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Alright, since I probably won't take another photo of all my Xbox 360 games until Spring of 2010, I thought I'd take a quick moment to review Borderlands and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, since they both deserve it.
The MW2 review will be longer than normal, but I have strong opinions on it.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
★★☆☆☆
This game was absolutely disappointing. I will speak about the single player and "Special Ops" game modes briefly, but the main reason I purchased this game was for the multiplayer, and the multiplayer component of the game will be the main topic as a result.
Multiplayer
First off, let me say that in theory, the changes and additions from COD4, overall, look like good decisions. Things like HQ being up for a while before you can capture and changes to perks are all things I either outright like or things I am open minded about. It's the matchmaking, UI, netcode and Party Chat restrictions that I have the most issues with, and that frustration is likely having an impact on how much I actually enjoy the multiplayer games themselves.
None of the three dozen or so people (friends and friends of friends) that I have played with have seen issues like this with COD4 or COD:WaW, and every single one of them has experienced issues with Modern Warfare 2. Those of you who have been following Modern Warfare 2 for a while now may remember that back in September, Infinity Ward's community manager, Robert Bowling (aka Fourzerotwo), said the following:
"Alright, let me attempt to clarify as much as possible as its clear that there is some misunderstanding on how matchmaking works in Modern Warfare 2 for international users. The functionality you're asking for, the ability to connect to BEST connection rather than first available game aka quickest match, is already built into the matchmaking. There is no need to include an additional toggle where you manually have to ask it to put you in the game best suited for your connection, that should all be done automatically without requiring you, the player, to go through an extra step to request it. That's what I was referring to in the tweet of, "you don't select a region or country, it is auto-assist". Meaning, matchmaking will automatically put you in the best game for YOUR connection."
If that's true, why is MW2 the only game where I've spent upwards of 30 minutes with five other friends, all within 20 km of each other, with each of us on fiber internet connection, being unable to get a game started, despite regularly gaming together for quite a while?
(To give you a background on what that "YOUR connection" would mean to me, SpeedTest shows I'm on the following connection: Download 94.63 Mb/s, Upload 65.67 Mb/s, 3 ms ping, Open NAT dedicated IP that is MAC tied exclusively to my primary Xbox 360 )
The matchmaking isn't necessarily fast, I've seen it be very fast, and I've seen it take several minutes. Regardless of whether it is fast or slow, my friends and I find ourselves losing party members more than half the time. That is unacceptably bad.
I fail to understand how, with my connection, people who connect to me with no problems, who play COD 4 and COD:WaW with me with no problems, don't even have a 50/50 chance of joining a game with me successfully.
When we do lose people, they have no way of telling us, as you might have already heard about Infinity Ward's controversial decision to restrict Party Chat from all but a few maps. That means we have to visually scan for who is and who isn't there. If Modern Warfare 2 would allow Party Chat, they'd be able to say, "Hey guys, I got booted." But virtually every game mode requires you to leave party chat to play. Even game modes where you can speak to living teammates while waiting for your respawn.
I understand there will be those people who prefer the lack of party chat, in hopes that it will encourage team communication between strangers, but literally everyone I know who's playing MW2 either mutes everyone or now has their 360 set so that they can only hear people on their friend list.
The lack of Party Chat irks me as I am one of those people who mutes everyone. I would prefer not to eliminate game chat from every other game I own just because of Infinity Ward's restrictions on Party Chat. I do want the option of people able to talk to the people I play in fighting games, most recently Street Fighter IV, so often times I will use game chat in games like Street Fighter IV. But when it comes to a social team game like the Call of Duty titles, I want to jump on with a group of friends as a team and socialize with them while playing. No one else wants to hear the details of how work is going, and I don't want strangers listening in while I'm socializing and talking about game strategy concurrently.
You do have the option to mute people rather quickly, but as Tycho said in his Penny-Arcade news post, "There are playlists that support Party Chat, identified by a black asterisk, but players who are just beginning to play don't have access to any gametypes that actually support multiple party members. it wasn't a dealbreaker, in that we could mute people (everyone) in either the lobby on the in-game roster, but anytime you take a process that involves zero inputs and substitute fourteen, it's something you should take pretty f**king seriously."
