http://kotaku.com/5511819/modern-warfare-2-goes-free-on-steam-this-weekend-only

Quote:

Want to see what all that Modern Warfare 2 fuss is about, PC gamers? Then play the game's multiplayer mode for free this weekend, courtesy of Activision and Valve's Steam service. That "weekend" starts a little early, as the free Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer action starts Thursday, April 8. You can pre-load the multiplayer portion of the game through Steam as of right now to ensure maximum play time without spending anything but bandwidth. Sorry, but you won't be able to burn through the game's compact single-player portion during your comped Call of Duty time. But free is free.

Might be worth a try, I don't think MW2 supports Dedicated Servers so we'll have to slum it with the publics.

Any takers?

Click : steam://install/10190 to start the pre-load process.
(This link will launch Steam and put you on the right page.)

Downloading as I type, should be ready probably before I'm finished in the shower, but I'll be working Friday and Saturday evenings! Still, wouldn't mind getting a couple of rounds in, have heard pretty good things (and only really 'bad' things from people who prefer Bad Company 2).

Pre-load complete.

Downloading, but doubt it'll be done tonight with my awesomeness internet connection. Try to see if we can get a few on tomorrow for some shenanigans ?

Sounds good to me.

I'm taking the pre-load files to Gaz's tomorrow on my external HDD to copy them over so he's in too.

Pre-load complete.

First impressions:
Lack of any dedicated server is a bit of a pain, no idea what sorta server I ended up on but it was occasionally very laggy indeed. Also meant the server was limited to 8 people, so the scale of the game is pretty restricted.
Multiplayer only in the freebie. Okay, can't expect that they'd let you play the campaign through for free perhaps, but it does mean that there's basically no chance for learning how to play the game before you get thrown in the deep end. And I'm not sure if that's because I was playing with all the unemployed kids on during the day, but my server was half-populated by people with rank 70 (presumably the highest?) - no one lower than rank 30 except myself on 1. Oh yes!
If you're as crap as me, you'll probably get give the bonus of some extra health after dying too many times in a row, but that actually upsets your vision and I think hearing, which if anything makes it more difficult to find anyone to kill!
All of the typical annoyances of your military style shooter are here, including people with better guns just killing you with one bullet whilst you need half a clip to do any damage, people ducking when they meet one another to get better accuracy on their weapons (think people jumping through the air in a crouch a la CS), and people just sitting in a bush waiting for you to walk past.
Knifing people seems a remarkably easy thing to do, no switching weapons or stalking people, just run along and press the right button when you're somewhere in the vicinity.

That said, it's pretty easy to pick up and play. Didn't seem to be much special you need to do to get a few kills - first map I think I managed a paltry pair, but by the second or third I was on a roughly even K ratio. There are a lot of flashy buttons and achievement type things that pop up fairly often and I have no idea yet what they're all about.

Sadly I'm out this evening and a fair bit of tomorrow, hope to get some time on it with you guys over the weekend though.

Quote:

Lack of any dedicated server is a bit of a pain, no idea what sorta server I ended up on but it was occasionally very laggy indeed. Also meant the server was limited to 8 people, so the scale of the game is pretty restricted.

They're all listen servers if I remember properly, so basically you're playing on one of the players' PCs and are subject to how good their internet connection is.

It's the primary reason I never considered buying the game.

I'll be online with this on Sunday. Family time till then...

Mine's deaded. Seems to be be a Windows 7 x64 issue from poking around. Will be on later if I can fix it .

Shepp said:

Mine's deaded. Seems to be be a Windows 7 x64 issue from poking around. Will be on later if I can fix it .

The update thing seems to take forever ... but I am a bit of a gimp with these things, I'm sure the tech support on ts will sort me out

Screw this, it wants me to download another 8 gig.

I've encountered a couple of interesting little annoyances with this "demo".

My install size is 3.4 gig. I took this folder to Gaz's on my external HDD and copied it over to the relevant place.

Steam then tells us "Pre-load 30% complete".
For some reason it wants the entire 11gig game installed.

Maybe Steam is finding my "less-than-legal" install of MW2 and is fine with using it's files from a different location?

If you guys have also had to download 11 gig then after the weekend trial is over I'll upload the single player .exe and whatever other files are missing.
You guys'll hopefully get access to the rest of the game.

As for actually playing the game... well it seems to run fine for me.
The dedicated server (lack of) issues haven't been too bad for me. I think the load is spread between players (ala SplinterCell: Double Agent) but the host probably does most the work.

It's a shame this game is being such a twat to get up and running especially considering it's a fucking demo.

Because once you're in the game and playing it's damn good fun.
The "kill cam" stops people from being little camping bitches and the massive amount of unlockables gives it that more-ish feel. One more round and then I'll sleep.

No demo should be 11 gig... EVER.

I look forward to sending out the reverse-engineered files to those of you who put up with this hefty download so you can play for free and show Infinity Ward who's boss.
(Apparently the cracked multiplayer .exe works online but I'll have to confirm that on Sunday night when the demo expires.)

Aye, I never understood why more games didn't take note of CoD's killcam feature, such an easy way to minimise camping and spot cheats.

Chez said:

Aye, I never understood why more games didn't take note of CoD's killcam feature, such an easy way to minimise camping and spot cheats.

I think in some games, it's not right. For example, I know that Pete is a fan of the idea of a kill cam in Arma, which I think defies the point of it (plus being a decent sniper in Arma is actually really hard).

So, tried to fire up game - it immediately started downloading stuff and I'm apparently only 27% done. Muchos crapness.