Modern Warfare 2 PC - FPS Features - MW3 & BO2 MapModNews

NEOSEEKER Modern Warfare 2

Modern Warfare 2 PC lacks many common PC FPS features

_{by Kevin Spiess}

9 vs. 9 limit on matches, no kicking hackers, no lean, no console, no match recording and more -- no fair for PC gamers

Everyone expects Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 to bust sales records wide open. But for all the sales though, unfortunately, Activision and developer Infinity Ward has all but abandoned any development into PC-specific features for the game. Compared to all earlier entries in the revered Call Of Duty series, Modern Warfare 2 is the first game that is all port, with as little catering to the PC gamer as feasibly possible.

You all know that there will be no dedicated servers -- the backlash over that came earlier on this month. But yesterday, in a community chat hosted by Best Buy with Infinity Ward's Mackey McCandlish and Ryan Lastimosa, further terrible news for PC gamers was unceremoniously delivered.

The lack of dedicated servers wasn't just the only bad news it seems -- it was just the beginning.

MW2 FPS

Here's some more of that bad news: Modern Warfare 2 will have extremely poor multiplayer support, compared to what PC gamers usually enjoy, with almost all other modern warfare in FPS games. Besides the lack of server support, there will be no way for players to kick cheaters out of games. Infinity Ward hopes that hackers and cheaters will somehow magically not materialize, but this must seems like a very far-fetched idea to anyone who has played a popular PC FPS. Furthermore, because the PC version is nothing more that a straight console port of the game, matches will be limited to 9 versus 9 -- 18 players a match is a sad number when you consider many other comparable games support at least 16 on 16 players per map.

With no way to determine ping, an automatic match-making service, and no way to kick the inenvitable cheaters that will pop up, and no support for mods or custom maps, it seems fair to say that a serious PC multiplayer community will have a tremendous challenges keeping fans of the game engaged. To further unbalance the game, any player that hosts a match will have an undeniable ping advantage, awarding them with an unavoidable unfair advantage online.

Beyond these deficiencies, Modern Warfare 2 will also have no support for console commands -- something that this practically an institution with PC FPS games. The strength of the PC as a gaming platform is that ability for gamers to customize and tailor game settings to their heart's content. But appears Infinity Ward does not think this is very important to their audience.

Also, there is no way to record matches. Recording matches is yet another commonplace feature in MP FPS games of even far less budgets. This feature-lack alone further evaporates the chances that MP Modern Warfare 2 will be taken seriously by the PC competitive gamer community.

On top of all that, there is 'lean' has not been incorporated into the game. Prior Call of Duty's supported lean, but alas, it seems it was removed because the game "isn't balanced for lean."

There might even be more features that the PC version lacks that we have not yet covered. In fact, the word 'lacking' seems to sum up the situation succinctly. When asked what features were specific to the PC version that were not found in the console version of the game, Mackey McCandlish stated "mouse control, text chat in game, and graphics settings." (Wow thanks! Mouse control! That's awesome.)

You might expect this sort of cost saving measure from a smaller studio, doing a smaller title. But for a studio that is releasing what could be one of the best selling games of the year, the complete abandonment of a exclusive PC version, in favour of mere afterthought console-ported version of the game, must be somewhat depressing for many prior fans of the game. We suspect the complete absence of features in the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 will be reflected in low sales for the game, on the PC side. Which, probably, we are guessing, will promptly be blamed on piracy, and will lead to even less catering to PC gamers for future Infinity Ward titles -- if this was even possible.