12 Nov 2009 04:14 David Marseilles Modern Warfare Reflex is the Biggest Wii Disappointment YetSometimes I hate being right. The Wii is no stranger to long delays in getting good games, or to fast and dirty ports. What makes this one sting so bad is that the potential for Modern Warfare was so high. Because of the quality of the original title, the Modern Warfare branding is almost as powerful as the Call of Duty branding itself. Modern Warfare will share a place in history alongside Quake, Goldeneye, and Halo. The Wii version, on the other hand, deserves the rating IGN gave it — falling below the barely known PSP-port MOH:H2. This despite the fact that Modern Warfare had a proven sales record, a publisher bigger than some countries, a game engine already in place, an experienced developer team that did well with Call of Duty: World at War, and oh yeah, TWO YEARS to get it right; but it can't do the one basic thing every FPS on Wii has to do — control well. Between framerate issues screwing with precision, and lack of polish all over, this mediocre game is a slap in the face to Wii owners and to a great underlying game. Frak you Activision. If you want my money, re-release the game in a year when you've actually finished it.
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Modern Warfare Reflex is the Biggest Wii Disappointment Yet
So what exactly is wrong with the controls? Guys like you slammed WAW last year for not having enough control customizability, for having presets instead of sliders, that kind of thing. MW addresses that and provides you with all the options you need.
If you're just referring to the comments in the ign review about the cursor being too unresponsive - did you even play this game yourself? Bozon is the only person out there - either a reviewer or just a regular gamer - who has complained about this. If you watch the video review, you can see he's playing it with the cursor sensitivity cranked way up. Of course this is going to make it feel unresponsive. They didn't give it a fair shake by setting the controls to an extreme setting, and then complaining about it.
And if you did actually play it, then what specifically is wrong with it? All you mention is the framerate, which by and large is solid. And by the way, this was a 9 month project - where you came up with two years, I have no idea.
I took care not to blame Treyarch. Activision, on the other hand, did have two years—even being generous and assuming that of course they wouldn't start the Wii port until releasing it on all other platforms first. I'm not going to cut Activision slack just because they decided to get a late start and set an early deadline that wouldn't allow Treyarch to actually complete the game.
I have extreme control settings for MoHH2 and The Conduit. Specifically with regards to precision shooting (precision pointer accuracy), no, such a setting is not predetermined to result in unresponsiveness. Not a fair shake? Activision put out a title known for extremely high levels of quality, and as a result, quality is going to be expected. Since the single most important aspect of any Wii shooter is control, that's a pretty basic item to ensure quality on.
Except the option of having precision control with extreme settings—a feature hardly unprecedented in Wii shooters.
If you need "precision pointer accuracy" then you need to dial back the cursor sensitivity slider. Increasing it is going to lower the resolution of your IR response.
It sounds like you just cranked all the sliders up to max, didn't like it, and now you're on your little blog calling this game the "biggest wii disappointment yet." So no, that doesn't sound fair to me.
Other titles, with far fewer resources, have managed to impress me with their precision controls. On the list of most technically difficult things to do, it doesn't even make the top ten. It just takes a little time and TLC.
And disappointment is a relative term. If you have low expectations for something, even if it's crap, it isn't a big disappointment. Expectations for Modern Warfare Wii were high because of the level of quality it had delivered on other consoles, as well as what Treyarch had accomplished with WaWii demonstrating some of what we could expect. There was no real rush to get it out, as it's already been 2 years since it released on other consoles; so Activision's decision to blow it out the doors unfinished is all the more unexpected. Given the high expectations, and given the product's overall rushed demeanor, whose most disappointing feature to me is lack of solid, precision controls (which isn't really that hard to nail, it's been done), I stand by the 'most disappointing' moniker.
I'm glad you came and commented, but if you're going to boil down my argument, at least bother to understand it.
So um David is it?
How did ya get this gig?… I mean I'm a little curious?, cause ya know the economy is so slow and it seems there would be some decent talent out there… are ya a relative? I won't tell…
LOL
Cause you clearly don't know a damn thing!
