Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 First Impressions - Multiplayer Problems & Disappointment
Wednesday November 11, 2009
Impressions of my first 60 minutes with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for the PC
Like many others out there I picked up my copy of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 today and despite my reservations, I have to say I was fairly excited to get home and get it up and running. Of course the first thing I wanted to do was jump into the "controversial" multiplayer mode and IWNet so I could sink my teeth into an online match. Would the lack of dedicated servers affect my enjoyment of an online game? Would the multiplayer cap of 9v9 matches be as fun as 16v16 matches were in Call of Duty 4? After spending 25 minutes installing and watching the intro screens flash their animation, I had finally arrived at the main menu. The events that occurred next are still a little fuzzy to me; Did I right click? or left click? Did I hit the escape key by mistake? The exact chain of actions I can not specifically recall but, as sudden as an explosion from one of the millions of grenades that have detonated in the game today, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 crashed. What you just read is not a misprint, one of the most anticipated and hyped video games of all time crashed the very first time I tried to play it. "This couldn't be?" I thought. But it was. I fired up the game once, twice, three more times and every time I received the same error message "error: Could not start process iw4mp_ceg.exe (null)(0x80041002)".
Update 11/12/2009: Multiplayer portion is now working for me. The multiplayer option from the game's main menu however is not working, I imagine a patch is required to fix that. Also the Steam client also appears to be stuck "downloading" the multiplayer startup. If you do not install shortcuts to your desktop and always launch from Steam, the solution was to launch the multiplayer mode directly from .exe found within the CODMW2 program files folder.
After the surprised and dejected feeling subsided, and with my fingers crossed, I started up the single player campaign. What I found brought some solace, the non-stop action and game-play of the first two missions, I have to say, was awesome. I stopped playing just after the controversial opening of the "No Russian" mission. The mission that has hundreds of civilians running for their lives in an airport massacre that players can take part in. I'll save my thoughts on this mission and the remaining single player storyline when I have a chance to play through it all.
While the first few objectives/missions were like a fast paced thrill ride, I kept thinking of how scripted they felt. Now I know certain things need to be done in order to move the storyline along but there was one sequence in particular on a snow mobile that stuck out in my mind. It seemed as though no matter where I aimed my pistol, I'd always hit an enemy sending his snow mobile crashing. Didn't need to worry about traveling at full throttle and hitting a tree or rock either, the snow mobile would just bounce off them like a big inner tube used for snow sledding. Maybe I'm being a little overly critical but I think I have a right to, after all this game is priced at $59.99, a $10 premium over your typical new release on the PC platform. Was this worth the extra $10? Was it even worth paying full price for a game that's starting to sound like glorified console to PC port? With that said, I'll save my final judgment for when I have a chance to play through the entire game and can get the multiplayer mode working. I will say that the game does show some promise, from the 40 minutes or so that I spent playing it, the single player campaign contains some absolutely stunning visuals and excellent action-packed game-play sequences.
I don't appear to be alone in my initial disappointment and first impressions of the game either. The Infinity Ward Modern Warfare 2 PC Forum is peppered with thousands of stories similar to mine. I've also found others who've encountered the same multiplayer issues, but unfortunately no solution. I've checked and rechecked system settings and Vista 64 bit drivers, with a Quad Core CPU, 6GB of RAM and nVidia 8800GTS graphics, my rig is more than capable of running the game...
