been sorted out.

The campaign is a classic though, probably the best in the series, and the nuclear level was amazing on multiplayer. This game went for gold and got bronze in multiplayer though, just too loony-toons and out of control.

Many regard it as a classic but they must've been the ones stomping. Sniping is such a chore, the ultimate snipe game.

One of the most memorable FPS stories. The characters are memorable and so are their surprising deaths. Overall, it is standard FPS action. The multiplayer and maps are outstanding and will forever remain nostalgically pleasing.

Modern Warfare 2, for better or worse, is one of the most popular multiplayer FPS games of all time, but its legacy has definitely been tarnished as a "case zero" for the current stagnation of the genre a decade later. The game undoubtedly is a fun and competent twitch shooter but replaying it now, especially the campaign, it is a huge mess of an ADD distraction. I remember the multiplayer fondly at least.

The multiplayer portion of this game added a lot of the customization that defines the Call of Duty series nowadays, but it ruined a lot as well.

Modern Warfare 2, or MW2 as it is sometimes referred to in official material, offered some highly memorable maps to play on, like Terminal, but it also shrunk the skill gap compared to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Modern Warfare 2 added a few more options to its seminal "create-a-class" system from COD4, but a closer inspection revealed an ominous trend. Some of the additions gave a damage boost to the player's weapons (the danger close perk), or gave the player a very unfair advantage (the infamous commando pro perk). Despite these negative additions, the game was still very playable, but could be very unfair. This unfairness emanated not just from the gameplay itself, but from the behind the scenes matchmaking. The matchmaking was a particularly strong complaint from the PC community.

Modern Warfare 2 marked the point where the Call of Duty PC player base lost interest in the series for good, because of the switch to p2p (peer-to-peer) matchmaking exclusively for all online multiplayer lobbies. Not only did this eliminate the far less-laggy dedicated server option for PC players, it removed any hope of running online mod lobbies, and private servers. The announcement of matchmaking replacing dedicated servers was met with hostility by the PC community. Many quickly pointed out that Left 4 Dead, a game that also used peer-to-peer matchmaking, was incredibly inefficient, sometimes causing players to remain in lobbies searching for other players for minutes at a time. MW2's matchmaking fared about as well as L4D's. PC players abandoned the franchise in droves, and the franchise was relegated to joke status on PC within two years. Many PC players would point to this issue as the beginning of the "consolization" of the video game market, though the trend had started far earlier than that.

MW2 is a game that i have a lot of hate toward, despite investing quite a few hours in it. I think the main issue is that i bought it after experience the ifrst MW, and that game is for me what the series should always be striving for,

MW 2 is the bloated sequel, that adds a lot of new content without checking if its quality wont ruin the overal package. I dont have many issues about the actual campaign, as its very cinematic and has a nice pacing to it. I dont recall nearly as many levels as the first MW, except the infamous No Russian level, but its still a nice way to introduce players to the meat of the game, which is the multiplayer.

In addition to competitive multiplayer there is coop in this game. Its however very basic, and its basically a horde mode that seems that it was quickly patched in. I feel that the shooting mechanics arent quite suitable for this sort of mode and hitscan enemies that can kill you fast. Its definitly much less enticing than the zombies mode.

Its really the competitive multiplayer that i have an issue with. In terms of level design, there are still some great maps, but on the whole i feel that there is a step back. The maps are more crowded with grass which makes it harder to spot enemies, and i dont feel that this is beneficial to the high intensity of gameplay. But the worst is the new perks and killstreaks that completly kill any semblance of balance that the game had. The first one had martydom and grenade launchers, this one keeps that and adds even more broken things. The grenade spam and airplane streaks and airstrikes make snowballing very easy to do with little skill. This means that the game can easily end up in spam killing, and its generally very annoying. It just doesnt feel fair, and because of that its really frustrating to play.

Its a terrible sequel to one of the best FPS.