Again, just the lack of Party Chat wouldn't be a deal breaker, but coupled with the ridiculous difficulty of getting five friends into a single game successfully does make it extremely frustrating.
When we did finally get into a game, over half the games we entered were yellow connections or worse, and the majority of those were quit out of because the connection was so bad it was unplayable. The same problem plagued Call of Duty 4 but wasn't nearly as pronounced as it is here.
Treyarch was able to add a "Local" and "Locale Only" search option to Call of Duty: World at War, which allowed my friends and I to wait for a good game. If it took 10 minutes to get a game going, it was better than spending 30 minutes jumping out of unplayable games that we were repeatedly thrown into, losing friends on the way, and constantly having to re-invite people to the party but being unable to talk with them half the time due to the lack of Party Chat. (Party chat allows you to talk during loading screens and when people are booted or trying to join.) The "Locale Only" search option was a key reason World at War was my group of friends' game of choice over the last year. After a full year of caring about each win (2,747), and loss (645), in World at War, I very quickly hit the point that I no llonger care about taking a loss in Modern Warfare 2, because the number of unplayable connections and friends lost when joining games means that dropping out of games is a regular occurrence, and win/loss stats mean nothing as a result.
Treyarch's World at War was also smart enough to include a "Leave with party" option that meant the party leader could pull everyone out of a game together. If someone was getting a drink or using the restroom, the party leader didn't need to wait for them to return to change game types. In MW2, everyone needs to quit out individually, and again, without Party Chat, people sometimes get lost. This may not seem like a big deal for many, but for those of us who work and have families, we're rarely all jumping on or logging off at the same time, and what was a brief wait in World at War has become a point of dread in MW2. (Jumping out to get someone means there's a possibility that you'll spend the next 30 minutes unsuccessfully trying to enter a playable game without losing a party member again.)
Now you may wonder why I'm waiting so long to talk about the game play. The truth is that I've yet to formulate a final opinion. There are really fun games and there are really frustrating games...but the game community is still evolving. If camping seems problematic or levels seem unfair, those issues may change as players become familiar with the maps, other people's tactics and the vast majority of people have seen all the perks and weapons. I'm giving Modern Warfare 2 a much longer look than I would give most games, because I truly do want it to be great. I want it to be more fun than World at War with a larger active community than World at War had. However, truthfully, I'm not sure how enjoyable this game will be, nor how many people will stick around after the first month.
Here are the things I think urgently need to be addressed, as they're easy to fix but complete game breakers for many:
1. Party Chat: Put party chat back in for everything but S&D. Put in an MLG game room or whatever alternative rooms you want for angry young racists with a mic that don't want anyone using Party Chat, and let them yell at each other in there. Those of us who view online games as a social outlet to play with friends want this...BADLY. Even Penny-Arcade is wondering why this decision was made. If it was to keep us from talking after we die...why can we still talk after we're dead in game chat in every game type I've played so far? (I have not played S&D yet) Is it technologically impossible to prevent people in Party Chat from playing on the other team? I would love it if Party Chat guaranteed that people in your party would be on your team.
2. Match Making - Lost Team Members: I'm still repeatedly losing party members when trying to get games going. Is this really that difficult to fix? I can understand there are bugs that need to be worked out, but thanks to the lack of Party Chat, there's no way for dropped people to let their team know they've been dropped. A message like, "Party Members were unable to join the game, would you like to back out and get them or continue the game without them?" would be helpful. Baring that, making your squad members easy to visually differentiate (possibly a blue background or text for everyone in the party) which would make it possible to quickly confirm all X number of party members made it. Also, just enabling Party Chat would make it easier to communicate in cases where some people don't make it.