Where to start… Well how about basics, ya don't take someone's comments out of context like ya did, it's plain bad writing, you want to rebuff what they say, do it in a sensible manner, and maybe actually make a point.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, lets go back to the front page (wiihd.net) ya know where ya do all the damage? not buried here where yer backpedaling already.
"Sometimes I hate being right"
Don't worry, yer not, see how easy it is to make a smart comment off someone's quote?, well hold on, this is as good as it's gonna get for you.
"What makes this one sting so bad is that the potential for Modern Warfare was so high."
What is this? Way back when I was in college, majoring in creative writing, I was taught that this is a typical "hack" maneuver, an attempt if you will, to get the reader on your side, it's common in the rag magazines, but it's a simple maneuver that won't get ya a cookie in my neighborhood.
"The Wii version, on the other hand, deserves the rating IGN gave it — falling below the barely known PSP-port MOH:H2. This despite the fact that Modern Warfare had a proven sales record, a publisher bigger than some countries, a game engine already in place, an experienced developer team that did well with Call of Duty: World at War, and oh yeah, TWO YEARS to get it right"
Yeah I know it's not the full sentence, but I'll get to it. Well you may very well be right on Activision's size, but I'm not following ya on the rest? IGN is little more than the cheerleaders for the big two PS360. Any success of a Wii port means less money for game development on those systems and they got to share the fame with a console that they've spent their time calling a little kids console. Treyarch did do well with WaW and this is why Nintendo allowed them to finally port a game, Modern Warfare for the Wii was not approved by Nintendo till this year, and using game data from another system (360) was out of the question till just recently, (I believe ole "Iwata" CEO of Nintendo could shed some light on that one) all ya gotta do is this… RESEARCH!!!.
"but it can't do the one basic thing every FPS on Wii has to do — control well. Between framerate issues screwing with precision, and lack of polish all over, this mediocre game is a slap in the face to Wii owners and to a great underlying game."
What?… Hold on let me make sure I quoted it right… What!!! Um, did you actually play the game? I know I asked this before to other reviewers, but man, you guys don't know how to read or what? It took my nine year old all of five minutes to adjust his controls to a point of getting a 30-5 game his first day playing.
It took me a little longer, but the controls are every bit as responsive as the sensitivity you set it at, simply put, it's as fast and as precise are your reflexes allow it to get. If yer a chain smoker with the shakes, well I can't help ya other than to say "aim assist".
"mediocre" I see nothing mediocre about it… Based on what I've read, you are biased towards the other systems, and are holding the Wii system up to the same standard when you damn well know it cannot hold the exact same graphics as those systems do, it simply doesn't have the processor or memory for it. With that in mind, this is an exceptional game and right in line with the development of this system (more on that later).
"Frak you Activision. If you want my money, re-release the game in a year when you've actually finished it."
Again, either your ignorant, in which case yer uninformed and got no business reviewing this game or, you didn't do your homework, in which case your an idiot and have no business reviewing this game.
At the time that Modern Warfare came out, Nintendo was not allowing porting, Nintendo was only allowing certain files, and those could not be modified, Nintendo was not allowing patching… So let's take a look at the history, your the CEO at Activision, you got what amounts to a hostile console manufacturer who has all but guaranteed his stockholders that no title other than a Nintendo made title will ever top the Wii game sales (2008 E3 interview ), and the lone game that tried to work with them at the time MOHH2 was barely at 100k in sales, not even a profit! What do you do? You walk away with the profits from the PC and other consoles.
The Photo "Treyarch… Wii's hopes & Dreams" I have to address this out of context in order to answer your poor attempt at humor.
"I took care not to blame Treyarch."
Oh! shoot it just got away! flew right out the window… oh that was yer credibility flying out the window! Cause I knew you were either lazy or just plain incompetent, but now yer a liar!
How much more detail should I go into?… it's not looking well for you.
Oh, just so ya don't call me on the "more on that later" part. Every game since MOHH2 has bee a progressively better made game, WaW was Activisions run into the wii online FPS market, and it was a good game with problems that were beyond Treyarch's controls, due to Nintendo's restrictions, WaW by the way, was remade from the ground up for the Wii, they were not allowed to simply bring in and modify the 360 version as they were allowed to on MWR (even with this lifted, they still had to redo the entire game from the ground up to insure it fit), So it was riddled with glitches that Nintendo didn't allow to be patched. This game has greater map selection, more responsive controls, a ton load of goals to reach and the ability to patch glitches, so the under map glitcher/cheaters virtually don't exist, or do for just a few days or so from discovery.
