Sorry guys, but Modern Warfare 2 sucks.

I got up to a 3 to 1 k/d ratio in this game’s multiplayer yesterday before I realized I just wasn’t having fun. I then proceeded to slap on a Riot Shield with throwing knives and just try to kill enemies without getting massacred. This was the most fun I had in this game and I was doing horrible. So, what gives? Shouldn’t I have more fun doing well, rather than fucking around?

No, not in Modern Warfare 2.

I was hoping ranking up in this game and unlocking new stuff would increase my enjoyment a little, but it just wasn’t happening. You know, there are always going to be flaws in video games, but these can be fixed in sequels or patches. IW has terrible fucking community support though, so as always, I knew I had to wait for the sequel to COD4 before getting what I wanted from this franchise. What I got was the exact opposite of what made the most sense and what would have been the most fun for a sequel to COD4, though. What I got was an unbalanced, flawed, skill equalized mess of a multiplayer game.

This is actually the most unbalanced COD game yet due to the extreme buff all the assault rifles got. SMG’s are now made pretty obsolete due to machine pistol and shotgun sidearms, as well as the inability to attach heartbeat sensors to the SMG’s. Akimbo 1887 shotties completely destroy all the other shotguns in this game, not to mention really show how terrible the SMG’s truly are, as they are severely outclassed by a sidearm. How could you take steps BACK in balance when this is your 4th time making a Call of Duty game, honestly? Oh, wait, you have to skill equalize this game for the baddies, I remember now. Otherwise you might lose some sales for the sake of better and more fun gameplay, and we can’t have that.

In COD4, the M16 was overpowered and that was really it. In WaW, the SMG’s were overpowered, but there were just 4 of them, and if you kept your distance you could mount a defense. In MW2, 7 out of the 9 assaults are overpowered; they are good at any range, are super easy to use, are all completely swayless when aiming down the sight and they all have low recoil. You could argue the LMG’s are overpowered as well as they carry these same traits, except they lack in mobility and have a bit more kick to them. But hell, every weapon is so good and easy to use in close/medium range, it simply becomes a connection battle in most one on one scenarios anyway. Unless you’re using an SMG, in which case, you better hope you shoot first and have the better connection.

MW2 seems to have suffered the same fate Gears of War 2 suffered; being way too overhyped and then being a huge letdown. I can count the amount of good things about this game’s multiplayer on one hand, and I can’t even begin to count the amount of flaws and problems on all of my fingers and toes combined.

Just off the top of my head; I can’t play in a party with more than 1 friend or someone gets kicked out every time we join a match. This has happened every single time I have tried to play with a group of people, and we all have open NATs, so the matchmaking is effectively broken in that regard. Someone getting a 4 kill streak (3 with Hardline) can randomly get stuff like Chopper Gunner and AC-130 which is random and dumb; randomness always makes for terrible gameplay in a shooter. Good scores in this game aren’t about out gunning the enemy team, they are about building a single streak. This causes a lot of problems.

For instance, lets say a guy who gets 20 kills with his physical GUN by shooting enemies (he is unlucky and his kill streak rewards before that are shot down or miss or something), but say, dies twice at a 10 kill streak before getting his 11 kill streak reward, finishes the game at 20 and 2. Fair enough, he did well and got a great ratio, but didn’t get any reward for it at all because of bad luck and everything being based on a streak. Now, let’s say there’s a guy who is 7 and 5 before he starts doing remotely well. He gets a 5 kill streak after dying his fifth time, gets a predator missile and luckily, the enemies were out in the open and he kills 3 of them with the missile. He then calls in a Harrier strike which then luckily gets him 3 more kills, and then he gets his chopper gunner at an 11 kill streak, which nets him about 20 kills as he spawn rapes the enemy team with an overpowered kill streak reward. And this is all without doing a single thing after he gets that predator missile. The guy who actually did MORE work and got the better k/d WITHOUT streak rewards doesn’t get shit because of bad luck, while the guy who was 12 and 5 can get lucky and go on to finish the game at 38-5. Its mostly luck whether or not your killstreak can build itself up enabling you to get your final big streak reward which is just stupid. There is just too much emphasis on a single one time streak and not how well you do overall or k/d wise.

With building an effective streak comes an extremely careful and campy style of play, which is quite frankly boring. The maps have all kinds of little obscure balconies and rooftops which promotes a boring/frustrating campy style of gameplay even more so. Deep Impact is no longer a perk, but an attachment that takes a long time to unlock for each weapon, further promoting window/rooftop camping. Being aggressive with a close quarters weapon will get you reverse spawn killed by some idiot with painkiller on, as the spawn system is still a massive problem in this game.

The netcode is terrible, worse than World at War and COD4 by FAR which is saying something, and “4 bars” doesn’t mean shit in this game. On a 4 bar connection I was able to shoot the FAL single shot rifle 4 times at an enemy before dying to that same enemy. On the killcam, I don’t even fire once. And this is the supposed “best” connection you can get with this game according to the bars. Games where you die super quickly and super easily NEED dedicated servers and not the horrible host system that is employed on both PC and consoles now, otherwise 1 on 1 face offs become nothing more than connection battles.

There’s no counter to perks like Stopping Power and Cold Blooded. Xbox Live Party Chat is disabled in most playlists for no other reason than to force you to communicate with strangers if you play. Hit detection is still an issue with snipers, and other weapons for that matter. Spawning is still a major issue. Bullets coming from the top of your head and not your gun is still an issue. Painkiller (giving a player double health after dying 3 times in a row) overly rewards people for dying. I can’t search games by good connection like I could in WaW (Aussies really fucking need this feature) and there’s still no map preferencer, so I’m forced to play IW’s terrible maps. Host migration DOESN’T work the majority of the time. When the host leaves during an airstrike or predator missle drop, it glitches you out of it. I could go on and on. The game took 1 step forward, 20 steps back in my opinion. Nothing was fixed except grenade spam and many, many more problems and flaws were added.

In conclusion, the game is just so flawed and skill equalized its not fun, whether I’m the one killing or I’m the one dying. And honestly, I feel deeply for those of you who spent $60 on this game and am disappointed like I am. Back to COD4 and WaW I guess, until Bad Company 2 comes out at least.

EDIT: I have been informed that the developers for MW2 have k/d ratios below 1. I think the best k/d any of the devs have is actually .74 or something. That explains a lot.