3. Match Making - Bad Connections: I'm still regularly being thrown into games where we have unplayable connections (people in our squad will be all red and yellow connections, even when there's six of us geographically within 20 km of each other jumping into a 6-on-6 game). A "Locale Only" option would be very welcome. I'm happy to sit around for minutes waiting for a playable game. I doubt a patch will come soon enough to make me care about my W/L stats...so I will continue jumping out of games with bad connections...but again, I'm more than willing to wait for a game where everyone on both teams has a reasonable playable connection. Net code improvements? Server upgrades? You guys can do whatever you want there...but until I see a "Locale Only" or "Maximum acceptable ping" or similar option, I'll be of the assumption that you really don't care about my interest in a playable connection, and my team will keep jumping out of matches with bad connections, which is a less than ideal solution when it isn't an issue in other games...
The following are improvements that seem obvious to me, most of which are probably seen in the majority of online games:
1. Leave with Party: This one is obvious. If a group of friends playing together wants to change games types, the party leader should have the option to leave with group. The group can enter games together...why can't they leave games together? COD:WaW did this, so it can't be hard to implement. Everyone dropping in and out separately is annoying enough when you are able to use Party Chat. It's horrible without Party Chat.
2. Add to Squad: There were squads in COD that meant we didn't all have to jump out every time a friend jumped on. They could join the game and if they were on our team, they could join our squad and stay on our team without everyone having to drop out and try to jump back into a game again. Again, this was in COD:WaW, so it can't be that hard to implement and it keeps people playing instead of having them search for games...(with the currently inevitable booting of people randomly and joining games with unplayable connections.)
3. "Invite" option: Why would I want to invite people from the game menu and then play against them? The only benefit I can see for this is people who spam invite people they've played against and beaten... If I use the invite option to invite a friend, I want to play with them. Why not have invites sent this way automatically add them to your squad when they accept? I don't want random spam invites to play against people I don't know, and I was excited at the possibility that we could just invite friends to our team without quitting out of the game.
4. X to skip: I'm not big on skipping levels, and I haven't played enough to dislike any levels enough to skip, so I didn't notice this at first, but why make skipping more difficult than it needs to be? Neither this or the items the follow below are nearly as important as the first six points in my mind.
5. Volume control: Another option I used in World at War that disappeared is the ability to adjust individual volume sliders for the game sound effects, music, and other noises. I have A40 headphones now, so it's no longer an issue for me personally, but if someone's trying to keep the volume at a reasonable level, let them lower the BGM slider and other non game sounds while keeping the SFX (the important game sounds) at the highest setting. When I did adjust these settings, I never felt it gave me any sort of advantage in hearing people in the game, it just lowered the pre and post game music enough to placate my wife.
Lastly, improvements that I'd like to see when getting into games with friends and having fun is taken care of:
1. Barracks Leaderboards: Where did the breakdown by game type go? I could care less about K/D in any game type other than Deathmatch, as that's the only time it's the main point. Even in Free-For-All, killing 25 people and dying 20 times is better than killing 15 people and not dying if you're playing in the spirit of the game...so why create leaderboards that encourage people to focus on kills in game types that focus on objectives? (In the last COD game, I'm 2.27 k/d in TDM and 1.5 in Headquarters, but I believe I have a better win rate in HQ because I play the game...) The new stat system leaves a lot to be desired. It would be great to see a lot of information available, and I understand this may be coming in the future.
2. Lobby Leaderboard: Something to look at between matches when you aren't adjusting classes, and wondering who exactly you're playing with and against.
3. Online Leaderboards: Again these are all things that can be added in the future, and would add to the fun, but aren't as important as the points above: Online stats, iPhone app, Web based challenges you can complete in game, being able to compare accolades with friends, being able to compare individual gun stats with friends, stats by game type, trending stats (k/d average for each hour of a given game type, etc.), etc, etc, etc. There's plenty of data people would love to gobble up, and stats added to my enjoyment of Halo 3 and Call of Duty: World at War. But really, it's secondary to all the multiplayer issues I listed above, and I'd be very happy if IW took those points into consideration and made changes to improve the multiplayer experience for everyone.
Honestly speaking, if every single one of the improvements above had been included out of the box, my rating for multiplayer would almost certainly be 3 or 4 stars, with the potential for a 5 star rating depending on how multiplayer holds up over time...but even if there's a great game under all the BS, the BS is currently getting in the way.