So tell me again how ya missed most of this?
BD.
What does that mean? MW came out in late 2007. There was no restriction for porting games to Wii set by Nintendo. MW didn't get ported at the time for one reason; Infinity Ward wanted (and still wants) nothing to do with Wii. Once Treyarch had already ported the COD4 engine as a means of bring WaWii to Wii, they were able to persuade Activision to bring this title to Wii as well.
Sorry pal, you flat out don't know what you're talking about. Nintendo quality control no longer exists. They'll let anything on their system. And they have, or haven't you been paying attention as 100s of instances of shovelware splattered themselves all over the Wii?
You don't seem to have read much here at WiiHD. I consider controls to be considerably more important than graphics, and were it not for the continual degradation of MoHH2's online servers, I'd probably still consider it to be the best FPS on Wii, despite the PSP port's very sub-par graphics, and so-so campaign. I recommended dialing back gfx for an online coop mode for WaWii (the original source of the image you noted — the image that has never appeared anywhere on this post btw), because at the end of the day, features are better than eye candy.
I think when you have a big budget and you set expectations high, you ought to make the game look nice, but I never hold the Wii up to 360 gfx standards. On the other hand, I bash the PS360 as a matter of course here. I think dual-analog is last-gen tech in a way that really matters. Eye candy is cool for… a few seconds. Then the gaming experience is all about playing the game itself. For that, the Wii Remote's IR pointer is vastly superior to what the PS360 offers.
I'd respond more at length, but you don't know anything about WiiHD, and you don't know anything about Nintendo. So there's not much left to respond to.
Keep the cookie. You might need it.
"What does that mean? MW came out in late 2007. There was no restriction for porting games to Wii set by Nintendo. MW didn't get ported at the time for one reason; Infinity Ward wanted (and still wants) nothing to do with Wii. Once Treyarch had already ported the COD4 engine as a means of bring WaWii to Wii, they were able to persuade Activision to bring this title to Wii as well."
MW may verywell have came out in 2007, but the permission to place a patchable game in the Wii console was not hatched out till this year pal!
WaWii did come out before, but it was completely remade from scratch, not a port, and with the restrictions on patching, the game became a mess in certain maps with glitchers, I'm sure ya know that Fortunz!, but ya chose to take the easy route and belittle the effort that is being made in MWR.
Go back and check the archive's at GF's you'll find responces from people better in the know that cover this topic, although I'm sure you already know this, which makes this review that much more sad.
Treyarch convinced Activision, but there were still restrictions as to the type of code that was allowed in the wii and that no altering of the code was allowed once it came into play, doesn't sound famiar? LOL anyone following this knew this information.
"Sorry pal, you flat out don't know what you're talking about. Nintendo quality control no longer exists. They'll let anything on their system. And they have, or haven't you been paying attention as 100s of instances of shovelware splattered themselves all over the Wii?"
Nintendo Quality control never existed when it came to game submittal, it sucked and still does, however once the game comes to the wii, they are jerks for anykind of editing as they seem to be paranoid that a game developer will do more damage than the hackers and Homebrew asses do.
"You don't seem to have read much here at WiiHD. I consider controls to be considerably more important than graphics, and were it not for the continual degradation of MoHH2's online servers, I'd probably still consider it to be the best FPS on Wii, despite the PSP port's very sub-par graphics, and so-so campaign. I recommended dialing back gfx for an online coop mode for WaWii (the original source of the image you noted — the image that has never appeared anywhere on this post btw), because at the end of the day, features are better than eye candy."
