Spec-Ops isn't just for trained military personnel anymore

Alright. Well, since there's really not much choice in whether or not we do a review about Modern Warfare 2, I suppose we'll open up with that. I think it's a good first move, don't you, Tak? Of course you do. Now then, getting right into it, we're going to be completely ignoring the campaign and only briefly touching on the multiplayer. No, what we'll be talking about today kids, is the Spec-ops mode.

Now, Tak and I sat down for some good old-fashioned co-op, though I had previously spent roughly eight hours playing with someone else. Always on Veteran, of course, so just be aware that that may have tinted my judgment a bit. Personally, I enjoy it even more than the multiplayer. I think that we as gamers have forgotten the joy of playing against the game itself. When you play multiplayer you're playing against other real people. When it feels like you're being cheated everyone goes into the blame game saying the other team is glitching, hacking, or using bitch tactics, but when you're playing spec-ops, you're playing against the computer. There's no question about who's doing what, there's simply a malevolent computer that's trying to crush you. It gives you something far more powerful to rally against than the other team. The computer is just a more evil and easily hated opponent that's so much more sastisfying to best.

That brings us to our next point. On the topic of satisfaction, the spec-ops feels more...worthwhile. I can look at people's multiplayer rank or my own and feel nothing towards it, but when I look at my stars in Spec-ops, which at this point is 63, I feel a sense of accomplishment. Those stars were hard as fuck to get and I'm a actually pretty proud of them. It's as if I wrestled them from the cold, dead hands of the computer. And yes, the computer is an all seeing, all knowing force that exists for no other reason than to oppress us. Think of it like the man, but with more computer chips. It's just a great reward and a great feeling to prevail against impossible odds.

This omnipotent computer also makes it easier to not give up. When you're playing against real people it's easy to just stop playing, but when you're playing against the computer, it's easier to want to keep fighting. If you quit, you're letting the computer win. And really, who the fuck wants the computers to win? There have been several times during a few choice missions that I've wanted to quit and thought, "No. Fuck that. That's what Modern Warfare 2 wants."

Okay. To start bringing this to a close, I will touch on something that pissed me off. Not in the going to stab someone way, but the going to bitch about it way. In one of the intel tips after dying, specifically in the mission High Explosives (Kill 10 Juggernauts using only explosives and knives) it told me explosives were highly effective against juggernauts. I don't know who they are, but I've tried that mission a great deal of times and counted. It takes about 6 shots from the Thumper to bring them down. I wouldn't consider a gun that took 6 bullets to kill a regular infantrymen super effective. I'd actually call that a bit sub-par all things considered. It's not like we're using water-beam on charmander here.

So, the moral of the story is that the computer wants to enslave us all, juggernauts suck, and Spec-ops is just a lot of good co-op fun. Modern Warfare 2 Spec-ops mode gets 69 stars from me. Perhaps it'll return the favor.