As many of you know, the multiplayer servers for the highly anticipated Modern Warfare Remastered have been on and off since yesterday. As soon as I heard the news, I raced home from work (please don’t fire me for leaving slightly early) to try to get into some matches. Well, I was pretty disappointed when there was no change in my game from Sunday. I had downloaded the update and saw the cool new message gearing me up for the release, but multiplayer was still locked. Damn. May as well hop onto some Black Ops 3 and daydream about what could have been!

After a couple matches on Black Ops 3 and some perusing on Reddit and YouTube, I couldn’t help but get the itch again. It seemed like every other post or video was about Modern Warfare! I just had to open the game up and try again. And this time, it finally happened.

I couldn’t believe my eyes, I actually loaded up into a server! Without hesitation, I tried to get into a game of good ol’ Search and Destroy (because that’s what grown ups play). To my sheer and utter delight, I got into a match! On Overgrown, no less! I handled my brand new Scuf controller shakily and with excitement. After seeing all of the footage from the capture events I had an idea of what to expect, but I still could not help but to worry how the game would play online on the shiny new servers.

I spawned in with my team on defense and immediately sprinted in between the shack to my left and the giant house overlooking the bombsite to my right, and started cooking a grenade. Oh yea, I thought. This is all coming back. I hucked my frag over the twenty-foot stone wall towards the enemy. Wait for it… boom. Double kill. This is going to be a good game…

So with that, I have my impressions of Modern Warfare Remastered! I will warn you, though: there’s some good, some bad, and some ugly… Oh who am I kidding, there’s a whole lot of good and no ugly! But there is some bad that needs to be tweaked, so Raven if you can go head and patch this minor stuff… thatwouldbegreat.gif.

The Good

If you cut your teeth on the original game like I did, you will feel right at home. Muscle memory will kick in immediately! Maps and guns feel exactly the same way they did nine years ago. Speaking of guns…

Weapons sound much better! It sounds like Raven did some tweaking to the gun sounds after the original multiplayer reveal because they sound MUCH closer to the original game. Honestly, if they had never fixed this it wouldn’t have been the end of the world because the game still plays the same, but it does show the level of commitment Raven has to making this game as great as humanly possible.

Hit detection is on point. I might even go as far as to say it’s even better that Modern Warfare 2 (which is widely known as the Call of Duty game with the best hit detection). It almost feels LAN quality – it’s THAT good!

that Modern Warfare 2 (which is widely known as the Call of Duty game with the best hit detection). It almost feels LAN quality – it’s THAT good! Switching sides every round. This is more for S&D, but teams switching sides after each round is a gigantic improvement over the first game. Thank you, Raven!

Experience bar at the bottom of the screen. I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I actually love having the XP bar at the bottom of the screen while playing. It gives one a real sense of progress and accomplishment watching it fill up while you are playing! It also shows just how closely this game will stick to the original.

New calling card an emblem system. Something that was missing from the original game, but is a cosmetic little detail that makes completing challenges that much more fun!

Killsteaks only count for individual rounds in Search and Destroy. Just like in the original, if you want to get a UAV or other killstreak in S&D, you have to get it in one round. Killstreaks reset every round.

Speaking of killstreaks, the chopper does not help you gain your next killstreak. Those who played the original will remember the deadly helicopter killstreak. Well, there was a little exploit one could do where they could hold on to their chopper until they died and call it in off of respawn. This would gain the player kills that would actually count towards their next killstreak. So if you sat in a corner and your chopper got three kills (which it will), BAM you got a UAV. Another two and SHAZAM you got an airstrike. Anyway, they took this mechanic out so that you have to earn your kills with your guns and not with you killstreak upon death. Good riddance.

Sense of progression. I kind of touched on it before with the XP bar, but this game has the same addictive quality and sense of progression as the original. Every time you level up and unlock something new or even get a new attachment for your gun, you really feel like you earned the right to use it! And the musical guitar riff when you level up…

Good God those guitar riffs and musical queues… There is an option to turn off the music in the options menu, but I can’t see why you would. Every single musical note in the game from loading into a match as the Marines to the in lobby waiting music is a serious blow to the nostalgia gland.

This is an extremely faithful remake. Raven Studios knows what the hell they’re doing! There are clearly some serious Modern Warfare fans on the development team.

The Bad

Admittedly, there isn’t a whole lot of bad here, but there are a few minor tweaks that would make the game even better than it already is!

Killcams are a little shaky. As I stated earlier, the hit detection is probably the best I’ve ever seen in a Call of Duty, but for some reason the killcams can get a little… weird. Almost like the connection drops as soon as the round ends. Sometimes they don’t do what they’re supposed to either. The first time I got killed by a noob tube it showed the player firing it and then stayed first person with the player. The second time it happened, the killcam followed the actual grenade in third person until it killed me. Both were the same distance away BTW, so it’s not like that was an issue. They also only show two shots coming out of the M16 when it is a three round burst. Obviously, not the biggest deal in the world in itself, but it doesn exemplify the connection issue on the killcams that I’m talking about.

You cannot check the scoreboard when each individual round ends. As soon as the round is over and the round counter comes up, you cannot check the scoreboard to see how everyone is doing until the killcam is over and the next round starts. It’s not a huge deal, but it is kind of annoying. Especially when you are trying to track stats and see if the enemy team earned any killstreaks.

No on-screen team counter in Search and Destroy. Black Ops 3 introduced an awesome new mechanic where you can see how many people are alive or dead at any given moment without opening up the scoreboard. Some of you COD4 evangelists might be getting your nooses ready to hang me from the rafters, but I actually love that mechanic and I would greatly appreciate it if Raven put it into the remaster.

Scoreboard is slightly small. It might just be me, but the font seems kind of tiny when you bring up the scoreboard at the moment. Maybe I’m getting old and my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, but I can’t see as well as these young whippersnappers, dammit! Make your scoreboard bigger!

Cannot track challenges without going into the barracks. It is seriously annoying when I open Create-a-Class to add and remove attachments or to swap camos and I cannot see how many more kills or headshots I need to unlock the next thing. It just says “Complete challenge X”. Well no crap I have to complete Challenge X, HOW MUCH LONGER UNTIL I DO THAT. If I scroll over a locked attachment, I would much prefer it if the amount of kills I needed to unlock it appeared next to it. Let me know that I have 45/75 kills to unlock the silencer or how many more headshots I need for that next camo instead of telling me to screw off to another menu.

Well, that is it for my first impressions! I know that I didn’t give a whole lot of negative points about the game, but honestly there’s nothing game breaking by any means. The only bad I have to say is some minor gripes that can easily be fixed. I absolutely loved my first hands-on with Modern Warfare Remastered overall, and I will be sinking some serious hours into this game upon its release. See you online!

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