Gearheads of War

If you hadn't heard, the Modern Warfare 2 train has left the station and is coming in hot.

From the first moments I put the disc in the tray I knew Infinity Ward had gotten it right.  How?  Upon putting in the game the first time, I was asked "There are scenes of mature nature in this game - Would you like to automatically skip them?"  Or something to that effect.  I knew instantly that if IW had thought to put that option in, they had probably thought of everything.

And just a couple hours in, I haven't been convinced otherwise.  From the offset the game gets your blood pumping like few I've played before.  The actual gameplay is brilliant, from that classic feel of Call of Duty's shooting mechanics to the beautiful graphics and excellent music.  

I'm officially hoooked and can't wait to pop the game in again.

With all that said a few critiques:  I'm having trouble figuring out what's going on.  I feel really rushed from mission to mission and have but a basic grasp as to the plot.  This is because, like I said, I feel really rushed on top of odd audio.  I'm having trouble hearing what the guys around me are saying unless I'm right next to them.  Realistic, maybe but not practical in a game.
Now, these ARE NOT big issues for me as the gameplay more than makes up for it.

However there's one mission I was absolutely blow away by early in the game. (Minor Spoiler)  You are randomly placed undercover with some war lord and enter an airport.  You then proceed to see the guy's he is with just mow down countless men and women.  People are crawling away, bleeding all over and crying for help.  Needless to say, I kept my weapon on safe, so to speak.

I'm not going to say much more, but I don't ever want to "play" slaughtering men and women who can't defend themselves.  Maybe that's why I just didn't fully get engaged in GTA.  What happened to the days when Splinter Cell gave you a moral choice to kill or not kill a civilian reporter with consequences either way.  Remember that?  Giving the option to skip mature option is one thing, but offering gamers an opportunity to slaughter men and women is another.  Maybe I'm making too much of it.

Anyway, all in all I'm blown away by the game (in a good way) and hope to get into multiplayer with you all soon!

(First off, sorry to those of you whose invites I ignored last night — I was completely absorbed in the single player campaign. Don't have work today, though, so maybe I'll see you online.)

Secondly, I can swear that my L&R audio channels are reversed in MW2. I ran the speaker set up on my receiver and made sure everything was connected properly, doing the tone test to check that the channels were correct. Is anybody else having this problem with MW2? I mean, maybe it's just my ears...

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So I'm wondering who out there is going to their midnight launches for Modern Warfare 2?  And I think I've asked this before, but what will you do with it first, single player, multiplayer or even possibly Spec Ops?

I'm still torn.  I might do a few multiplayer matches just to get the feel for it, but I imagine I'm going to quickly jump into the single player.  Infinity Ward is extremely talented at telling gripping stories as COD4 was a fantastic story.

Not only that, but I've got to avoid waking my lovely wife and daughter.  So where are you picking it up?  Are you doing midnight or waiting until the following morning?  Chime in, Gearheads and let's hear it.

What I mean to say is that when AC came out 2 years ago it just seemed like such a "bigger" game. Now AC2 seems like kind of an afterthought. I'm not feeling the hype for this game the way I did for the first one. Is it just because the train of hype and media for MW2 is overshadowing it or is it something else?

Are you guys really pumped to get your hands on this game or is it just another game that you'll play? What are your guys thoughts?

Yes Gearheads, just one week from today, we will be playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 during Friday Night Fragfest.  I know for a while many of us have kind of splintered off and done our own things.  Gears of War 2 didn't bring us together on Fridays the way the original one did.  There has been some dabbling in other games like Halo: ODST, Borderlands and many others.  But outside of Gears 1, the one game that brought this community together like no other was Modern Warfare 1.

I'm hoping we'll find that to be the case again in 2009.  As for this week, I don't even know what to suggest to play.  I don't have L4D.  Maybe some Modern Warfare to prepare for the mechanics of the new one?  Although I know plenty of folks have been playing it consistently any way.  My major goal has been to try and finish Uncharted 2.  I'm actually pretty close as I think I'm on Chapter 23 and there are 26 chapters.  The game is freaking amazing.  I will say that I'm getting a little fatigued with the combat at this point though.  I kind of want a little more puzzling before the end of the game and hope it's there. The thing is, this is probably the first game I can remember playing where I actually look forward to the cut scenes possibly more than actually being interactive with the game.  It's not that playing the game isn't fun, but they just did such a remarkable job with the story that you can't help but be absorbed by every single cut scene.  In some ways, I'm trying to plow through things just to see what happens next.  I recently saw the latest Indiana Jones movie finally and this is 1,000 times more interesting than that movie was.

