MW Local Multiplayer

Crap, I remember what I wanted to write about in the first place. Again, the proper MW2 review is on another machine and will be up soon. Right now I'm just going to say a bit about how we've (yes, 'we'; I haven't been playing by myself or online very often) been playing Modern Warfare 2. I haven't had this much fun playing a game since we were doing system-link Halo 3 grifball during the last ALT contract cycle. And to think that it is just 2v2 stuff this time...outstanding.

MW2 has somehow just worked for us. The last time we tried to play a Call of Duty game (MW1, World at War), people got discouraged because there was a big skill variance between me (who owns both games) and my friends who...gamely gave the games a go. I had sympathy for that feeling, and it wasn't particularly fun for me to play the game without knowledgeable opponents, either. On top of that, there were usually more than four of us wanting to play and we had ready access to system-linked Halo. Shit just wasn't aligned for CoD.

Things are different this time. Since the last contract cycle ended, our gaming crew has dwindled. We lost one dude (and thus his brother's participation as well) to the Okinawan mainland and two returned to the US (one of those two being arguably the best Halo player). Another fellow, while still here in Miyako, appeared to lose interest in playing over the summer. I felt similarly, in truth. While I hated the premise and game mechanics of Halo in the first place, its brilliant feature set won me over for a long time. But eventually, as all things do, it became stale. As for the new guys, only one appeared to have much interest in continuing the Halo Monday tradition.

Given this situation, I started to make provisions for more 1- and 4-player gaming, picking up titles like Carcassonne, Worms, and Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. Due to the difficulties mentioned above, the CoD series games were never on the table.

In the middle of November I ordered a copy of the hotly-anticipated Modern Warfare 2. My hot anticipation merely involved intentions of plowing through the campaign, goofing around in online multiplayer (living on an island is like living in a black hole of latency), and getting some real mileage out of 2-player Spec Ops (a buddy and I had been playing Halo ODST to moderate enjoyment, so MW2 co-op was extremely appealing). I didn't expect to get into 4-player local at all.

Sure enough, I beat the campaign on my copy's day of arrival, the Sunday after the mid-year JET conference in Okinawa. I played some multiplayer online as well and was pleased by the panoply of new weapons, equipment, and killstreak rewards. That week, Long Beach* and I got into some Spec Ops and had fun. New York* and Eugene* showed up later, and we decided to give 4-player split-screen a go, not thinking that it would be much different than the experience we had on CoD4 or WaW. It was.

As far as I can tell, what makes MW2 local 4-player better than that of WaW and CoD4 Number is the local multiplayer experience tracking/weapon unlocks/custom loadouts feature of the former.

Bluntly, I had a big leg-up on my crew when it came to skill because I had been playing the game several days before they did. While this was discouraging in CoD4 and WaW (hereafter together referred to as CoD), in MW2 that disappointment is offset by the fact that just about everyone unlocks something during each game, be it as significant as leveling up or as cosmetic as getting a new title for your name. Similarly, being able to customize so much-- even without access to all of the weapons from the start-- gives each player a sense of individuality that, however shallow it may be, helps keep him ever in search of the ideal configuration for his strategy or style. The experience/unlocks system maintains their interest in the game even in the face of repeated losses, because no matter what, some progress is being made.

My favorite thing about the local multiplayer experience tracking is how, with time, each player develops his own style and branches away from the others. With the exception of Long Beach (who has consistently used launchers and LMGs from the start), everyone focuses on developing a fast UMP loadout at the beginning. I've seen it happen five times, once being myself. I think this had more to do with the nature of the 4-player games we were doing rather than some imbalanced quality of the UMP. In our current 'mature' statuses, we are as follows:

Eugene favors the assault rifle class and rarely resorts to a secondary weapon. He's a mover and shooter who hits more headshots than anyone else. Pretty handy with the knife as well. His long-time weapon was the M4 with a heartbeat sensor, but he's recently been using the FAL and continues to improve his long-range game.

As mentioned above, Long Beach is invariably seen with a launcher. Our early games usually involved me being grief-ed to tears by his AT-4 rocket, but he's since taken up the standalone grenade launcher to better effect (to Marksman III-- no one else is ever going to get that); it's basically his primary weapon. He's often found prone in corners, working both for and against his advantage. Long Beach definitely gets the Most Sportsmanlike award because he took a lot of beating early on but persevered. He makes a great teammate for a lighter, faster-moving player.

New York is skilled and fun to play with because, like me, he prefers CoD-style games over Halo and has an intuitive grasp of the game mechanics. Fortunately, aside from both being aggressive players, we have radically different playing styles. NY is the only player who consistently uses a shotgun (AA12) and an assault rifle grenade launcher attachment. Reflecting on his loadouts right now, I can see that they are really geared toward the gametypes we regularly play, like Sabotage and Headquarters; we don't do a lot of long-range fighting, and his kits and play style indicate that.

New Zealand* is the most specialized player. Starting with the universal UMP-fast dude setup and developing it out, he now tears around the map with akimbo SMGs and all of the relevant speed- and hip shooting- related perks. I imagine that it's like playing Doom 1 or something. Meeting him indoors usually turns out badly for the person who isn't him due to the sheer volume of fire his setup provides. Recently he's started using the TAR21 to good effect and is getting better at using the sights. I'd say he is an aggressive player.

Melbourne* is our newest player and the one who plays games the least. He's a capable medium-long range shooter (good timing + hard-hitting assault weaponry). Not having the same access to weapons that the others have, his loadout is less than exotic. Nevertheless, while usually getting massacred in FFA deathmatches as a new player, he's quite effective in team games. He's saved the day for me numerous times in games against more experienced pairs.

As for me, I watch screens.

Anyway, it's a pretty cool scheme. While higher level players have access to a larger absolute arsenal, it is only by the individual player's time and effort that he unlocks the attachments for the weapons. For example, Eugene and I both have the M4, but he (at a lower level than me) has access to attachments for it that I don't have (heartbeat sensor and stuff). The race continues for completion of a weapon's unlocks; I think New Zealand may win it with his near-c0ntinuous use of a UMP-based kit.

There are other improvements found in MW2. There are small maps, and the larger ones scale well. 'Shipment' from CoD4 was too small and an obvious throwaway of a map, but 'Rust' from MW2 has the appropriate complexity for 4 players to have a constant firefight. Of all the MW2 maps, perhaps only 'Derail', 'Wasteland', and 'Estate' are problematically large. The new death streaks are also good, but it's not because they help the losing player that I like them. The reason I like having death streaks is that they provide a dumping ground for the more annoying and crappy perks from MW1 like Martyrdom and Last Stand (here called Final Stand). MW2 still has Last Stand as a standard perk, but it's nerfed. You can't draw the handgun as fast as you can in MW1. We went back to play WaW last night for shits and grins, and my use of Martyrdom had my friends howling with indignation. Some stuff just isn't missed.

A gaming routine has emerged. Several times a week we meet up at my place to play several rounds, and playing with friends has pretty much become the only gaming I do these days. We're kind of 'on a day, off a day.' It works with everyone's schedule and we don't get too burned out (quite the contrary, in fact; I find myself not wanting to play at all the next day, but then being unable to wait for it the day after that).

All of this greatness from MW2 local multiplayer just fills me with that much more sorrow that it doesn't deliver split-screen system link. It would be a real contender for the be-all, end-all game of this console generation if it could run 8 players on two consoles. But I see that split-screen system-linkers like us are a tiny minority of the gaming market for whom development is not profitable. I understand it, but it sucks.



*Names changed to hide the guilty.