Spec Ops is an excellent addition to Modern Warfare 2’s offerings. Taken from missions from the single-player mode and even the original Modern Warfare, there’s a mesmerizing amount of variety for both solo players and those who prefer to fight with a partner. Spec Ops missions are divided into 5 categories, with each category getting significantly more difficult with a variety of different enemies to take out. Infinity Ward challenges the player by requiring that they unlock the rest of the Spec Ops missions with stars. Stars are obtained by completing missions on certain difficulties. Completing a mission on Normal, Hardened or Veteran will grant players 1, 2, or 3 stars respectively. Cooperatively, individual players are able to chose different difficulties, however if the mission is completed, it will grant both players the average of the corresponding stars.
Fighting alongside a friend in defending a restaurant from multiple waves of enemies only to have multiple armor personnel carriers and helicopters appear seems like a desperate situation and surviving it on the hardest difficulty is one of the most satisfying moments that a Call of Duty title can produce. Traversing the contaminated fields of the level presented from the famous “All Ghillied Up,” mission, picking off not only opposing infantrymen, but enemy snipers who are just as hidden as you are is filled with an added intensity that will undoubtedly induce some in-your-face remarks towards the AI. Too intense, one might say? Relieve yourself and a teammate by racing down snowy plains or run through the streets of Brazil, defusing bombs while evading the enemy militia. There are several missions to enjoy with a unique challenge presented in each. Overall, Infinity Ward’s first step into co-op is a successful one.
Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer is certainly different from that of its predecessor. While it retains the concept of persistent ranks, which grant the player new weapons, equipment and perks, the system itself is completely different. Aside from the many new weapons players will now have to earn while leveling up, like the SCAR and FAL, players are no longer restricted to just a pistol as their secondary weapon. Shotguns, launchers and machine pistols join standard pistols as options for a secondary weapon. Shotguns, though somewhat demoted to a lesser slot, are much more viable as range has been increased. Launchers are great weapons to have around for extra explosives or if you’re using a Stinger, for destroying the helicopters and other vehicles of opposing players. Equipment is a new slot that now houses many of the explosive perks of Call of Duty 4. Aside from frag grenades, players can now choose claymores, C4, semtex, the Tactical Insertion (which gives the player the opportunity to chose their respawn point) as well as a few other items. Needless to say, the amount of alternatives to the frag grenade has decreased the likelihood of grenade spam, which many would agree is a fantastic thing.
Perks have been rearranged, renamed and improved upon. With perks in Modern Warfare 2, there is the standard version of a perk and then there’s the pro version of it, which stacks with the standard version, granting the player the benefit of both bonuses. Bandolier, which gave players in Call of Duty 4 more magazines with each gun in their custom class, is now the pro version of the Scavenger perk. Pro perks are obtained through completing the challenges for the standard version of that perk. Getting the pro version of Danger Close means taking out opposing players will a certain amount of explosives.
The one downside about the perk system in Call of Duty 4 was how unpractical a few of the perks were. Unless you were playing in Hardcore mode, using anything but Stopping Power or Juggernaut put you at a disadvantage to a good portion of the playerbase. Eavesdrop, which allowed the player to hear the communication of the opposing team, had little use as a perk as well. There’s very little tactical significance in hearing about an opposing player’s experience at the club last weekend. That’s been corrected to an extent in Modern Warfare 2. While the standard versions of some of the perks may seem unappealing, it’s their pro versions that make them worth using. The SitRep perk, which reveals enemy explosives and Tactical Insertions, may not sound great as a standard perk but its pro version makes enemy footsteps louder, which makes it ideal for every situation. While Stopping Power is still a perk, Juggernaut has been removed and somewhat replaced as a streak bonus if you get fragged by the opposition several times in a row. With this change, Stopping Power is still going to be the most frequently used perk but the introduction of the pro perks is a welcomed addition to the multiplayer as it incentivizes the use of more varied load outs.
The way players utilized killstreaks bonuses have been expanded. Though there are 15 new killstreak bonuses, players can only choose and utilize 3 of them in matches. The most interesting of them all is the Care Package which consists of dropping a large crate at the position you’ve indicated with the use of a smoke grenade. In these cares packages could be almost any perk. Requiring a killstreak of 4, Care Packages could have the 11 killstreak bonus of being the gunner in a helicopter allowing the player to control the machine gun and personally wipe out their opponents or they could simply have a UAV, which depending on whether or not the player has equipped the UAV as a bonus, could prove worthwhile or useless. It’s an interesting item to have. There’s some time in between calling in the care package and the it actually arriving to the position you’ve indicated. Meanwhile, the helicopter flying it in is displayed to everyone on their radars and after a short while, is marked with its respective icon on the HUD. The player could run to the care package and lavish in its benefits, they could also leave it for teammates or they could leave it as bait for the enemy as the opposing players are able to take it as well. The rewards of care packages don’t contribute to existing streaks but it’s very entertaining to have a package dropped and contemplate what its contents have in store for the player. Just don’t get hit with it.
