Max's+Network+Gaming

X Box Live and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2:

__Beginnings__:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has three different game modes (Special Ops, Campaign, and Multiplayer). In Campaign mode, you play as several different soldiers in several different armed forces throughout. This is part of the internal game itself and involves no "online" play, but doing so before going on XBOX live will help teach you the controls and all the abilities your player will have. Many of the players that you encounter spend an extremely large amount of time playing, so if you do not know how to play, starting with the campaign will make your online experience that much more enjoyable.

Special Ops is also part of the internal game itself and involves a series of individual "missions" you can complete and a variety of difficulties. Depending on your success, you receive a certain amount of stars. Over time, these will add up and eventually unlock the later, more difficult missions.

I began by playing the campaign mode, just to get the controls straight and figure out what was going on in the game. Having played earlier versions of Call of Duty, I was somewhat familiar with what to do, but there have been some changes as far as weapons and gameplay that I wanted to learn before going "online."



The screenshot above is from the very first mission in campaign mode. You begin in an Army base in Afghanistan where you go through each individual control and are instructed on how to pick up and use different weapons. The level ends with a run through a shooting range where you get to use all the skills you have acquired together in a 'live' situation.

During the campaign, you jump around from the perspective of different soldiers throughout the war. In some levels, you operate a .50 cal gun atop a tank driving through the city, or an attack helicopter, but mostly, you are a foot-soldier in the midst of the battles. There is an incredible amount of detail put into this game, from the uniforms to the accuracy of the attributes of individual guns. The screenshot above shows the players first person perspective as he holds an M4 which emulates the real assault riffle almost perfectly.

Below are a few shots of different types of scenarios and roles I encountered during my campaign play: Here you are operating the .50 cal while driving through a city.

This shot shows your perspective while operating a Predator Drone Missile. The red boxes indicate the potential targets. Hitting them is not as easy as it looks for the missile moves extremely fast.

I am most certainly a dog person, but In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 they can be either your best friend or your worst enemy. It is very easy to get killed by one of these unless you react quickly enough. This shot shows one of the ways you can take a dog out after it attacks you (sorry PETA).

In one of my favorite parts of the campaign you actually have to scale the side of a cliff. In past versions of the game this scene would be automated (where you simply observe your player doing it). However, in COD Modern Warfare 2, you have to use the controls in the right manner to not fall off the side (it took me a couple of tries). I commend the designers and programmers for going the extra mile to really engulf the player into the world of the soldier in this war.

__Online Multiplayer:__

The Multiplayer Mode is where one is able to connect to real-time online games with players from all over the world. In one game you can be playing against a seven year old in Japan and then bump into your next door neighbor in the next. The team and game assignments are done at random so at any given time you can be playing with an array of different people and levels.

In order to play online, one must first sign up for XBOX live, which is where you make an account and a Username. I had already subscribed to this service under the name, "HitTHATsandwich" and was able to access the online game modes through it. Everyone begins at the same level and ranking up is not done on a basis of achievement, but rather experience. The more you play, the more levels you will go up. It does not matter how good you are, anyone can reach level 70 (the highest level) as long as they invest the time.

Within the realm of online play, one can enter several different types of game modes including: There are many other game modes including: Sabotage (try to bomb the enemy base), Ground War (team games with much larger teams), etc..I spent the majority of my online play experience within Free-For-All and Team Deathmatch
 * Team Deathmatch: two teams fighting each other until time runs out (10 min.) or a score limit is reached (7500 points)
 * Free-For-All: every man for himself, same idea as team deathmatch that its the leader after time runs out or a score limit is reached

Ways of earning XP:
 * Kills and Assists (Deathmatch = 100XP a kill, 20 for Assist; Free-for-All = 50XP a kill)
 * Challenges (varies depending on the challenge. Some include killing people in specific ways or going an entire match without dying)
 * Match Bonuses (at the end of every game you get a match bonus that seems arbitrary, but apparently uses some form of algorithm that factors in your performance for the entire game and then gives you XP)

Ranking Up:
 * Once a certain amount of XP is acquired a player goes up in rank. The lower ranks are easily reached, but as you go up, it requires more and more XP to get to the next level. Level 70 is the highest level, and once reached, the player has the option of entering "Prestige Mode" where all of their unlocks are lost and they essentially begin at 0, but get a special emblem indicating that they have already passed through all the ranks once. A player can cycle through the ranks over and over, gaining new emblems each time.
 * A player is rewarded with unlocks at different levels. These include new guns, attachments, sidearms, launchers, equipment and perks.

__My Experiences:__
 * Many of the people I played with were teenagers/college males, who loved to trash talk. Fortunately I could mute them because it is incredibly annoying to listen to pre-pubescent tough guys' voices cracking for hours on end.
 * I got pretty good at the game, consistently scoring high for my team, but there were always a few kids that were on a different level of play. They clearly spend too much time with the game.
 * I managed to reach the low 60s (with the help of my very bored roommate, who played like an addict) before my XBOX got the "red rings of death" (It is now at Microsoft getting fixed)
 * I am unsure how this happened, but I have been through it before. It could be something to do with X-Box live, or just excessive use. Microsoft says that it will be 6-8 weeks before I get it back...Bummer, but at least they do the repairs for free.