Haven't read yer site in a while you are right about that, I'm not to into hacking, yeah, HomeBrew isn't that a thing wiihd supports? It did when MOHH2 was the big thing. I believe it does doesn't it Fortunzfavor? All these jackasses messing up the leader boards with modified wii's hacked through Hombrew software? Jumping out of bounds, killing the entire other team just as the game starts and doing it over and over till the game ends a few seconds later on points? yeah I know WiiHD. And although I agree with you that graphics are not everything to people that just love to play and play against competative players, it's needed to get the game off commercially so enough of the masses buy the damn thing so we can enjoy further games, and Idjuts can hack, luckily, though, it seems the light of day has finally fallen, and if this game see's good sales numbers, we might see software introduced that deals with modded wii's and hackers in future titles.
So do I know about WiiHD? Um ya, do I care, um NO…
"I think when you have a big budget and you set expectations high, you ought to make the game look nice, but I never hold the Wii up to 360 gfx standards. On the other hand, I bash the PS360 as a matter of course here. I think dual-analog is last-gen tech in a way that really matters. Eye candy is cool for… a few seconds. Then the gaming experience is all about playing the game itself. For that, the Wii Remote's IR pointer is vastly superior to what the PS360 offers."
Have ya talked to Treyarch about this in any length? Not public relations, the actual developers who worked on the game? I have… These guys pushed the wii to it's limits, the game couldn't have held anymore, nore could they have modified it further as like ya said, Infinity Ward hates the wii. I personally appreciate that they made the effort to get us a good working game that they promised they would patch, now that they can actually patch it, and guess what, they have already patched the game and eliminated problems!
"I'd respond more at length, but you don't know anything about WiiHD, and you don't know anything about Nintendo. So there's not much left to respond to."
Well Yer right about WiiHD, most of my knowledge came from the MOHH2 era when your site was a little different. Doesn't make me wrong for dissagreeing with you or calling you out on a cheap review, that shows little knowledge of events that took place to actually get us this great game.
As far as Nintendo, I've actually read quite a bit on it and Iwata, as I thought he was an ass for his decision to not take hardcore wii online players seriously, something he's now being forced to rethink since his casual gamers turned out to be a bit lacking in the loyalty department. Don't you recall the statement that EA's CEO put out on Nintendo Limiting what they could do and not allowing porting or patching? I do, research it and you will find it. This is why we haven't seen an MOHH3, although WaWii's sales and hopefully this games sales in tandem with Nintendo lifting these restrictions will open the doors for EA to reconsider.
I know you like the sound of yer voice, and to see yer name in written text, but don't just blast a game to have something to say, or for that matter attempt to belittle someone just for calling ya out on it.
Oh and yer comment on the picture, "I recommended dialing back gfx for an online coop mode for WaWii (the original source of the image you noted — the image that has never appeared anywhere on this post btw), " Any idiot knows that's WaW, I didnt think I needed to point that part out, guess I should have, it's right there on yer front page (wiihd.net) in the middle of your review, well multiple review/attacks call them what ya want it's all a hack job. Is that not your additional comments "Where are the modern warefare reflex reviews?" I believe that is your name on that article, where ya posted the picture with the comment in it.
Look you attacked a good game that, was through great effort, made to run on the wii and run well on it. Right now any attacks in my view need to be justified as they are directly affecting sales when placed in the form of a review or sounding that way. I personally would like to see good games like this come to the wii, but with dismal sales it won't happen. I'm in no way saying to allow crap in, just because it's an online FPS, I called TC crap and still call it crap, and I see we may not be seeing eye to eye on that either.
But WaW openned alot of eyes in the development world, MWR could be the game that shows it wasn't a fluke, you dam well know that every game has been progressively better for the wii, and now we will start seeing better titles coming with plenty of content, so long as we are willing to support the big titles, I am certain we will see more quality developed with the wii's hardware in mind.
And in order to support the big titles we need the general public, that may not be hardcore gamers, to be interested enough to get the game, most of which will make up their minds by googling the title and reading what they find.
I believe you are wrong, and I will adimately state it with just as much passion to show them that it is a worthwile game.
You don't like it ban me. That is the only way your gonna shut me up.
BD
This is not a review. It contains nothing that makes it look like a review. It contains 3 paragraphs, all of which are short, one of which is a single sentence long. Your storied reading skills need honing.
