Modern Warfare 2 rant

Disorganized rant spam, away!

You really like saying Oscar Mike – at.any.possible occasion. I can just imagine a suit puffing on a cigar with his legs kicked up: “Well boys, you see, Americans wanna kill, they love em some Generation Kill, so let’s just make it into a video game, see? Big bucks.”

Invasion of the US by Russia:

• Where are all the planes based? How did they cross European and Japanese airspace, and the span of two entire oceans without being detected? Whatever nonsense reason the game gives for not being detected doesn’t matter, they would still be visually identified. And by the way, no Russian aircraft has that range, nor could the Russian military ever remotely be able to execute such an operation. Where are the planes going to rebase and be resupplied? It’s as realistic as aliens invading the US.
• OH NOES A BTR??! Since when is a Cold War relic like a BTR considered a piece of heavy armor that is immune to grenades? Why doesn’t anyone in the platoon have an AT4 or Javelin (the former of which is a standard feature in the US fire team)? Why would you fill the precious space in your sticks with 50+ year outdated vehicles? Since when do BTRs have firing systems like Strykers, and why are they firing ammunition which is capable of blowing a 2 meter hole in the side of a house? Since when are BTR tires bullet proof, and why wouldn’t the sergeant think to disable the vehicle with grenades rather than scream bloody murder like an AT-AT was coming down on them?
• On the topic of AT4s – where is the first time we see one? In a Russian oil platform converted to a SAM site. Why do the Russians have AT4s and why are they massing hand held AT weapons on an oil platform?
• At first I thought the tracers going up in the sky were from US AAA platforms, but later on you have to take out Russian AAA that is firing into the sky. This implies that all of the AAA is Russian. Why would the Russians try to shoot down their own invasion? Also, traditional AAA is pretty useless in the modern era, and its especially useless when fired up in random swathes like WW2 flak.
• I’m not sure why you decided to give the Russian paratroopers a make-believe uniform – but i’m not bitching about novelty, only the fact that they look IDENTICAL to the US guys running around. How did this not come up in play testing?
• Using a Stryker as a heavy piece of armor? See BTR. Why not the Bradleys that were featured in the convoy which rescued the platoon from Taco Bell in the previous mission?
• Nit pick: no nuclear attack? Do the Russians really think they can invade, occupy and hold the US cities with conventional forces? It’s absurd. Protip: you will need more than BTRs and paratroopers to take out US armored divisions.

Rio:

• I can’t think of worst level design in my all my years of gaming.
• The Rio levels take the most infuriating aspects of the Battle of Bastogne from yesteryear Call of Duty games and combine them with the visual overload of a Japanese anime. I love being corralled to go one exact way or be immediately killed. In previous games if you strayed a foot the wrong way, you were blasted with a 88mm HE shell which you somehow miraculously survived like a stun prod, in this game, you are blasted by militia from rooftops all around.
• The shotgun you start with is so absurdly unrealistic that it made me chuckle. 10 foot maximum range, and only really effective at 1-5 feet. If you run out of ammo for your rifle as I did, prepare to die dozens of times and have to listen to the same lines of dialog over and over again. The shotgun will not get you through.
• Am I supposed to hate “soap”?
• I can never tell what’s going on because my AI team mates don’t use any coherent strategy or bounding over watch, instead running around at random intervals.
• I have a feeling the cigar puffing exec just wanted to cash out on Resident Evil 5 fare.

Slaughter at the airport:

• Seriously?
• Who thought it was a good idea to play as a terrorist mowing down dozens of innocent civilians? Are you trying to give Lieberman and his mindless cronies exactly what they claim games to be?
• I would love to meet the animators who painstakingly detailed the death throws and possum-playing of the innocents the player is commanded to mow down.
• If you ever wanted to play as a gunman in the Beslan massacre, your prayers are answered!
• When I tried to do the right thing, and kill the bastard leading the death squad, I was given a game over screen. Do you seriously intend to FORCE me to do this? I know, I know, there is an option to skip this stage, but what were they thinking?
• Why would the operative’s ID be revealed when he was killed? IF that happened in real life, and those sort of false-flag operations are very common, the CIA/DoD would just deny the existence/affiliation of the operative. In any event, it’s absurd to think it would lead to World War III.

Snow level:

• Only redeeming experience from this decadent game, mainly because I felt like I was Solid Snake again. The ice climbing thing was pretty cool. That’s about it.

Must play Combat Mission: Shock Force to cleanse myself now.