Single Player
I honestly enjoyed World at War more than COD4 for multiplayer, and I doubt that was just due to the improved matchmaking, but I will also say that COD4's single player is probably the greatest FPS campaign I have played. Even though I bought MW2 for the multiplayer, I was hoping that the single player would also be amazing.
Visually, this game is amazing. The sound and music are excellent. If a grade were as simple as rating how it looks and sounds, the single player would be a home run. However, this is a poor successor to COD4. The game has bugs, is short, and the story is feels like a roll of duct tape used to connect different environment and mission types.
A friend of mine said, "If you're going to make a highly detailed game, expect people to focus on the details." One such detail is the checkpoints. Multiple times I would go well past a checkpoint, yet at my death I would spawn back at a prior checkpoint, only to have the checkpoint triggered on the second time through. Near the end of the game, I was in a house on a staircase with an enemy just outside the front door (straight ahead, but just to the side of the door frame) and in the room to the right (just behind the door leading to the base of the stairs) and the game saved my check point with a flash bang about to go off at my feet. Every time I spawned, I was flash banged. After dozens and dozens of tries, I eventually was able to kill both enemies while completely blinded and continue with the game, but I knew that if I didn't make it to the next checkpoint, that I would need a lot of time and luck to pull that trick off again.
The HUD is minimalistic, which I appreciate, but multiple times the verbal directions and on screen directions are either difficult to follow or a complete lie. I don't remember my own specific examples, but a friend of mine tells me that one such point is being told to jump off a building. If you actually jump, you die from the fall. However, if you just run off the building, you're fine. (That may not be the best example, but I'm not going to bother playing with single player again to be reminded of the ones I encountered.)
While you have almost certainly already heard about the terrorist level, consider this warning for anyone who hasn't, as the next three paragraphs mention it. It occurs in the first quarter of the game, and I think any potential purchaser of this game should know about it. Discussing the game story as little as possible, I will say that it essentially ruined the game for me. First, even if you do not kill any innocent people, you cannot clear the level without attacking soldiers. I had attempted to knife terrorists in the back when they separated from the others. I attempted to shoot the terrorists. I attempted to run to the end of the level without engaging the army...despite the fact that the story could progress at my death without forcing me to play to the end of the level, the game shoe horns you into a movie that I personally wouldn't pay to see. You die at the end of the level regardless, but the game forces you to kill the soldiers trying to stop terrorists. The single player campaign lost me at this point.
The reason is simple. Good stories require the viewer/user to have empathy for the characters. If you follow the "They're not real!" school of thought, you're left with apathy for these characters, and the experience of the game suffers a result. So yeah, they're not real, and that notion stayed with me for the rest of the single player campaign. Moving my character through the level was what I did. In Modern Warfare, I crawled past the troops in the sniper level, and II felt the tension. In MW2, my character did what ever the developers demanded to progress from one checkpoint to another.
What surprises me about the terrorist level is not the people with empathy or the people with apathy, but rather the large contingent of what seems to be angry young males with antipathy for their fellow man who will tell you how they enjoyed shooting the people because it was "fun". If that was the demographic that IW was going for with this game, than it's no wonder that it missed the mark with me.
Having me select a "No, I will not be offended" option the first time I start this game up doesn't mean I won't be offended by a short, disjointed game with a bad story, mostly uninspired levels, buggy checkpoints and unclear objectives. Dying doing what I'm told to do in order to figure out the hard way what I'm actually supposed to do is not my idea of an enjoyable game.
That said, breaching was fun (and they certainly realized that, as they included more than enough), the snow level was fun, and the final cinematic quick time event ending would have been great if I cared about the characters or the game at that point. Unfortunately, a few enjoyable moments do not make a sub-par game enjoyable. As a single player game, it's several notches below World at War and a flight of stairs below Call of Duty 4.
Special Ops
If someone asked me to criticize Special Op, my response would be that you can only play with one friend at a time. Special Ops is the best part of Modern Warfare 2 in my opinion, which is shame, because it's the part of the game I was least interested in.
