Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 - First Impressions

I just received a copy of COD MW2 as an early x-mas gift and let me say, I am enjoying this call about as much as a telemarketer calling at dinner time. I will preface my impressions with the information that I'm probably not the greatest at first person shooters, but I'm also not terrible. I have played and beaten every Halo game except for the recent ODST, so I'm comfortable with the FPS premise for a game.

That being sad, I don't know if I've ever become so frustrated and angry with a game so quickly before (Madden 2010 is a close second). There is so little instruction to how to play this game that I usually die 3-4 times or wander aimlessly for minutes on end, just to figure out I'm doing the wrong thing or shooting civilians.

While MW2 is a stunning visual game, the game play is, at least initially, an EXTREME let down. There's tons going on, and plenty of great sound effects and a high frame rate. In fact there's so much going on that it's hard to find the important characters or the location icon that you follow to find destinations. This game also employs a semi auto-targeting system which is so poorly explained it took me nearly an hour's worth of gameplay to figure it out. And while aim assisting is great, it doesn't work well when you're injured, and as you sustain more damage your screen becomes almost entirely blocked by a blood red splatter, until you die.

Now considering that FPS games aren't my favorite, I am hoping that my poor personal skill level can account for some of the problems I've been encountering. At one point, while chasing a bad guy through a series of shanty rooftops, I died 7 times consecutively because of where the game had me spawn after dying once. In fact, I labored for 25 minutes on this rooftop level only to become so frustrated that I realized it was time for one of two things to happen: 1) throw my PS3 control through my tv in frustration, or 2) turn the game off to avoid option #1. Needless to say option 2 was far and away my best choice.

While this is only a first impression, it does not bode well for the game and I'm sincerely disappointed by how confused I was as a new player. I've been reading and hearing so many great things about this game that I was totally stoked to receive it as a gift. But after the first hour's play I can't say I'm in ANY kind of rush today to re-visit it, simply to save both my blood pressure and my anger (out of frustration).

I'm hoping that playing some of the mini, non story line modes, will help get me up to speed making lightning fast decisions and figuring out how to deal with enemy fire. But for now I honestly have to say I don't quite understand what all the fuss has been about. What good is a Ferrari if you can't figure out how to get it out of the driveway and on to the street? I will refrain from making a reference to Tiger Wood's recent driving adventures (a sad game in their own right). All in all I will give this game some more seat time once I calm down from the frustration of hour one. Stay tuned (fingers crossed)