One change that many players will undoubtedly notice is the overall design in the maps. The maps are much more elaborate in Modern Warfare 2, with an emphasis on real world locales. Walking into an area could mean having to keep tabs on multiple windows, obstacles and rooftops. One map that couldn’t stress the point more is Favela. Set in Brazil, Favela is literally a map of buildings and alleyways. A good portion of the buildings in the map have a first-floor, a second-floor and a rooftop associated with it. Those who chose to navigate its narrow pathways will have to remain wary of the enemy in windows and rooftops. The many buildings of the maps are sometimes a benefit. Players will have little choice than to dash into a building as an enemy Pave Low scours the area. In many aspects, remembering map layouts will be much more important in Modern Warfare 2.
There are many contrasting factors of Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer that make it an improvement over Call of Duty 4 but not enough to completely replace the original. Experiencing the multiplayer offerings of Modern Warfare 2 on the PC was, to say the least, a mixed bag. Modern Warfare 2’s integration with Steam brings plenty of advantages that Call of Duty 4 didn’t have. Players profiles in Call of Duty 4 were saved locally, thus reformatting required that the player had a saved copy of their multiplayer profile on hand for the reinstall. Steam corrects this by saving the stats of players with its cloud system, alleviating the worry of players who do the perpetual formatting.
Dedicated servers and server browsers, which were the primary methods of playing the multiplayer in every Call of Duty title on the platform, have been removed in favor of Infinity Ward’s very own IWNet. The system utilizes a matchmaking and party system similar to that of what one would find on Xbox Live in conjunction with Steam. Instead of choosing a server, players chose from a select amount of playlists ranging from Team Deathmatch, Sabotage, Domination and many others. The majority of these playlists are restricted to 6v6. Though 9v9 is available, it is only accessible through the Ground War playlist. To add to this, the Ground War playlist is a mixture of just TDM and Domination. Hardcore mode is restricted to just TDM and Search and Destroy. One annoyance was the lack of the ability to choose maps. Like most players, there will be maps that you enjoy and maps you dislike but you won’t be able to choose what map you play. Players can only vote on skipping maps proposed in the lobby. Those who enjoy matches between small teams in a controlled environment will find much to be pleased about, however it’s a step down from being able to run a 40-slot dedicated server that could run just about any combination of game modes in Call of Duty 4.
The matchmaking itself however, is often incredibly fast at finding other players to join your match. As a game is starting, it divides the players into their respective teams. For example, if you’ve just joined a lobby that finished a match, it will divide the players based on their scores from the previous match to ensure that the teams are somewhat balanced in terms of skill, so that each team has a certain amount of high scoring players. Players who have plenty of friends or team members to play with are able to party up and play together. Thanks to Modern Warfare 2’s integration with Steam, players can simply look towards their existing friends list and create parties before going into a lobby.
The moment the player gets into the game is sometimes a completely different story. Latency is displayed through bars instead numbers. 4 bars means the player has anywhere around 100 milliseconds or less of latency. 3 bars indicate 100-200 milliseconds of latency and so on. The lag is glaringly obvious with 3 bars or less. Depending on who has the highest latency, shooting around a corner and firing on an enemy could register as no action at all from the perspective of the individual closest to the host, giving them the advantage. The amount of lag sometimes experienced in Modern Warfare 2 is frustrating for a Call of Duty on the PC.
Long time aspects of Call of Duty games for the PC are no longer present in Modern Warfare 2. Autobalance, a feature for servers that would reassign players on teams that had drastically less players than another, is not included in Modern Warfare 2. The ability to vote-kick other players, often times for harassment, is no longer an option. The one factor of relief in the removal of these things is that matches are quick. If one finds themselves at the hand of a team that has 4 players too many and doesn’t want to leave with a hit to their Win/Loss ratio, then waiting the match out is the best option.
Modern Warfare 2 on the PC seems to be the very definition of a middle-of-the-road first-person shooter experience on the PC. There are both benefits and handicaps to IWNet. Modern Warfare 2 doesn’t take advantage of the PC platform’s offerings but IWNet is certainly playable. While the service is quick in finding the player a game, there’s no guarantee that the host has a stable connection. Once inside, if players start leaving, causing a shift in numbers that favor a certain team, there is no autobalance to correct it. If a player is harassing others, there is no option to kick that player. The service overall, is not an upgrade from going into a server browser and finding dedicated servers. What makes it such an absurd situation is that the multiplayer itself is incredibly enjoyable and step above the original Modern Warfare but the method of experiencing that multiplayer is a step down for the platform. Modern Warfare 2 is the most restrictive Call of Duty title to arrive on the PC and it is not recommended to those who play on the platform for the prospect of configurability and a completely stable connection. But if you are able to get past the changes, then IWNet meets the standards of those who simply just want to play the multiplayer.
+ Fast-matchmaking with a working party system
+ Steam integration keeps player’s settings intact
+ Co-op is bountiful in both content and quality
– Connection quality with host isn’t always stable
– Lack of standard features such as auto-balance
– Lack of configurability for public matches