Please feel free to leave your thoughts and impressions as a comment to this post. I'd love to hear from fellow PC gamers and even first impressions on the game from Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers. You can also leave your opinion by rating Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for the PC in the following poll
5 Stars = Best, 1 Star = Worst
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare Launch
Like many others out there I picked up my copy of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 today and despite my reservations, I have to say I was fairly excited to get home and get it up and running. Of course the first thing I wanted to do was jump into the "controversial" multiplayer mode and IWNet so I could sink my teeth into an online match. Would the lack of dedicated servers affect my enjoyment of an online game? Would the multiplayer cap of 9v9 matches be as fun as 16v16 matches were in Call of Duty 4? After spending 25 minutes installing and watching the intro screens flash their animation, I had finally arrived at the main menu. The events that occurred next are still a little fuzzy to me; Did I right click? or left click? Did I hit the escape key by mistake? The exact chain of actions I can not specifically recall but, as sudden as an explosion from one of the millions of grenades that have detonated in the game today, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 crashed. What you just read is not a misprint, one of the most anticipated and hyped video games of all time crashed the very first time I tried to play it. "This couldn't be?" I thought. But it was. I fired up the game once, twice, three more times and every time I received the same error message "error: Could not start process iw4mp_ceg.exe (null)(0x80041002)".
Update 11/12/2009: Multiplayer portion is now working for me. The multiplayer option from the game's main menu however is not working, I imagine a patch is required to fix that. Also the Steam client also appears to be stuck "downloading" the multiplayer startup. If you do not install shortcuts to your desktop and always launch from Steam, the solution was to launch the multiplayer mode directly from .exe found within the CODMW2 program files folder.
After the surprised and dejected feeling subsided, and with my fingers crossed, I started up the single player campaign. What I found brought some solace, the non-stop action and game-play of the first two missions, I have to say, was awesome. I stopped playing just after the controversial opening of the "No Russian" mission. The mission that has hundreds of civilians running for their lives in an airport massacre that players can take part in. I'll save my thoughts on this mission and the remaining single player storyline when I have a chance to play through it all.
While the first few objectives/missions were like a fast paced thrill ride, I kept thinking of how scripted they felt. Now I know certain things need to be done in order to move the storyline along but there was one sequence in particular on a snow mobile that stuck out in my mind. It seemed as though no matter where I aimed my pistol, I'd always hit an enemy sending his snow mobile crashing. Didn't need to worry about traveling at full throttle and hitting a tree or rock either, the snow mobile would just bounce off them like a big inner tube used for snow sledding. Maybe I'm being a little overly critical but I think I have a right to, after all this game is priced at $59.99, a $10 premium over your typical new release on the PC platform. Was this worth the extra $10? Was it even worth paying full price for a game that's starting to sound like glorified console to PC port? With that said, I'll save my final judgment for when I have a chance to play through the entire game and can get the multiplayer mode working. I will say that the game does show some promise, from the 40 minutes or so that I spent playing it, the single player campaign contains some absolutely stunning visuals and excellent action-packed game-play sequences.
I don't appear to be alone in my initial disappointment and first impressions of the game either. The Infinity Ward Modern Warfare 2 PC Forum is peppered with thousands of stories similar to mine. I've also found others who've encountered the same multiplayer issues, but unfortunately no solution. I've checked and rechecked system settings and Vista 64 bit drivers, with a Quad Core CPU, 6GB of RAM and nVidia 8800GTS graphics, my rig is more than capable of running the game...
Please feel free to leave your thoughts and impressions as a comment to this post. I'd love to hear from fellow PC gamers and even first impressions on the game from Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers. You can also leave your opinion by rating Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for the PC in the following poll
5 Stars = Best, 1 Star = Worst
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare Launch
Comments
This is game is not balanced for FUN
^ ROFL – this guy came from IW forums!
I hear Wolfenstein is going cheap; Has Dedi’s as well.
PARTY UP!
@ Fourzerotwo
You’re such a nub!
Wurd.
I lol
Here’s how I got CoD4 2 to start:
Go here:
\\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty modern warfare 2
Launch this:
iw4mp (the yellow icon, NOT the green icon)
Follow GUI prompts to multiplayer game!
It might also help to rclick on your router in Internet Connections and manually open the following ports:
* UDP 1500 (outbound)
* UDP 3005 (outbound)
* UDP 3101 (outbound)
* UDP 28960
Cheers,
Don’t try to start the multiplayer while in the single player version of the game. Instead, start the multiplayer version of the game by using the multiplayer steam icon. Yes, it makes sense to run multiplayer this way, but this is not a proper excuse for providing a broken shortcut in a game menu.