If you have exactly one friend you want to play with who's roughly near your skill level and wants to play bite sized portions of co-op player vs. computer scenarios, Special Ops is fantastic fun. There are 15 separate challenges with no check points, and you and your friend must work together to complete them. (With the exception of the sniper level, which was fun alone, these games really need a friend to give you the proper experience.) There are a few minor design issues, such as the fact that if a friend hasn't unlocked a specific level, they won't get credit for completing it with you, and not all levels are created equal, but there's some very good fun there.
I'm not sure what the rational was for restricting the Special Ops levels. It meant that in order to play with a friend who hadn't tried it yet, he either had to play without getting credit, or I had to play through several games I'd already played so he could unlock the levels I wanted to play. All that did was confirm that these are great fun the first time, but not something I enjoy enough to want to go back and play again after completing them on Veteran difficulty.
I can't imagine anyone buying this game specifically for Special Ops, but it's a nice addition to an otherwise disappointing game so far, although I finished the 15 challenges rather quickly.
I believe that I've outlined why I've had more frustration than fun with the mutliplayer, how I felt about the single player, and what I think about Special Ops. While also disappointed with the single player, I bought this game primarily for the multiplayer, and expected that the matchmaking, UI and feature set would reflect the fact that this game had a humongous budget and that the previous iteration of Call of Duty had so many matchmaking improvements and additions. Instead the feature set and functionality feels barebones and buggy, and the problems are so bad that the ability to enjoy the game suffer. A controversial decision to restrict Party Chat from almost every game type compounds things even worse. To quote a friend:
"It's such a damned shame. Some small details are killing a fantastic game. The thing is that those small details add up freaking fast and it makes the game sooo much less fun."
That friend has spent his last 24+ gaming hours playing COD:WaW and Borderlands because, in his words, "I just want to get online and play a fun games where I can talk to my friends."
Gaming details: Completed single player campaign on Hardened, completed every Special Ops on Veteran and played +19 hours of multiplayer with an additional +8 hours trying to play multiplayer games, but with matchmaking failing to put the entire party into a game successfully.
I've done reviews for the majority of the games I've owned. Check out my March 2009 collection, my April 2008 collection or my Borderlands (★★★★★) review by clicking on the links if you're interested.
Update: You can now see my August 2010 Xbox 360 games collection photo here, and a list of my XBLA games along with ratings for each here.
my clear.com dongle does not work in my new location, so had to sign up for something else. trying out comcast now, on their so-called 'performance' pkg.
its ok, but not very impressive, overall. however, its better than no signal at all ;)
This was my rapid fire test for the pocket wizards, trying to see if they will match the D300 8 FPS. they do.
read the full story here
Maybe Alcatel-Lucent network can give me more speed but my USB-Ethernet adapter is close to its limit...
doing a speedtest while dialed in to a VPN I'm trying out.
I'd say that this is really good thruput for an encrypted VPN connection!
With the recent Verizon upgrade here to 4G it eas time to upgrade my Mifi unit; the old one (right) a Novatel 2020, was one of the originals. It's virtue was I had an unlimited data plan.
But its connectivity here was quirky.. and my iPhone is getting sick speeds in 4G (I clocked 23 MB/s the first day).
The new JetPack 4620 LE (left, marked "FAST:) is thicker because it has a beefier battery, and has much more display information than the old one's single colored light.
The downside is I had to go for a metered data plan. I was able to combine the iPhone/Mifi to one shared data plan, with 16Gb per month, for only $10 more than my old plans.
The downside again is I hit 16 GB only 21 days into the billing period. It's really not cut out to be my home primary network. And I am sure faster speeds will make me even hungrier for use.
The upside is my first speedtest, was 14 MB/s down and 5 up
speedtest.net/result/2409581545.png
So I am signing up for my local cable company, which supposedly has improved their connectivity since I had it 2 years ago (and merged with a bigger company), and once in place, I can drop my Verizon plans down to a 2 or 4Gb a month plan.
I cannot rave enough about Verizon for their network improvements here in Strawberry, AZ (and most places I traveled across the USA in the last 20 months). In three years with AT&T their service actually got worse here, from marginal Edge data to none at all. And I have had nothing but excellent and responsive service from Verizon customer support. I hesitate to gush about a service provider, as in general I believe in the long run they will all screw you over.
