*BEEP BEEP* NEW COLUMN ALERT *BEEP BEEP*
One of the most effective ways to promote/hype up a game prior to its release is to hold an open beta. I remember playing the betas for Overwatch and The Division in 2016 and having an absolute blast. This past weekend, as many of you are probably aware, Infinity Ward held an open beta for the next entry in the Call of Duty franchise: Modern Warfare. I unfortunately was out of town visiting family all weekend, so I was unable to participate. However, a good friend of mine and former Halo semi-pro DARTH_PurP offered to play and review the beta for PartyChat! As a matter of fact, with betas coming out almost every other week, I have decided to offer him a column right here on PartyChat.org to give his thoughts on any and every open beta he participates in.
SO, without further ado, DARTH_PurP:
SURPRISE. Yet another Call of Duty is coming out next month! Call of Duty Modern Warfare launches on October 25th and the open beta for cross play occurred over the past weekend. I chose to give the beta a try and check out whether this installment was any different than years past, or if it was basically just Call of Duty2K20.
I honestly used to hate Call of Duty. The only time I would ever touch those games was for a two week break from whatever Halo I’d been playing for the last two years. More than CoD, I used to despise the kids who really thought Call of Duty was a better franchise than Halo. Halo is far superior simply because of how far actual game/controller skill can get you in multiplayer matches. I always used to say, “In CoD, even my fucking grandma could shoot me in the foot and kill me if she saw me first”. However in Halo, if my grandma saw me first and had the audacity to shoot me in the foot, I would turn around and BXR the fuck out of her, or I might stick her right in the face, or perhaps no-scope the dentures out of her mouth. The point is with Halo I can do whatever the fuck I want to someone who shoots at me first, whereas in Call of Duty more often than not you better be the one shooting first or you’re just a dead grandma.
Unfortunately, a new Halo comes out about as often as a George R.R. Martin “Song of Ice and Fire” book. Meanwhile they are cranking out Call of Duty games every other fucking week. So I decided to dip my feet in and see what this installment of Call of Duty was all about. In case you do not keep yourself informed on all things Call of Duty, it is important to note that last year’s installment, Black Ops 4, did not offer a campaign. It just had traditional multiplayer, Blackout (battle royale), and zombies. Modern Warfare is launching next month with traditional multiplayer, a new Ground War mode (32 v. 32), and they’re bringing the fucking campaign BACK baby! So you know what that means…
If you loved playing through the campaigns of past Call of Duty titles then I would highly recommend getting this game when it releases. I would expect for this one to go HARD and probably be well worth the money if you are into that sort of thing. Unfortunately, if I am spending money on a game I am going to need that game to have fresh and competitive multiplayer, so let’s get into how I felt about the Call of Duty Modern Warfare beta I played over the weekend.
The available game types for the beta were Quickplay, Realism mode, and Ground War. Quickplay was by far my favorite and had the most traditional Call of Duty feel (is that even a good thing?) There were surprisingly a lot of game types to play in Quickplay. You had some 6 v 6 modes like Team Deathmatch, Headquarters, and Cyber Attack, and they threw in some 10 v 10 modes like Domination and Headquarters as well. My experience with Quickplay was similar to the other CoD games I’ve played, in that you start out with a super shitty weapon and have to gain a lot of XP to get a gun more lethal than your average butter knife. Meanwhile, everyone is shooting at you with a gold plated AK with no recoil.
About thirty minutes into my stream though, I got the hang of things and started shitting on these little CoD kids. I was cranking out combos, handing out free meals, three pieces with a soda, such as the one I have generously provided for you here…
While I did have the most fun with Quickplay, I must admit that it is not that different than any other of the 69 Call of Duty games I’ve played in the past, so I was hoping the other two game types would provide something a little fresher for me. Once I dove into the other two game types, that hope slowly dwindled away. Realism mode is essentially, ummmm, a hardcore version of Hardcore? It is literally Hardcore mode without any HUD. I played two games of it and got the fuck up out of that War Simulator 2020 bullshit. Ground War was my final hope for something fun, new, and original. Its essentially a 32 v 32 fuck fest. If you like a nice laggy orgy, than this might be right up your alley. I died to a tank within 10 seconds of my first two spawns, which sucked ass. I had the most fun in Ground War when I just played it like I play Quickplay: hold down a territory and mow down the countless “Big Team Battle” scrubs that poured in. The spawning system allows you to spawn at your HQ, any base your team has captured, or on your teammates (if they’re not in combat). There were definitely some spawning issues I ran into, whether it be spawning right in the middle of a gun fight or on a base the enemy was taking; they were a complete mess. Hopefully with this being a beta, those issues will be worked out by the launch of the actual game. Basically, my advice for all you Ground War fuckbois is to just stick to your yearly installment of Battlefield. I preferred the Blackout beta from Black Ops 4 over Ground War for sure, but then again I only played two games before I got tired of it so perhaps others might love it, like the guy who spawn fucked me with the tank.
After that experience I spent the rest of my stream enjoying Quickplay and shitting on kids like in every other past Call of Duty. There were several new little things within the beta that should get CoD fans excited though. There are a few new kill streaks that are pretty fucking awesome such as white phosphorus (this shit turns the opposing teams screen black and white and makes them a one shot kill. Because the kill times weren’t short enough already…). The new gunsmith screen for upgrading weapons is super dope, and I actually loved the 10 v 10 modes I mentioned earlier because it gives you the traditional quickplay feel with even more scrubs to shit on.
In the end, the Modern Warfare open beta felt more like CoD 2K20 than a brand-new title that allegedly has “ties” to the old school Modern Warfare games. I couldn’t really see the ties to MW2; everything felt similar to last year’s Black Ops 4. I am not going to buy into the hype, but I did have fun streaming the beta. I am trying to start a little trend of not buying games that come out every single fucking year like 2K, Madden, FIFA, etc. I am going lump Call of Duty into this list because they just feel like the same game year after year with only a modest graphics update. However, if the multiplayer is what gets you off or you miss the campaigns, then yea I would look into getting this game.
If you would like to see more of the game then check out my beta review stream at Mixer.com/DARTH_PurP. Just go to “past streams” and click on the COD MW BETA Review video. Until next time ya filthy animals.
– PurP
