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Update:
Campaign: Beat it in about 6 hours, but it was very intense
Online: Getting frustrating because a) I suck and b) there is frequent latency issues
Special Ops: About halfway done on veteran, pretty difficult and fun
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This game is fun. Really fun. The weapons are awesome. The gameplay is awesome. Haven’t played campaign but I’m sure it’s relatively awesome too. But! there is a few things I will never get over (for the PC version).
1. (minor) Why Steam, WHY!? This game doesn’t need to be on Steam. What a horrible excuse for a gaming service.
2. (major) Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE has heard about this one; no dedicated servers. That said, I don’t find the p2p type gaming all that bad. I played online for about 3.5 hours last night, and I only had one bad experience with lag. At least me and a few friends can stay grouped together as we bounce around hosts and games, *sigh*.
3. (minor) Special Ops, Campaign, and Multiplayer are not integrated into one. Not even the graphical settings and control options are linked. I wasn’t impressed when I had to change all their effed up control settings three times, and observe the game fail at detecting my default resolution over, and over, and over. Nor was I impressed when the campaign started before I could even change the campaign settings. Watching the intro movie to the campaign at 1024*768 wasn’t too pleasant.
4. (minor) The menus look awful. Especially the first menu to choose which game type I want to play. The game hasn’t actually launched at that point, only that menu to choose what game type I want launch. Either they could have a) not had a menu and just gave me the executables for each mode in the Start menu, or b) made the menu NOT look like it’s from 1994. It could have been a windowed box about 480px wide. I’m not blind, I don’t need three massive low res boxes full screened across my 23″ monitor. Once the game is launched it becomes evident from the menus that the PC version was a direct port from the Xbox360, as my friend Benson pointed out about 5 times. No optimization whatsoever.
5. (major) No coop in campaign mode. I really do not care if it doesn’t fit with their “story” or overall experience. It’s fun. Options are always nice. CoD:WaW did it, and that campaign was clearly not designed with coop in mind. I’ve come to the conclusion that IW didn’t put it in solely so that when Treyarch makes the next CoD game off the exact same code, people will have a reason to buy it.
6. (major). 12 players max online. What the EFF. IW marketed it as 18 player max online, but they failed to mention that was only in the Groundwar mode. I can’t remember the last online shooter I’ve played that only allowed 12 players. I’m going to contradict myself now and say that the maps are still super intense at 6v6. It’s just that the OPTION to play with more isn’t there.
Well that is my main gripes so far. Infinity Ward was one of my favorite developers. I remember the good ol’ days when they only released a polished product. The gameplay IS polished; I couldn’t ask for a more addicting experience, but the presentation and feature set is a complete slap in the face.