Free's Review: Multiplayer Functionality

Call of Duty 2: We'll start this by saying COD2 has the best singleplayer game of anything I've seen on the 360 yet. It's extremely engaging, realistic and fun to play. The multiplayer functionality however, sucks even worse than Battlefield. There's no way to set up a private game. No way to set up a group match with friends. No pre-game chat. You can't invite a friend until you're in a game, but the games typically don't start until they're full. What? If your friend does happen to join you, they don't follow you to the next game so you're back to square one. Yea, thanks. Once the game starts, it is pretty fun but very simple: run, jump, shoot, melee. You can't drive vehicles and I couldn't figure out how to talk to anybody. Why don't they want us to play together? Just like Battlefield, this is a missed opportunity for greatness. Free's multiplayer score: Mexi-grade with lots of stems and seeds.

Perfect Dark Zero: Much more potential for the clan here. I was able to set up a private game and invite friends to play quite easily using the Guide. Since Termas and I were the only ones playing, I populated the game with AI-controlled bots to fill out the map. We chatted before and during the game. A miracle! And there is an option for choosing weapons. The gameplay was fine, but the colors and graphic styling of the game are more comic-like versus the realism of COD2. No jumping, but the roll is good for evading fire. There's also a cover function for walls but it's very slow to engage and disengage. You can melee, and even use both fists for pure boxing. There are jet packs but we didn't get to use them. Nor did we play an objective game. That said, this game so far is the best option for 2130 interaction. Free's multiplayer score: chest-high and peeling with only a slight trace of onshore wind.