Many companies (including Activision) have managed to make games on Wii without the ability to patch them. I think it's a great feature and years overdue, but trying to claim that the lack of patching was all that was holding Activision back from developing MW for Wii is a myth that ignores years of publishers and developers disregarding the Wii's potential as a core machine. Activision had unlimited amounts of time to develop this game for Wii. They didn't have to put a 9 month time limit on it, and they didn't have to wait until 2009 to start the development process. They made those choices, and far more weight was given to making a quick cash-in on the Modern Warfare brand than to anything else.
From your post, it's not entirely clear that you know what "porting" means. Taking a game designed on one platform, and making it run on another is porting the game. This has never been disallowed by Nintendo. Several of the system's launch titles, including Call of Duty 3 (gee, who makes that?), were ports.
Homebrew is a perfectly harmless activity for the vast majority of people who use it. The proper and appropriate place to guard against online games being hacked is on the networking side — the servers should take note of improper breaches and ban the people engaging in them. Hackers and cheaters will always exist. Blaming people who just want to be able to play DVDs on their Wii is pathetic.
Making valid complaints is a good thing. My complaints are valid because of the weight WiiHD has always placed on solid functional controls—here that is the basis of a great Wii game. If developers think they can give you anything and you'll be happy with it and promote it without questioning, they have zero incentive to deliver a good product. We do disagree about the overall quality of The Conduit, but if you hated it, then why would anyone have cause to try and shut you up on grounds that your complaints might hurt the ability of Wii to get other hardcore games?
However, I wouldn't worry about Modern Warfare's sales. Although Activision hasn't exactly been promoting this game, the name alone and the promotion surrounding MW2 will likely push it past the million mark without pausing for air. It's not unlike movie titles, except instead of relying on the movie to sell the game, they're relying on the brand and the sequel to do it.
Don't worry, you never struck me as the type of person who would be shut up through reason or truth. FYI, WiiHD has never banned anyone. I'll argue with you as I have time, but although you're annoying, hypocritical and hostile largely without cause, you're pretty harmless, and your opinion is welcome here. In fact, dissent is more welcome here than agreement. You may feel free to disagree with any all posts and points made here.
Your site however small still comes up in searches for CODMWR reviews. And since you appear to be the person taking the head, I'm gonna engage it.
"Many companies (including Activision) have managed to make games on Wii without the ability to patch them. I think it's a great feature and years overdue, but trying to claim that the lack of patching was all that was holding Activision back from developing MW for Wii is a myth that ignores years of publishers and developers disregarding the Wii's potential as a core machine. Activision had unlimited amounts of time to develop this game for Wii. They didn't have to put a 9 month time limit on it, and they didn't have to wait until 2009 to start the development process. They made those choices, and far more weight was given to making a quick cash-in on the Modern Warfare brand than to anything else.
From your post, it's not entirely clear that you know what "porting" means. Taking a game designed on one platform, and making it run on another is porting the game. This has never been disallowed by Nintendo. Several of the system's launch titles, including Call of Duty 3 (gee, who makes that?), were ports."
Well maybe I should have clarified it! I figured you'd know, lol silly me. Of course I know what a port is, and I was reffering to online play and the restrictions placed for maintaining a game. So ya they can start with an earlier version already on the Nintendo platform, but the restrictions were still the same. Was not WaW the first Wii online title for the COD franchise?, which was rebuilt from the ground up for the wii, since they could not use either the 360 or ps3 version. So when I refer to porting in this case, I was talking about them porting the WaW version from another system to modify and use on the wii.
"Homebrew is a perfectly harmless activity for the vast majority of people who use it. The proper and appropriate place to guard against online games being hacked is on the networking side — the servers should take note of improper breaches and ban the people engaging in them. Hackers and cheaters will always exist. Blaming people who just want to be able to play DVDs on their Wii is pathetic"
If one person uses Hombrew to hack, and homebrew people consistently brag about getting around Nintendo's attempts to stop this, (Some have bragged about breaking Nintendo's newest attempts within hours of it's release, 4.2 anyone?), then ya they are one of the problems plaiging the Wii system, and a $20 DVD player can fix the play issue!, say how many DVD players do ya got already in yer house? Most people have a few i'm sure.
