Let me just say right up front that I have NO delusions about this post influencing anyone on this game. This thing is a juggernaut that I could say “It literally kills puppies”, and people would still buy it.  Also, considering how many millions of copies have already sold, no one is going to really care, but I figured I might as well express my thoughts since I talked it up so much pre-launch.

Single-Player Game

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare had a fairly good single player mode, and a fairly coherent plot.

… what went wrong this time?

The plot felt like something that would fit better in a season of 24 with conspiracies, shadowy government plots, rogue military officers, double crosses and more.  At least in the first game you were working towards an actual enemy, and this one just felt like Infinity Ward, the makers of the game, had a bunch of random ideas for scenes and then went, “how do we string these together?”

There was also the issue that this had to be one of the shortest single player games i have ever gone through.  It only took me about 5 & 1/2 hours, and considering that I am not some hard core gamer, that is just ridiculously short.  The game play is solid with excellent controls, and the game is gorgeous to look at, but it is just way too short.

Significantly missing from this game was any sense of gravitas.  While the first game made me actually move to the edge of my seat a few times while in a firefight, this time I just felt like I was being led by the hand through an amusement park.  During one of the major chase scenes I was trying my hardest to catch the villain, only to realize at the end I was never going to be allowed to catch him so I could be led to the next scene.

Then there is “that” scene.  The scene that is causing the game to be pulled from shelves in Russia, and leading to talking heads wringing their hands on news shows.  While the ‘No Russian’ scene is essential to the “plot” (I use the term loosely), and there is a way to skip it, people are still freaking out over it.  Folks … it’s a video game, get over it.  The scene is not glamorized in any way if you actually bother to listen to the mission briefing before it.

In short, if you aren’t going to play online, I would skip the game, but as every one knows, Call of Duty games get their real value in the multi-player modes.

Multiplayer Game

Holy …

Infinity Ward basically took everything you loved about the last multi-player in CoD4, and turned the knobs up to 11.

Weapons – Better … really, that’s all you can say.  They are better.  They look better, they handle better, the sound effects are improved and in general they just seem like they are all around better.

The fact they also made your secondary weapons more broad helps a lot.  Instead of waiting for the perk that allows you to carry more than a pistol, you can carry machine pistols, shotguns or pistols from the outset.  It makes a lot more sense from a military perspective, being restricted to pistols never made much sense.

Play – The “Host Ended The Match” pain in the butt is a thing of the past as the host will now migrate to another player if the host should happen to leave.  The matchmaking also seems to be a bit quicker, but that could be chalked up to the millions of people currently playing.

Experience Points – This may be my one complaint about the multi-player.  There are so many ways to earn experience now that the screen always seems to be busy telling you the 500 ways you just earned some more XP.  ”+50 for ending a kill streak … + 100 for revenge … +100 for longshot …” you get the idea.

The XP just flows so fast it seems like Infinity Ward may have coddled the lower rung players a bit much in giving them faster ways to rank up.  I am not the best player, I admit it, but even I think they went a bit overboard in how many ways you can earn them now.

Grenades – Not too get too specific, but … oh thank you almighty Infinity Ward for getting rid of the rain of grenades we all suffered through various maps in the previous games.

Maps – The maps seem a bit more complex, and a bit “blind corner” happy, but they do seem a bit more balanced and “realistic”.  By that I mean you really do have to be aware of your complete surroundings from looking up at roof tops a lot more than you did in the last game, checking more balconies, preceding with a lot more caution through alleys and so on.  In short, these maps are not suited to people who just want to run without thought, there are consequences to just about all of your actions.

Perks – We now earn XP for using perks?  We even earn basically for just having a perk installed that has nothing to do with what you are doing … er, okay, that makes no sense, but whatever.

Multiplayer Conclusion – If you liked CoD4, don’t worry, you’ll still love this one.

Conclusion

It basically depends on what you want from the game.  If you just want it for the single player, skip it.  If you are the least bit interested in the multiplayer aspects, it’s a must buy.

Post from: SeanPAune.com

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Review

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I’ve tended to not do many “personal” posts any more, but this is one of those days I just want to bang out my work and get home so I can start playing MW2 as soon as humanly possible.  I still need to get at least one more blog post written after this, hit the gym and then I can get down to killing terrorists all over the world.

I have actually structured like the last two weeks of my life around today so I could “take the day off” without feeling guilty.  I have two list posts for next Monday already written so I don’t feel like I am shirking those duties tonight, did some extra house cleaning so I don’t have to worry about that and bought my dogs diapers so I don’t have to take them out … okay, that last part is a bit of an exaggeration … maybe.

