What I Did During The Great Modern Warfare

PhotobucketIn years to come, when I am old and using the words ‘these days’ too often, my grandchildren will probably look back at some old news on Google, turn to me and ask “What did you do during the great Modern Warfare 2 Granddad?”. I shall take a good old gulp of oxygen from the tank, think for a moment and respond with “Nothing”.

The faces of the children will drop and they will ask again with astonishment “Really Granddad? You weren’t on the battlefield killing noobs?”.

“No I was not” I shall reply “Noobs had as much right to be there as I did”.

“Did you not queue up outside one of them old game shops at midnight?”

“No I did not, I was in bed”

“Did you not take out a pre-order from Amazon or something?”

“No”

“Was is something to do with that airport level?”

“No it wasn’t” I shall respond “now stick my tea back in the microwave”.

PhotobucketYou’re probably playing Modern Warfare 2 right now, you’ve certainly played through the campaign mode about five times already, you’ve been on the internet to say the No Russian level is a wonderful part of the storyline and you’ve signed up for a clan to go and shoot everybody else. I meanwhile, as the prediction above suggests, have not. It’s not that I think Modern Warfare 2 is a bad game, indeed it looks solid and extremely enjoyable if you like that kind of thing. My problem is that the hype has actually put me off and it’s a lonely experience when the game in question has become the fastest selling title in history.

I just don’t like being first in the queue for anything really. If you’ve lined up outside Gamestation at midnight in order to get your mitts on a copy before anybody else did (well, apart from the other fifty people in shop with you) then good luck to you. You’ve been first up to the front line, the first over the top and the ones who have to put up with tea made from mud. I meanwhile am still back home being chided by the general public for not doing my bit for the country. I wish you all the best but it won’t be over by Christmas I can tell you now, that’s when all the under 12s will be online with you.

It’s not the first time it’s happened. The release of Halo 3 was covered in the national press and on news bulletins all over TV but I wasn’t bothered by it. Hype makes me wary, it gives me the impression that a game has too far to fall. The cynical part of me wonders why they have to hype up a game so much and the only conclusion is that something must be missing from the final build. After about 18 months I found a second hand copy of Halo 3 in my local games emporium for £9 and snapped it up. It was in those following weeks that I found myself really getting into playing this major title that had previously passed me by. By that point in time all the aforementioned 12 year olds had moved on to something else and left the more mature players in peace.

In my ideal world chocolate covered pretzels would never have vanished from the shops, and games would be hyped in very minimal time periods. It would be against the law to even mention a game’s release until it’s gone gold. You’d see an amazing trailer at E3 one week, check out screen shots of it the week after, play the demo the week after that and then be able to buy the thing the following Friday. There would be no hanging about digesting videos of random sections of the game, no countdown clocks on the developer’s website and no constant half mentions of a title in the company’s annual financial report that sends the internet into meltdown. You’d see something you like and then it would be with you in a few short weeks with minimal hanging about and jabbering on about it.

PhotobucketAt least Modern Warfare 2 seems to be worth the wait. There was a day when weeks worth of hype and mentions of ‘revolutionary gameplay’ would leave you on tenterhooks only to have something like Rise of the Robots farted out towards you, a game which got Spinal Tap levels of critical response. The game was hyped to the hills for months and months beforehand which gave the developers far too much time to polish the turd that was the end product. We were left with two robotic blobs clanking towards each other in deathly slow motion and the ‘revolutionary gameplay’ was very quickly found out to be false. How Advertising Standards weren’t called in I’ll never know. At least under my suggested scheme the pain would have been over far quicker than that.

On past experience it can be said that I might not be avoiding Modern Warfare 2 forever. It’s just to say that I won’t be in that initial group running around shooting each other in the face in the next few weeks. When I do come online in a few months time then I’ll no doubt be crap at it so I’ll be the one cowering in a sniper nest somewhere wondering where it all went wrong and how I only came here because everybody in the local pub was going off to war and it seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Go very easy on me, for the grandkid’s sake.

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Written by Cameron P

8 comments

  1. KrazyFace /

    Yup, I’m planning on getting this game in about six months time when it’s cheap and everybody in it’s world is dead! Besides, I’ll only play the single player then jam it into my dusty collection with the other games I’ll never have time to play anyway.

    Nice write up.

  2. Kevin M /

    I think you may struggle to find the game cheap mate. COD4 was still selling at full price nearly 2 years after release! The MW2 single player only takes around 6 hours, although it is very enjoyable. I’d encourage you to rent the game over a weekend if that’s all you’re looking to play. Spec Ops really is great though, and I’ve had more fun playing it than the multiplayer, which as has been mentioned, has lots of obnoxious teens running about shooting you in the face and laughing at the ‘noobs’, who due to having to work, don’t have the time to reach prestige level in two days!

    • KrazyFace /

      I’ll find it cheap! Don’t you worry about that, my ‘local’ Game store has (I suspect) a few stoners on the staff. Every now and then there are things priced VERY wrongly; I found PoP on PS3 for 9.99 (a week after release) and I just found LBP on PSP for 5.99 in there last week! There are many other examples, but from fear of boring you I’ll not list them here.

      I can assure you I’ll get it for a tenner or less soon enough, I just have to bide my time…

  3. I entirely agree with you except for one point: I won’t get it. Period. I mean, I’d get it with dedicated servers – yes, I was one of the people that bitched about those, but unless that happens, I’ll be telling my grandkids how I fought in the Great Dragon Age whilst others were battling in the Modern Warfare 2.

    My actions led to the saving of a nation, I’d say, and they would reply, “So you were afraid to join the real war?”

    • See…. here’s how you’re wrong. First of all you won’t have grandkids because anybody who admits that they’d rather play Great Dragon Age instead of MW 2 isn’t hunting for a uterus with which to procreate. Secondly, get off your high horse. This is the most ridiculous attempt to slyly say that you’re too cool to play COD. Nobody thinks you’re any more hardcore a gamer because you refused to play the game with the masses. Your misguided pride is keeping you from playing a game that you have already admitted you would like. Get over it! Go buy it and stop being such a pompous tart.

  4. half_empty80 /

    Good piece. It almost seems odd to be a gamer that hasn’t got MW2. How fickle gamers are, a few weeks ago everyone on my friends list was on Uncharted 2, now they are all on MW2. I won’t be getting it. The idea of a 4hr SP mode and a MP mode full of swearing kids, cheats and 100+hr ultra players puts me off altogether. The hype has been unbearable, the other publishers had it right to push their releases back, they would have certainly been lost. I don’t begrudge anyone enjoying the game but it’s not for everyone.

  5. “I was playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii during the Great Modern Warfare” – I shall tell my 24 grandchildren… “Because I didn’t have a PS3 [yet] and my copy of MW2 was sitting in front of me unused waiting for the moment I fire up my then new 250GB Slim” – I shall continue.

    CAN’T WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS!

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