As far as the servers, well that's back to a Nintendo internal issue, as they are only trying to stop issues on their own titles and still prevent others from booting hackers or those with modified Wii's. With each succesfull title, more pressure is placed on Nintendo to relax these rules to allow the developers and server managers to actually do something productive about it, but untill they actually have the freedom to block or boot those using the system for other than it was designed, I'll hold Nintendo and those jerks abusing this accountable for problems.
"Making valid complaints is a good thing. My complaints are valid because of the weight WiiHD has always placed on solid functional controls—here that is the basis of a great Wii game. If developers think they can give you anything and you'll be happy with it and promote it without questioning, they have zero incentive to deliver a good product. We do disagree about the overall quality of The Conduit, but if you hated it, then why would anyone have cause to try and shut you up on grounds that your complaints might hurt the ability of Wii to get other hardcore games?"
Making a Valid complaint or critisism is a valid and needed point, I do agree with you on that, But I dissagree with you on the controls.
They are easily adjustable to whatever speed or accuracy you want, the fact that a person cannot or won't take the time to fine tune the controls is their own fault and not a design error. TC had adjustable controls, but that was not my problem with it, and believe me, I had plenty of problems with it. But that is another issue for a dead game that's not worth any time (IMO of course).
Well on the shuting me up issue, I've been edited (in that they chose to remove a few of my responces to the critic's answer of my (lets say colorful) suggestions about their reviews in other sites. So I was firing the first shot without any knowledge of whether you would in fact choose to silence things ya didn't want on this site.
I'm glad to see ya got some credibility and character on that issue.
"Don't worry, you never struck me as the type of person who would be shut up through reason or truth. FYI, WiiHD has never banned anyone. I'll argue with you as I have time, but although you're annoying, hypocritical and hostile largely without cause, you're pretty harmless, and your opinion is welcome here. In fact, dissent is more welcome here than agreement. You may feel free to disagree with any all posts and points made here."
LMAO!! is about all I can say to that, I'm always annoying to those that don't want dissent, not sure I'm a hypocrite, and yeah I was frustrated with all these critics claiming the controls sucked amoung other issues, when I came accross yer site, and if a nine year old can adjust the controls in a matter of minutes to perform flawlessly, then I have cause to challenge you.
I may lack the technical jargon, but I'll get my point accross, and anything I said is based on either an interview posted about the situation or actually having some conversations with people in the know. I don't have the time to actually post all that info, but it's not too hard to find, and anyone can google the key items I brought up to see for themselves.
Maybe if this was a larger site, I'd waste my time. The only reason I'm still arguing with you is because I'm too damn pigheaded to back off a challenge.
BD
Cheaters plagued online games by cheating, not by being able to run homebrew. Developers and Nintendo plagued the Wii by not having proper safeguards in place for cheating, and in Ninty's case, it's because they flat out don't care about whether someone cheats on games and ruins your experience or not. None of the content I have posted at WiiHD has related to cheating or any other nefarious objective. All of it has been as pure as the wind-driven snow. Being able to play Quake on Wii doesn't disturb your gaming experience or anyone else's. And while there may be other ways to play DVDs, being able to play them on Wii also doesn't disturb your experience or anyone else's. You've sadly chosen to blame a noble cause — expanding the Wii's capability — for something in which it shares no blame. Do yourself a favor and blame the actual culprits.
Indeed, you threw out a lot of insults without knowing whether they were true or not. Can you imagine why I don't plan on taking your word for anything else? We probably could have had a much more amiable conversation if instead of trolling, you came in and made counterpoints that addressed what I actually said instead of creating a straw man, and then ad homineming him to death.
Flawlessly? It may help you to know that not everyone has the same standards for controls, and not every setting that works for one person works for another. Just because a kid can find something that works for him doesn't mean there aren't serious flaws in the controls — especially considering this is supposed to be a AAA title. Indeed, this is supposed to be THE AAA title. One of the best received and most lauded games of the decade. It's a high bar to meet.
You seem to have plenty of time. Just not enough desire for accuracy. The problem with googling your "key items" is that half the time, even you don't seem to understand what they mean or how they apply to a situation. Your posts here are a fairly good example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.