Of course I am now fearful this game won’t live up to my expectations, and considering games now cost $60, that’s a lot of money to put down on “hope”.  Everything I’ve seen and heard makes it sound like it will live up to the original, so here’s hoping everyone is right.

I am sure I will post a review in a few days, but until then, you can find me on and off Xbox Live as RUDEBOY71 … feel free to join me if you feel like kicking someone’s behind … meaning mine.

In case you missed the other Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 posts, here they are.

• Modern Warfare 2 Teaser Footage
• Modern Warfare 2 Trailer
• Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer Features Unveiled
• Third Modern Warfare 2 Trailer
• Modern Warfare 2 Launch Trailer

Post from: SeanPAune.com

Modern Warfare 2 Day Is Here!

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If you haven’t guessed by now, I am beyond excited for this game, and my only hope now is that it lives up to the hype.  From everything I’ve seen so far, it will.  It has now been reported to be the most pre-ordered game ever, so if it does suck … well, expect mobs with pitchforks and torches beating down the doors of game developer Infinity Ward.

Any way, here is the launch trailer for the game … I am going to have to put on another bib before I watch it again.

In case you missed the other videos, here they are.

• Modern Warfare 2 Teaser Footage
• Modern Warfare 2 Trailer
• Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer Features Unveiled
• Third Modern Warfare 2 Trailer

Post from: SeanPAune.com

Modern Warfare 2 Launch Trailer

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Licensed properties have been a staple of the video game industry since its inception. Sometimes the games work, but most often they don’t. It’s hard to capture the essence of another medium in a video game, but this isn’t stopping television network CBS from licensing a truck load of shows into video games for 2010.

Worth Playing has the synopsis for each of the upcoming games … my thoughts after each one …

AVAILABLE 2010:

The Amazing Race (Ludia Inc.)
Get ready for around-the-world competition with the video game based on the eight-time Emmy® award-winning television series The Amazing Race where team players split up in pairs for a remarkable journey across exotic locations in a race against time. Players will face frantic challenges and tasks as they navigate through detours, roadblocks and other unpredictable game elements from the show. Working together strategically throughout the game is essential as each team tries to discover hidden clues that are crucial to getting them to the Pit Stop first – and one step closer to ultimate victory at the check-in mat. This video game will be launched throughout North America across multiple platforms in tandem with the show’s 16th season.

Sean’s thoughts: I love the Amazing Race, like crazy love.  I dream of going on the show constantly (mainly with The Diabolical Miss M as my team mate … whom I imagine I would carry in my pocket due to our size differences), but the idea of playing it on a game console?  Um … I guess it could be somewhat challenging?  Maybe something on the Wii where you would have to be physically involved?

Survivor (Mindscape)
This game is perfect for any fan of the show Survivor. Players will be able to live like the contestants on Survivor. With challenges such as fishing, collecting food and participating in Immunity challenges, players will compete to outwit, outlast and outplay in order to be crowned the ultimate sole Survivor. Available on Wii & Nintendo DS platforms.

Sean’s thoughts: This is a horrible idea.  90% of Survivor is the conditions you live in, you will never be able to capture that in a satisfying manner on a video game screen.

AVAILABLE FOR HOLIDAY 2010:

Diagnosis Murder (Merscom)
Available in early 2010, this is an adventure game where the player must find different items in a scene to use as clues in order to solve the mystery. Available for the PC/Mac, this video game will be sold on most casual gaming websites and at major retailers.

Sean’s thoughts: … this show has been off the air for almost 9 years.  Who in the world is the target demographic for this title?  My 88-year-old grandmother?

Criminal Minds (Legacy Interactive)
In the Criminal Minds game, players will be able to take on the role of different members of Behavioral Analysis Unit to solve a series of five shocking crimes. In order to track down the killers and solve each case, players will need to examine crime scenes for clues, interview witnesses and suspects, analyze evidence and build a profile based on real-life criminal profiling techniques. The videogame is slated to launch in the fourth quarter of 2010 on the PC.

Sean’s thoughts:  I’m going to guess the already released CSI games must be doing well …

Ghost Whisperer (Legacy Interactive)
Debuting in early 2010. Ghost Whisperer will be the first-ever video game based on the hit series. Written by Emmy Award-winning television writer Lance Gentile, the PC game calls for players to embark on the adventure of helping the recently departed move on to the afterlife and providing closure to loved ones left behind.

Sean’s thoughts: Having never watched the show, I’m guess it’s going to involve talking … a lot of talking.