Well, this joke of an article had me removing CompAction from my daily blogroll.
What a displeasure to read; lacking depth or real information that’s remotely pertinent to the gameplay.
Keep feeding the trolls, they love it.
@ev3r8, VipperOfVipp
Thanks for tips… was so geeked to play last night that I was launching from steam last night, no multiplayer short cut installed. As of this morning it’s now working for me. Thanks again.
@Adam,
Thanks for comment. As mentioned in my post this was my impression of CODMW2 based on the first 60 minutes of my experience which in short was very frustrating. First 20 minutes were spent trying to get into multiplayer. Very frustrating when the installed multiplayer shortcuts throw errors on the first start up of the game.
Only played the single player campaign for about 30-40 min and as mentioned the visuals and action were excellent. However a good portion of the missions seemed heavily scripted to the point where it didn’t seem to matter what I did.
Again thanks for the comments.
Cheers.
Steam is a huge steaming pile of poo, installed the game and the multiplayer wont work. I hate steam, why cant games be installed the old fashioned way and work!
@Scott
I experienced the same thing issue. The multiplayer link through Steam still shows “Downloading Started…” I imagine their servers could be overwhelmed. A work around is to go into the install directory under \programfiles\ and find the iw4mp.exe file and execute that.
I was much excitied to try this game after hearing everyone complain about how the pc version is identical to console. I how ever was not dissaointed in these features, what I was dissapointed in was it took me a little over 4 hours to get the game running. I spent about an hour an a half inserting my cd and waiting and trying again. My cd drive would not read the cd, so I read the FAQ and found I possibly needed to install new firmware drivers for my cd drive. After trying to do this and not gettig any success because I didn’t have a flash drive or nor do I have a floppy drive I burned like I was told in the install read me , the cd and rebooted to install this new driver. It didn’t work. I then called my friend with a external hard drive and a vista computer (mine is xp) took the cd and his computer recognized the cd instantly, so we tryed on another xp computer, to see if it was just my computer, same problem …. We then took all the files off the cd an put them on his external drive. Sent them to my computer, launched exe and it started steam up and started to install, type my key in and then steam pops up “this game cannot install because it has not been released.” fml really?! That’s why I have a copy in my hand?! Pretty sure it is released, after messing around some more it is now 8:30, I started my install process at about 5, I figure out steam wasn’t updated, so I close an open steam and let it update an try install again, ok it installed finally, launch game….. “please wait while steam updates cod mw2 aporx 43 min 15 sec” WTF?! Really?! After waiting the longest time in my life to get a game installed I had no problems running it. 3.8ghz processor, 2 gigs ram, nvidia 9600gt oc 1280×1024 auto texture aa 2x runs good. I like all the titles and names but 12 pages is a bit over kill of that worthless tags. Guns fire nicely and after playing for 60 min I found my statistics page and found I was 82 k 32 deaths it was fun but a pain inthe butt for me to install and I’m sure I’m probably the only one who had this problem…. Right… Maybe they should add one more recomendation on the back for a so an so cd rom drive….. Fml
how the hell do you turn the bloody annoying music off!!
@Kwik_Kyle0 lol dude, that sounded so painful. Cheers for sticking to it though – a man’s gotta game.
@compactiongames I’m glad you were finally able to play multi. I’m also quite glad you wrote this article with the error message in it. Hopefully others that had the same prob were able to get in game.
@anyone: Is there a way to manually add a name file to the install folder? I can’t seem to change my SN in either the game menu or Steam(ing pile of poo) – (thanks Scott for that one). I can’t even open up my Steam(ing pile of poo) settings, as they are non-responsive from any access point and, obviously, the single player access to multi is broken.
I think it is ok, there are just some small things that I really don’t like. The main one is you can’t lean! That I would love them to fix