Ever since the massive success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward were keeping the flow of information about the sequel very tight lipped, allowing only a few people access to one of the most anticipated video games of this generation. Last week a group of exclusive gaming journalists from all over the world gathered in Hollywood, CA for the unveiling of Modern Warfare 2 by publisher Activision and Microsoft. At this time no one outside of the development offices has had a chance to see what the upcoming single-player campaign will offer, for now we can at least detail our hands-on experiences with the multiplayer portion; which just happens to be one of the top reasons for the entire first-person shooter franchise’s success. The presentation stated with a couple staff members stating that Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer would be “bigger and better” that that of COD4 – without having to know anything more we can absolutely tell you that they are dead on with this statement.
We were reminded that MW2 would not feature a public multiplayer beta like COD4, what we saw and played at the event was, while looking and playing amazing, still in the beta stages. The first Modern Warfare was not for the group of gamers that wanted an easy fix, a multiplayer portion that “anyone” could jump online and do well at – that game was about skill, skill that took a long time to master. Infinity Ward is staying true to that group of gamers but also want to make sure that the sequel is “more accessible” than ever before, meaning a minimum of 10 hours a day practice won’t be necessary to keep up with the other online players. One of the new ways they are doing this with MW2 is the addition of “Deathstreaks” (see opposite of “Killstreaks”), meant to help the weaker players just a bit; the two we saw in the beta were Copycat (provides the losing player with his killer’s load out) and Painkiller (provides players with more life for a short period of time).
Those players that are used to kicking ass and taking names need not worry because MW2 will feature plenty of new (and familiar) killstreak awards, some very awesome stuff here that can’t be talked about until the game launches later this year. Another new addition that we can talk about is one helping balance issues to the Modern Warfare multiplayer space - known as the Care Package, which drops onto the battlefield at random moments in time and gives the first player to pick it up a nice little perk. That reward could be ammunition, health, the UAV, or a chance to get into the AC-130 and bring hell to your enemy soldiers from above; whatever it is it can be picked up by either side so the moment one drops you will see all players make a mad-dash to arrive first. While we are on the topic of methods of death we may as well spend some time discussing the different load outs available in Modern Warfare 2, and the class system used to take advantage of said weaponry.