Any way, if you're going to be on tonight, sign up below.  Even if you aren't, let's start talking about who is going to be there NEXT Friday.  Oh yeah.

http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox-...

Yes Gearheads, a week from today, we'll all have Modern Warfare 2 in our grubby little hands.  IGN has a great look at some of the multiplayer maps so you can start to plan how you're going to approach these bad boys.  The interesting thing is how Robert Bowling talks about a lot more verticality to these maps as opposed to the other maps in MW 1 that were largely pretty straight forward.  The only maps that had a bit of verticality to them were maps like Crash, Strike and Broadcast (which are awesome) and District (which I hated).  We'll see how they manage to make this one work.

So here's the biggest question I've been wondering.  I assume most of you will be picking this game up day one. But I'm wondering if you'll dive right into the multiplayer or you'll do the single player first?  Or will you be radical and do Spec Ops (the co-op)?  I'm thinking I'll play single player that first night and then jump into multiplayer the following day.  The issue being that I'm not going to have that much time because we're literally moving into our house a week from when the game releases.  My initial time with the game will be much more limited than I anticipated.  D'oh!

???

I don't know how the Gearheads feel about this, but I sometimes feel like there is only room for me to dedicate myself to one multiplayer game in the scope of my life.  In recent months, I've been all over Call of Duty: World at War.  Before that it was probably Gears 1 and Modern Warfare.  Those have been the games that have sucked me in.

I'm guessing that's probably why I haven't played as often with Gearheads of late because we haven't all congregated around a common game like Gears 2 or something else.  Although I know a bunch of you have become addicted to the first Left4Dead.  Many of you know that I had issues with the controls in the game (particularly as the infected), the shooting mechanics and the lack of any kind of story.  Plus I think the engine is looking a bit dated at this point.  But that didn't stop me from preordering the sequel.  I am hoping to catch some lightning in a bottle and be able to gather with Gearheads once more around that common game.  Although I have a feeling that a week from today I'm going to be all over MW2 (or at least when my move and my job and family allow it!).

Thing is that I tried the demo and I like the feeling of the weapons in this game better.  They refined them a bit and the little mini-uzi seems badass, plus the unlimited ammo in a pistol is a beautiful thing.  Not to mention the awesome nature of melee weapons and being able to whack someone with a guitar and hear the guitar strings rattle.  I think this one is going to be a great improvement, or dare I say, this is what the first L4D should have been.  Especially with the maps that supposedly change in each session.

I'm really excited about this after playing the demo a bit.  How many of you plan on picking it up?  Are any of you boycotting it?

As Valve had finally released the demo for Left 4 Dead 2 on Steam, and having gotten past the multiple pre-loading, loading, decrypting, and syncing processes and a single crash, I later-rather than sooner found myself battling the hordes of the undead in Louisiana.  The first Left 4 Dead combined the trigger-happiness of Counter-Strike and the subtle story elements of the Half Life series, as well as the dark-humor of Team Fortress 2, to accomplish a dark and entertaining shooter.  More importantly, it stressed the importance of team work, where a tight and cohesive team is the only way to survive the onslaught on higher difficulties.

The night before Halloween is known as Hell's Night in Detroit, so I'm thinking that since I've seen a bunch of Gearheads playing the Left4Dead 2 demo the other night that we could gather round and I can make the final decision as to whether or not I want to make the plunge.

Anyone else want to try? I'll probably be on around 9 or so as I've made a deal with my wife to put my daughter to bed over the next two weeks up until the Modern Warfare 2 launch.  Then once MW 2 launches, my wife will be putting my daughter to bed for the next week after that.  I want to make sure I get plenty of time with this game.  Speaking of which, I'm not sure if you guys saw the leaked mission in MW2.  I won't spoil anything for those of you who are going dark, but IW should expect tons of backlash from the mainstream media for this.  It's going to get ugly.

See you tomorrow night, gents.  Help me decide whether or not to pick up Left4Dead 2.