The cost of being online! Its worth it.
I read a thing or two about the new butterfly switch keyboard and its reduced travel on Apple's Retina MacBook before I encountered it in real life at the store - it seemed fine to me. I've probably spent <4 hours on it so far and despite some complaints that I read, I am happy to say that it works just fine for me.
On the LEFT are my results from 10fastfingers.com on the new MacBook.
On the RIGHT are my results on my 15" Retina MacBook Pro.
I'm still faster on the traditional scissor switch keyboard (and I actually believe I'm even faster on the 11" MacBook Air or on the ThinkPad keyboards) but not by a huge amount :)
A demonstration of OWC solid state drive speeds. Also partially visible: NuMount Pivot wall mount ($159, available now) for Apple Cinema Display and Thunderbolt Display; OWC RAM
This photo is part of my coverage of 2013 CES for MacTech Magazine. Look for my article in the February 2013 issue of MacTech (available in print and on iPad). Visit www.mactech.com to get the magazine, and for video coverage subscribe to the MacTech Live podcast in iTunes (macte.ch/itms) or RSS (macte.ch/rss)
Speed like you wouldn’t believe:
John Schommer, FiOS product manager, shows off Verizon's 300 mbps down and 65 mbps upload.
Whether you’re streaming HD video, plugging multiple devices into your home IP connection or uploading family videos for friends and relatives, Verizon’s new 300 Mbps downstream and 65 Mbps upstream gives consumers all the speed they need now and down the road. FiOS blew the doors off the competition when Verizon unveiled its 150/35 broadband speed about 18 months ago. Now we're doubling down and you win.
Want more info? Visit: speed.verizon.com/fios-quantum-internet/
Speed test done using speedtest.net/
ISP Internode
Plan ADSL 2 Extreme $65/month
Location Centre of Sydney
how bad is that ....
For attribution please link to www.comparitech.com/. Depicts a speedometer commonly seen on many internet speed tests.
Flickr user Wes posted his results using the OOKLA speed test and I decided to do the same, but slightly differently.
I went with using different speed tests - OOKLA and my ISP (Comcast / Xfinity). I was using a computer (Dell T7500) connected directly to the modem using a 1Gb/sec port (router and computer) and a CAT 6 cable.
The computer is running Windows 10 Professional x64 (clean install). Dual Intel X5680 (3.33Ghz, 12 cores, 24 logical), 48GB RAM, GTX 970, USB 2.0 \u0026amp; 3.0, 1TB SSD, 2TB 7200RPM, WIFI & Bluetooth, etc.
BTW, While I LOVE Comcast Internet support, the X1 (eXpertmental 1) platform and its cloud support gets a ZERO (0) rating in my book. Why? I have NOT been able to watch any recorded (cloud) show since at least October 2015. Comcast has yet to refund any money, but they want the bill paid in full and on-time (over $300/month).
If I can't watch TV, why pay for it?
When I asked for a refund this week (as the engineers closed the tickets after a major update), they said it was too much money. The offer was $20!!!! $20 for not being able to watch any recorded TV for 9 months!
In the end, I went to RCN and its TiVo system, which is GREAT! Plus I can RCN/TiVo supports the step button (frame by frame), which Comcast / Xfinity can't nor ever will based upon what the developers told me in 2015.
I bought a 2GB mobile data plan for 10,000 CFA ($20 USD) and a local SIM card from Glo Benin to access emails, Facebook, and Twitter while visiting Cotonou on business.
As you can see by this screenshot of an Internet bandwidth speed test, I never had enough download bandwidth to even get emails and not enough upload bandwidth to log in to Twitter. Overall, Glo Benin was a waste of money.
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Competitor shooting the Kinda Sorta Tactical Game (KSTG) Classifier also known as FAST.
pistol-training.com/drills/the-fast
Watch Match Video: youtu.be/QXmBeDvpLaE
Staff working on the North Pacific Regional Connectivity Investment Project. The project is helping build a submarine cable system linking Palau to the internet cable hub in Guam.
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