I dunno why I still play this game. I don’t think I’ll prestige, because it’s taken about 3 1/2 days of gaming to get to 65.

There are so many frustrating aspects to multiplayer gameplay in MW2. Here are a few examples.

1) MW2 caters to casual gamers, thus the multitude of killstreak rewards, and the overbalancing of the weapons. Infinity Ward would like casual gamers to get some kills (5:15), and not be completely outgunned (0:20). However, this discrimination has a nasty side-effect. When someone kills you in the game, you often spawn near them, so it’s easier for you to get a “revenge” kill, or to get a kill at all. What actually happens though, is that you spawn near them, they’ve changed position, and kill you again, and again, and again, which leads to a rather frustrating experience.

2) No Local Search - Before the game was released, Robert Bowling (the Infinity Ward Community Relations Manager) stated on record that the matchmaking in MW2 is superior to that in WaW and CoD4, and thus there’s no need for a Local Search option. We’ve all found out that those words were hollow. The game states that there are often >20 good games, and then connect me to the first game, with a red or yellow ping, irrespective of whether there’s a game available which would give me max green pings.

There is a petition on the Infinity Ward website with some 240 pages of comments and support from the community for local search to be included in the game, yet not one comment from Infinity Ward whether they’re going to include it or not.

It’s interesting to note that CoD:WaW (by Treyarch) had a Local Search option, and that game was built on the CoD4 codebase. So, along comes MW2, built on the same engine, and no Local Search.

3) Because this game is designed for casual gamers, the decision was made to overbalance the automatic rifles (AR’s) compared to the other weapons available. This means that an opponent with a 3-shot burst M16 can outgun (and outsnipe) a sniper from across the map. I can bearly see this dude through my scope, yet he can point and shoot me faster… go figure that one out!

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Anyway, I’ve had some fun on occasion, one fairly recently, where I decided to change up my strategy, just for shits-n-giggles. I changed one of my classes to include an AR (either the SCAR, or the ACR) w/ holographic sight, the Thumper for grenade launcher goodness, claymore mine, flash grenades, Scavenger, cold-blooded, and ninja. This effectively gives me an unlimited amount of noobtubes and claymore mines.

So, one game I played, on Skidrow, I went something like 13:2, and the majority of the kills were claymore kills. At the end of the game, the guys on the other team were all up-in-arms about the claymore spamming! Awesome fun!

The lag issues aside, I’ve found that lag works both ways - I played one game last night with yellow bars, and ended up 13-0, and top of the team. I ran out of ammo, picked up a gun off the ground, ran out of ammo again, and swapped to yet another gun. Now those games I love playing, not because I’m racking up the points and kills, but because things seem to be going my way for once.

I’d've been thoroughly pissed off if I was disconnected during that game last night!

Oh, and after unlocking the WA2000 the other day, I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, rather than the Intervention. Certainly a different sniper rifle, but I’m not fond of the smilie on the inside cover of the scope cover…