MW2019 was a badly needed reset for CoD as a whole. It's remembered fondly now as per the CoD hype cycle but it is overrated in many regards.
Everything before it felt like it was overstaying its welcome with an improved engine desperately needed and MW19 delivered.
I've been playing since CoD 3, I was 11/12 when MW 2009 came out and I thoroughly got my money's worth from that game back in the day. I fell off after MW3, popped back in every now and then but found CoD to be boring. MW19 hooked me again, but it's with some seriously big asterisks.
At launch, the game on PC was only available via BattleNet, bad start.
The game wasn't greatly optimised, especially in Ground War which saw performance tank hard. However, a month after release they added Warzone and I am not quite sure what happened but this utterly broke the game for me. My game would fail to launch, crash when joining lobbies, crash mid match, fail to connect to servers, etc. I did everything, going as far to reinstall Windows with no solution. The error code I was given didn't even return any discussions online. I reached out to Activision support who naturally were no help.
It took about 3-4 months before they fixed whatever caused that and this game became playable for me again, without explanation.
The campaign is bad. It has highlights but it's a CoD campaign, what do you expect? Clean House is as good as it gets but the fact this series rarely showcases the kind of infantry warfare you saw in the opening of MW 2009 is disappointing, there are two missions where you fight alongside Marines and those are my favourite.
MP is a mixed bag. Some really fantastic weapon customisation here, cool killstreaks, interesting maps, creative game modes, all of it let down however by a ridiculous 'prestige' system that broke what wasn't broken, and skill based matchmaking which ensured you never had too much fun. Some days I would launch the game, play one match getting a positive K/D and the know my evening was about to be ruined.
Nowadays this game is basically abandoned, there are game breaking glitches, broken maps, unbalanced weapons, exploits, cheaters, etc. As soon as the subsequent CoD came out this game was abandoned entirely, only used to peddle cosmetic bundles.
I think this game is extremely important. It defined the current era of CoD and made some genuinely important decisions for the franchise, but at the same time it ramped up the SBMM, the heavy handed microtransactions, the focus on Warzone (which has subtracted from other modes), the ridiculously bloated install size (what do you need 150gb for?!), and it perpetuates the usual CoD cycle. The devs also were OK with the crack head gameplay of slide cancelling, bunnyhopping and spinning around as fast as possible which belongs in something like Tribes or Quake, not CoD. Thankfully MWII rectified this and provided better tools for dealing with campers.
The loudest sections of the community hated so much about this game at launch. It wasn't until it wasn't supported anymore has it become "an underrated gem" according to Reddit and YouTube.
At its best moments, maybe 6 months post launch this would have been a top 3 CoD, I'd have given it 4.5/5. Today, in its current state and with it still being full price most of the time, it's a 2/5. An important game for the series, no longer a good one.
Everything before it felt like it was overstaying its welcome with an improved engine desperately needed and MW19 delivered.
I've been playing since CoD 3, I was 11/12 when MW 2009 came out and I thoroughly got my money's worth from that game back in the day. I fell off after MW3, popped back in every now and then but found CoD to be boring. MW19 hooked me again, but it's with some seriously big asterisks.
At launch, the game on PC was only available via BattleNet, bad start.
The game wasn't greatly optimised, especially in Ground War which saw performance tank hard. However, a month after release they added Warzone and I am not quite sure what happened but this utterly broke the game for me. My game would fail to launch, crash when joining lobbies, crash mid match, fail to connect to servers, etc. I did everything, going as far to reinstall Windows with no solution. The error code I was given didn't even return any discussions online. I reached out to Activision support who naturally were no help.
It took about 3-4 months before they fixed whatever caused that and this game became playable for me again, without explanation.
The campaign is bad. It has highlights but it's a CoD campaign, what do you expect? Clean House is as good as it gets but the fact this series rarely showcases the kind of infantry warfare you saw in the opening of MW 2009 is disappointing, there are two missions where you fight alongside Marines and those are my favourite.
MP is a mixed bag. Some really fantastic weapon customisation here, cool killstreaks, interesting maps, creative game modes, all of it let down however by a ridiculous 'prestige' system that broke what wasn't broken, and skill based matchmaking which ensured you never had too much fun. Some days I would launch the game, play one match getting a positive K/D and the know my evening was about to be ruined.
Nowadays this game is basically abandoned, there are game breaking glitches, broken maps, unbalanced weapons, exploits, cheaters, etc. As soon as the subsequent CoD came out this game was abandoned entirely, only used to peddle cosmetic bundles.
I think this game is extremely important. It defined the current era of CoD and made some genuinely important decisions for the franchise, but at the same time it ramped up the SBMM, the heavy handed microtransactions, the focus on Warzone (which has subtracted from other modes), the ridiculously bloated install size (what do you need 150gb for?!), and it perpetuates the usual CoD cycle. The devs also were OK with the crack head gameplay of slide cancelling, bunnyhopping and spinning around as fast as possible which belongs in something like Tribes or Quake, not CoD. Thankfully MWII rectified this and provided better tools for dealing with campers.
The loudest sections of the community hated so much about this game at launch. It wasn't until it wasn't supported anymore has it become "an underrated gem" according to Reddit and YouTube.
At its best moments, maybe 6 months post launch this would have been a top 3 CoD, I'd have given it 4.5/5. Today, in its current state and with it still being full price most of the time, it's a 2/5. An important game for the series, no longer a good one.