Grumpy Old Nerds

Well the idea had been to completely skip this review from the site because none of us wanted to review it. "But the biggest selling game franchise in history (besides Mario) and you don't WANT to?!" you may say? That's right. After the days of Doom the FPS was mostly propped up by the sometimes success of a random game, but the genre was pretty much on crippled legs. Then Halo came to save us... or most likely not. As people hooked up 16 player lan parties to blow each other to pieces I was present, enjoying killing my friends and laughing about it.

So what has happened to the genre since? Well the invent of online game play is the largest contributor. Now you can still do 16 (or more sometimes) kill fests, but you get to do it with complete strangers. And not only that, complete strangers who are so much better than almost any casual player they last maybe twenty seconds. And to top it off they're constantly talking crap on the mic. So where does the fun start?



On a side note? This whole trailer is cooler than the game. And almost the length. Just FYI.

The other massive change since Halo to things like this are things no one seems to care about for THIS franchise. The fact that there is no story. 'Terrorists/rebels/rogue agents are going to use chemical weapons/nukes/bloody take overs on unsuspecting civilians in t-minus not-a-lot-of-time.' It's a rehash every time, and somehow people don't care. It's like watching Micheal Bay and John Woo remake Clint Eastwood movies and everyone gets to pick which one was more entertaining. Yet the 5-6 hour campaign length is pretty bad for a $60 game that totes it's self as the best series ever. In fact Force Unleashed is $20 and has about that much time in it. But more replayability. Just throwing that out there...

So what's my review after spending $60 on this game JUST to review it and trade it in as soon as humanly possible? The greatest franchise ever, that has drawn out millions to play it with remake after remake after remake of a tired old idea only to go online and shoot your friend? Why ever bother buying MW2? Everyone should have kept 1, never bought another, and kept going online till they took down your servers to FORCE you to buy another one. It would have saved a lot of people $180, and if we're lucky another tour of duty in this completely redemptionless excuse for games.

My anger is fueled not completely with the game, however. On it's own it's not too bad, but it's really something I'd normally recommend waiting till it hit $20 before buying because you're not getting a game, you're getting an FPS MMO with no story. Instead the trend from this game series screws over a lot of other game companies, not because of competing sales but because of the minimum effort required for the lemmings to show up and buy a copy.

The money men financing games see that Modern Warfare needs an absolutely minimum amount of attention to put out a large-selling game. So when other games with more substance can't simply hand out a thimble full of writing and get the voice actors in the studio for an hour to finish the whole thing, the money men complain. So while I'd like to say I cannot blame the gaming community for how they're destroying their own market, in this case I'm starkly reminded of how well they're doing it.

On a final note let me say Battlefield 3 at least tried for a story. It also has better graphics, more interesting Multi-player maps, and it's just damn sexy. Modern Warfare? Sorry guys, but you get the first ever stamp of ole Papa Mimic for being a failure.

The Breakdown:

The Good:

* Because everyone went to the MW3 midnight release my overnight job was CAKE last night. Not a sole all night long because they were home with their new game.
* It does do an ok job of multi-player trying to do more than run around kill-streaking, but it's so far from perfect all I can do is give this concession to the idea.
* The game is worth a lot as a trade in after you beat it in t-minus 5 hours.

The Bad:

* No story. Sure it's an FPS game and people buy it just for multi-player, but until the industry tries to make their games better they still get dinged for bad work.
* Multiplayer is still the same old. Even with the attempted change who is going to complete objectives? You're still running around with idiots online and there is no ranking or bracketing system ever in place to keep griefers and idiots off your lawn. We do not approve.
* Far too short. I buy games to be entertaining, not to amuse myself after the 5 hour story is exhausted. A game like this isn't worth $20 to me, but you kids may think differently.


Papa Mimic's Score: 3/10