Crawling out of bed this morning took a Herculean effort, but not because we stayed up watching Twilight, oh no. We almost overslept because of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, or more specifically, Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer. What started as "let's play a couple matches" quickly turned into a five hour session of mass death. Suffice to say, we abandoned Assassin's Creed II and Left 4 Dead 2 to devote the majority of our time leveling up our digital warrior and unlocking all sorts of cool stuff. That may come at your expense, since we have every intention of sneaking up behind your virtual soldier and lodging a bullet in his skull.
That said, we're more than happy to devote our free time to stabbing bozos in the video game, and since Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, here's a list of what we're thankful for, Modern Warfare 2 style.
Create a Class
Infinity Ward did a great job designing a handful of custom classes that allowed us to ease into Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer modes. While not the most effective in combat, we managed to score some kills using the MP5K/SPAS-12 combo, and did lots of damage with the RPD, largely because its magazine holds 100 rounds of ammo.
That said, we're thankful for the ability to create our own class by unlocking different weapons. We'll need several more days to unlock the M16A4 (achieved after becoming a Level 40 1st Lieutenant II), but for now, we're quite pleased using a TAR-21 with a holographic sight, complemented with a Thumper grenade launcher.
Perks
It's cliche, but perks are the difference between life and death. Not only are they the perfect compliment to a customizable weapons load out, but they also prove invaluable on the battlefield. We don't know where we'd be without Marathon (unlimited sprinting), Sleight of Hand (faster reloading) and the always useful Bling (two primary weapon attachments). Well OK, we know exactly what we'd be, and that's dead.
Death Streaks
Killing 17 gamers and dying 26 times doesn't make us experts. Actually, we die a lot, and will sometimes go several moments without shooting anyone. That's where Death Streaks come into play. Infinity Ward rewards us for sucking with these helpful perks. Copycat, for instance, lets us to steal our recent victim's class during a killcam after four deaths without a kill. It's something we loved using early on, just to experience the more advanced weapons without having to level up. Besides, it's always fun killing someone with his or her own gun.
Revenge Spawning
When someone kills us, the game will often re-spawn our character within that person's vicinity, allowing us to hunt him or her down and exact sweet revenge. Sometimes it backfires (dying at their hands a second consecutive time is quite shameful), but it's good to know that Infinity Ward wants us to avenge that death, especially against a dirty camper or high ranked player in need of a beat down.
Customizable Killstreak Rewards
Just about anyone can gain access to the UAV (three consecutive kills) and Care Package (four consecutive kills). That's amateur punk stuff. It takes additional skill, however, to get to the Predator Missile (five consecutive kills), the Harrier Strike (seven consecutive kills) and the powerful AC130 (11 consecutive kills). Even better, you can swap out Killstreak rewards (the game lets you choose three of 15, so long as you unlock them). Sure, it's tougher to get five or more kills in a row, but it sure beats waiting around for a Care Package while everyone else descends on your location. Now all we need is to score 25 consecutive kills to unlock the Tactical Nuke. Eh, it'll probably never happen.
Stupid Players
OK, so maybe "stupid" is a bad word. Let's call them clueless. These folks are the brave men and women who never turn around to see if someone's following them, wander into the open like a lost child searching for its parents and stand still for several moments at a time, allowing more experienced players to easily pick them off. Even we feast on these misguided souls, who seem to exist solely for the purpose of helping us pad our stats. To them we say, thank you.
Afghan, Scrapyard and Terminal
Everyone has his or her favorite maps, and ours are the ones listed above. We always do the most damage sneaking through Afghan's desert, weaving between Scrapyard's broken planes and slaughtering other players in the "No Russian" inspired Terminal. They sure beat Estate, where it takes forever to make our way from the re-spawn point back to the house, where a bunch of camping snipers (both in the woods and at the top of the stairs) wait for us to stupidly waltz through the front door.
The same goes for Rust. We've won there before, but the map's so tiny that scoring consecutive kills takes a level of skill we don't possess.
Gamers who prefer death lying down
"Cool" MW2 players will often drop to their bellies and attempt to kills us from the ground. At first, we fell victim to this multiple times, but not anymore. As soon as we see someone drop to one knee, we automatically lower our weapon to make the educated guess that he or she is about to hit the pavement. It also helps that doing this decreases their mobility, allowing us to unload half a clip into their heads.
Group think
Play MW2 long enough and you'll be able to guess people's thoughts, purely based on a map's design. In Terminal, players will always hide in a plane's cockpit or camp in the bookstore to reload (rush in and stab like crazy). In Scrapyard, there's a square-shaped piece of stone with a narrow pathway in back, and gamers will always use that to avoid sniper fire from the building perpendicular to it (you'll be able to sneak up on them). Only the most skilled gamers follow different paths, so if you think like everyone else, you'll score some easy kills.
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