I go to school without about 1200 kids. As with most high schools, fads and trends come and go, and the talk in the halls usually jumps from one thing to another rather quickly. One exception to that rule over the past couple of months however was the rampant chatter about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

I owned a 360 exclusively during the Call of Duty 4 era, but never thought about picking it up until March of 2008. I had played every other Call of Duty game, but never got into the online, and quickly tossed them aside in favour of more full gaming experiences. When Call of Duty 4 changed the trend, I obviously missed the memo, and picked up the game 50 or so levels behind my classmates.

Desperate to catch up, I played the game throughout Spring Break, only turning off my 360 to make sure it didn't turn my bedroom into Ladder 49. After 10 days straight of playing the game, I came to the conclusion that I sucked. Hard.

It wasn't that I was that bad at the game, but that people had been playing for 5 months had gotten familiar with the maps, and which weapons to use on them. My AK-47 and I never stood a chance.






World at War came along, and my suspicions were confirmed. The extra time some of these guys had with the game was overwhelming, and I wasn't actually THAT bad at Call of Duty. Unfortunately, my gamerscore-whoring and ADD kicked in, and I left World at War, most likely in favour of a game I could rent, get 500-750 gamersocre on, then chuck to the side.

So, Modern Warfare 2 was pretty important for me. It was the talk of the halls, and to fit in with my peers, I needed to excel at the game, right? I was determined to play the shit out of the game, and top my friends. To be the king was my dream, and it was a dream I will never realize, because...

Modern Warfare 2 isn't that good.





I expected a couple of things when I booted up this game. One, little arrogant children, who aren't nearly mature enough to be exposed to the online world, who, unfortunately, conned their parents into buying them the game. This, I received. Two, an excellent online experience, with beautiful environments, and fun to play game modes. This, I only semi-received, and that's what disappoints me about this game. Don't get me wrong, Modern Warfare 2 is beautiful. The environments look and just feel awesome to play in. But I just could not get into the game, at all.

I would start out hyped up to play, poised to kill. But after a while, it just felt stale. Kill, kill, die, respawn. Half the time I would end up in a shouting match with my television because a guy would respawn, DIRECTLY behind me, knife me in the back, then proceed to laugh at me about it in the lobby. I tried to switch the game type, but it just seemed to be more of the same. Teamwork took a backseat to mindless Scarface-like killing sprees. Fun, for a while.

I know what you're probably now thinking. "You just don't like it, it's not your cup of tea. Shut up and leave the rest of us with our uber-733t game." While I agree, maybe I should just shut up, I realized that it's not just NOT my cup of tea. It's issues within the game that force me to literally express my utter distaste with it sometimes.

The spawning issues from the World at War BETA have STILL not been adressed. I'm thinking, maybe instead of balancing out of every gun in the game, Infinity Ward should have created a better spawning system. The one in Halo 3 seems to work really well. Call Bungie.

The aforementioned weapon balancing. In Call of Duty 4, the guns were unbalanced, which lead to a sense of purpose when choosing a weapon. The fact that I can kill, from a distance with my P90, and kind of shake my head, knowing that wouldn't have flown in CoD 4, kind of bothers me. They did this, apparently, to blow the whole killstreak system out of whack. Now, every game consists of everyone just trying to go for huge killstreaks so they can blow the whole game up whatever overpowered reward they have selected. Not to mention the heli is still fucking annoying.

The third, and most irritating thing in Call of Duty, or any other FPS EVER, for that matter, is the lack of teamwork involved. Unfortunately, this issue kind of stands out to me in CoD over any other game, strictly because of the wide selection of tactic-based game types. Games like Search & Destroy, Domination, and Headquarters, constantly leave me wondering how good they would be if people just tried to work together. Imagine, if there was a sniper, picking off your whole team. You and your teammate concoct a strategy, in which you flank from opposite sides. The sniper has no chance to get you both, one of you gets him and ends the game. That epicness is thrown aside for a giant "LOL LOOK AT HOW MANY KILLZ I HAS WOOT" fest, which is tragic.

I guess all I'm trying to say here, is that Modern Warfare 2 is a great game, but it's flawed, just like any other game. The lag is still ever-present, issues from 2 years ago still exist, which is ridiculous, and the games community, unfortunately, does not support the type of game that this game has the potential to be, and Infinity Ward probably should have built the game around that fact. People who call this game perfect are wrong, just as people who bash the game to the ground, just because of a few problems.

It's too bad, it looks like this is another Call of Duty game that will probably hit the shelf before Christmas. Pity Infinity Ward, pity.

*signs the ready for MAG list*