The Hollywood Squares (Ludia, Inc.)
This timeless TV game show experience comes to fans everywhere on the platform of their choice. The Hollywood Squares game will feature all the favorite elements of the show as played on television, as two contestants play head-to-head in a bid to win money and prizes. Nine open-faced cubes make up the tic-tac-toe style “board” for the game which are occupied by celebrities/TV personalities. The stars are asked questions and players judge whether their answers are true or false, all the while incorporating outrageous “zingers” and “bluffs” to fuel the fun. Each correct answer earns the player a square on the board, and the first player to mark three squares in a row wins the game. Additionally, the game will incorporate bonus video of the funniest moments from the TV show. The North America-wide exclusive deal will result in games across major platforms including PC/Mac, consoles, iPhone™ and iPod® touch. The first of The Hollywood Squares games is slated for release in 2010.

Sean’s thoughts: Eh, I actually kind of enjoy The Price Is Right on my iPod Touch.

I guess there is a market for everything these days.  I don’t personally see myself buying any of these except maybe the Amazing Race, and I would need to see a lot of really good reviews for it before I would, but obviously someone has convinced all of these companies there is a market for these.  Wish I knew … I have a bridge I would love to sell them …

Post from: SeanPAune.com

CBS Launching Video Games Based On Television Series

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Duncan Riley over at The Inquisitr stumbled across a video on YouTube entitled “Halo 3: Homophobia Evolved”.  This was a video recorded by an openly gay gamer who spent 11 nights recording his interactions with other players of Halo 3.  I’ve talked twice before about the sort of thing, and also about the young people you encounter, but it is hard to convey that absolute vitriol that comes from these people unless you hear it.

The video contains extremely harsh language, you have been warned.

Luckily I find players on Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare to be far more polite, and you never hear this amount of garbage on that game, this seems fairly restricted to the Halo games for some reason. I actually skipped buying Halo 3:ODST when it came out a few weeks ago because of the way its online community acts.

Kinda makes you fear for the future of the United States, doesn’t it?

Kudos to xxxGayBoyxxx who thought to record this.

Post from: SeanPAune.com

Homophobia In Online Gaming Brought To Light

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While I’m primarily about playing the online portion of this game, there is no denying that this single player footage looks astounding. The scene of the guys going up the stairs in the shadows looks so close to real life that it is almost creepy.

And it certainly looks like the fight comes to the United States this time … whoa.

Come on Nov. 10th, hurry up and get here already!

In case you missed the other videos, here they are.

Modern Warfare 2 Teaser Footage

Modern Warfare 2 Trailer

Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer Features Unveiled

Post from: SeanPAune.com

Third Modern Warfare 2 Trailer

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While the single player campaign is fun, but the true value in video games any more seems to reside with the multiplayer experience.  Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has barely left my Xbox 360 in 2 years thanks to the multiplayer aspects, so I have been waiting to get some sort of hint as to what we could expect from the follow-up.

While most people are “ooh” and “ahh” about the fact you can get an AC-130 gunship after an 11 killstreak (for non-players, that is 11 kills in a row without you dying), I’m a bit worried by other things the video shows.  Sticking grenades?  No… please no.  That’s what Halo 3 is for, not Modern Warfare.  I’m hoping that is some sort of special playlist as opposed to the standard Deathmatch, but if it isn’t… well, hopefully I’ll adapt to it.  Looks like a few new guns, definitely a new rocket launcher and at least one new scope (looks to be heat sensitive).

While the gunship is a nice touch, hitting that long of a killstreak is fairly rare, but it does solve a complaint I always had in the first game.  In Modern Warfare 1 you got radar at 3 kills, air strike at 5 and helicopter gunship at 7… then nothing.  If you did get an 11 killstrike, or 15, or 20, you got nothing.  It sometimes paid to allow yourself to die just so you could go through the kill bonuses again.  So, this really is something that needed addressing.

Any way, the video is below, and it just makes me want 11-10-09 to get here that much faster.

Post from: SeanPAune.com

Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer Features Unveiled

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While I am about as excited for this game as a human can possibly get, even I have to go “huh?”  Yes, yes, you use night vision goggles in the game, but to actually include a working set with the game seems a bit over the top.  You can of course get the standard release of the game for $60, “The Hardened Edition” which comes in a steel case for $80 and then you can go for the Prestige Edition for $149.99 which gets you the goggles, the hardened edition and an art book.

I’m all for giving fans what they want, but… really… working night vision?  This implies that gamers actually go outside at times or turn off their TVs to actually make it dark in their house… we all know niether of those things ever happen.

More info below in the video.

Post from: SeanPAune.com

Modern Warfare 2: Prestige Edition Includes Working Night Vision Goggles

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In a recent survey conducted by GamePlan Insights, it was discovered that a name can mean quite a lot.  When people were asked if they recognized the brand name “Modern Warfare“, they did, but not in the numbers one suspect.  Nick Williams, head of GamePlan Insights division for OTX, told Gamasutra on June 24th that the results were pretty surprising:

Up until the beginning of May, OTX had been tracking the title as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. More specifically, we asked a representative group of gamers in the U.S. whether or not they had heard of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. At that time, approximately 40 percent of all gamers in the U.S. claimed that they had heard of this title.

However, once it became clear that Activision was positioning the title as Modern Warfare 2, OTX removed ‘Call of Duty‘ from the consumer survey, and the awareness levels dropped to 20 percent. In other words, the Call of Duty brand association essentially doubles the awareness for the game. That is quite a remarkable statistic.

He also went on to tell the web site that purchase intent was quite high for the game even without Call of Duty being in the title.

So, this leaves the question if it would be worth spinning off Modern Warfare into its own franchise, or is it too risky to remove the Call of Duty name?  Well, it seems the name debate has been resolved in the form of a picture.  Robert Bowling, a spokesman for game company Infinity Ward, posted a picture of the box art on his Twitter account today that you can see in this post. If this is the final art, which would make sense since the game is now four months from release, then the name is going to be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Is this Earth shattering news?  No, but it certainly is an interesting case study in brand management and marketing.  What was it that was going to sell this game?  Which name was more important?  Who would have suspected that gamers would be so fickle over something as simple as a name?  All intriguing, but… is it release day, 11/10/09, yet?

Post from: SeanPAune.com

Modern Warfare 2 To Keep Call Of Duty Name?

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For those unfamiliar with the game, Magic: the Gathering was a customizable card game that was introduced in 1993  The basic concept was that you and another wizard did battle with cards that represented creatures and spells.  Each player had 20 life points and the goal was to drain your opponent of all 20 points by various means.  This is a highly simplified explanation of the game, but you get the basic idea.

I started playing the game in early 1994, and I was instantly hooked.  The ability to customize the decks, to build theme with themes (speed… land destruction… defense… etc) was intoxicating.  You would tweak your deck and test it… tweak… test… tweak… test and then head off to a tournament to see how you stood up against others.  You could get national rankings even, and it became an all encompassing past time.

My retail store was one of the first in the country to get the idea to sell the cards individually, and that turned into a new insanity all in itself.  Cards could sell for anywhere from a few pennies up to a could hundred dollars depending on the rarity and power, but during the height of the craze we could barely keep the three ring binders stocked, and I was one of my own worst customers.

I quit playing in 1996 as Wizards of the Coast, the company behind the game, started giving in to the whiniest of players and changing numerous rules that just made the game maddening.  As soon as you got used to a new rule, it would get changed, and keeping up with the constant changes was driving me insane.  The worst change was that they changed tournament structure to where you couldn’t use the oldest cards any more because players had been priced out of the market.  The original concept, as told to me personally by the president of the company, was that they enisioned a day where someone would play with a 15-year-old card and people would be all amazed by it and not know what it was… that theory lasted 3 years before players whined the concept out of existance.

Well, even with a 13 year abscence, I still think back to the height of the game with fondness, and I do miss it at times.  Well, someone decided it might be a good idea to put the game on Xbox 360 as a downloadable game.  Priced at only $10, how could I not give it a try?

While the game captures some of the old… well… magic of the game, I am not thrilled with the decks being locked in their construction and limited to only one color (the magic is divided in to five colors – black, blue, green, red and white – with each color having a ‘theme’ to what it does), and I was a heavy, heavy two color player back in my day (red/green was my choice, speed plus powerful spells).  You can unlock more cards by winning games, but even that is limited to only 17 cards at this time.

Wizards of the Coast has said they have not yet decided if they will release more cards for the game, since there are over 10,000 cards in the physical game now they have no lack of cards to draw from, but no word yet on the Xbox version.  I am hoping they do expand it, because even though I am not 100% happy with it, it is one easy way for me to revisit an old addiction withough breaking the bank or dealing with rules changing every five seconds.

In short, is it perfect?  No.  Is it still worth the purchase?  Yes!

Post from: SeanPAune.com

Magic The Gathering Comes To The Xbox 360

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