It's taken many attempts, over the last 3 hours to finally start downloading the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Stimulus Pack. For some reason Sony Computer Entertainment Europe cannot seem to get things right. 

As soon as I got home today I tried to download the stimulus pack from the Playstation Store like many people must have tried to do. At first I was getting the error code 80023103. People on forums had suggested updating card details when this error occurs. So I had a go at that. About 20 attempts this took and the 19 times before it worked I got "Your credit card details are incorrect", or something along those lines. 

Then when my card finally got saved I still couldn't download it. I must have press [Confirm Order] about 100 times today.

I finally got through and I was shown the stimulus pack 7 times!!! I haven't checked my card yet, but many others on twitter reporting being charged too many times. If I do I'm going to be pissed off.

Update: Download finished... I installed... I loaded up the game... THEY ARE NOT THERE! ARGGHHH! I cannot access the maps in online multiplayer playlists or create a local match with the maps. Very disappointed. 

Update: I managed to get playing by downloading and trying another download (one of the seven). It's working fine. I got canned response from SCEE UK saying they are looking into it. Actually, I got 4 email! It's now 3 days later and no real response. 

Modern Warfare 2. The game I've been waiting for for far too long and I've not written a post about it? Fancy that. Well the main reason is because it was messed around by Play.com big style. See my Play.com complain. In the end I went for the Prestige Edition (with the night vision goggles).

Well I've had it a few weeks now and I've racked up almost 2 days playing it (single player, spec ops and multi-player) mainly on multi-player. I have to say, and it won't be supprising, that it's fantastic! I love it! Online is much faster paced than the last Modern Warfare, singleplayer is more action packed and varied, and spec ops... well there wasn't spec ops in the first one.

Modern Warfare 2

Single Player Campaign

I've completed the single player campaign and enjoyed it a lot. The story is really a possible future cold war between American and Russia. Infinity Ward didn't really hold back on the way Russia started a full on war with the US on US soil. They way IF did it was good. They made it so the cause of the war was a rouge individual and not either the US or Russia and both sides actions were understandable. The end, well it was pretty much the same as MW but slightly more tense as you watch Price almost die at the hands of Shepherd.

The credits were actually really cool. A camera panned around a museum exhibit with all scenes from the game. Something I found later on is you can actually run around the museum by using chapter selection. At the two information desk are red buttons that say do not touch. Of course you have to and what it does is bring to life ALL the characters in the exhibits and they are ALL after you! Don't worry because you have your pick of every weapon from the game.

Multi-Player

This is the main selling point of Call of Duty. Modern Warfare was so popular because of the addictive multi-player.  Modern Warfare 2 has built on what the first did and has improve it. There's plenty of game modes - free for all, team death match, domination, HQ, capture the flag, search and destroy, and others. There's even 3rd person!

Pictures

Right - Accuracy Leaderboard: As you can see I'm rocking the accuracy. It's going up all the time! My target is 25%.

Below - Kills Leaderboard: Kills don't really mean much to me as the more you play the more you should kill. Ratio is what I care about. Mine isn't as high as it should be because I was messing arond a lot with riot shield but it is increasing every game now

The biggest change is with the leveling up, perks and killstreaks. Everything is worth more points, generally about 10times what they were before. When you kill you can also earn extra points for saving a team mate, avenging a team mate, taking revenge on someone who has killed you, head shots, one shot kills and long range kills. I tend to get a lot of long range kills. Perks have been changed with some add and removed. Killsteaks have been completely change. They are now customisable. You still have 3 rewards but you can choose from about 10 different rewards ranging from UAV to a Tactical Nuke! To get a Tactical Nuke you need a 25 kill streak but by doing that you kill EVERYONE and make your team win. Other rewards include sentry guns, helicopters, air strikes, predator missiles and you can actually control some of them. 

As a little edition you earn titles and emblems. Titles are little banners that go behind your name and emblems are little badges. There are 100s titles and emblems to play with.

Spec Ops

The new addition to Modern Warfare 2 is Spec Ops. It's a series of missions that you can do alone or with a friend (much more fun with a friend). They range from sleathly sniper missions to all out gun battles again juggernauts. There are 5 levels Alpha to Echo and in each are 5 missions. Each mission has upto 3 stars you can be awarded for completing. It's cracking fun and so much better co-operative.

Call of Duty Classic

Call of Duty Classic came as a free download with the Prestiege and Hardened Editions. It is the original game rendered in HD, still the original textures, animated and sounds. It is exactly as I remembered it. It has multi-player as well but unfortunately only upto 8 players which is a shame as I remember playing some amazing 32+ player rifles only on Pavlov's House. Other than the 8 player limit to multi-player the only other bad thing is that shot is R2 not R1 and aim down the sights is L2 nor L1! It's Xbox style :(.

Just to show how much I rock, here's a screen of the 2nd game I played online.

Like many millions of people around the world I have been eagerly awaiting Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Unfortunately I've been a little broke recently but that's another story and hadn't pre-ordered it. So on the 5th November I was quite happy to see an email with the subject "Play.com: Guaranteed Delivery - Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2". I was wary about ordering online because the release date was the 10th and there was a weekend in between. What the email said as the guarantee was "PLAY will dispatch your order in time to be delivered on release day. Delivery is subject to our delivery partners achieving standard delivery guarantees. PLAY take no responsibility for late delivery due to card failure, incorrect address details or failure on the part of the delivery partner". With the condition that I had to order before midnight on Sunday the 8th it seemed fair and having ordered so many things with Play.com with the only one previous mistake (wrong item - 1 out of 56 orders) I felt I'd get it on time.

Failure 1: Didn't arrive on lunch day - failed on a guarantee

I ordered Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2: Hardened Edition and on launch day I waited for it to be delivered to my work. It didn't come. I was pretty angry. Checking my email I see that at about 3:30pm that day they had dispatched it. That was NOT in time for delivery on release day. So as you do I rang them. This less than helpful operator answered and I told her my plight. She claimed the conditions were that they would "try" to dispatch in time. She hadn't a clue or any understanding of the word guarantee. I gave up on her and in my frustration went to buy it from Sainsbury's for £26 (btw... BARGIN!). Didn't really want to have two copies so I sold it to my mate.

Failure 2: The wrong edition

2 days after launch I got a parcel. It was Call of Duty Modern Warfare... STANDARD EDITION. Arghhh!

Failure 3: Not answering emails

Knowing how useless their phone support is I sent an email. It wasn't just any email. It was one of those emails where you get down in words EXACTLY what you want to say. As I type it's been 6 days with no reply.

So come Monday evening, it had been 4 days without a reply. I rang them again and once again I got a useless operator who wouldn't/claimed there was no supervisors around. After 20mins I gave up with her, hung up (politely) and rang again in hope getting a more helpful person. I didn't. For 15mins I was asking to speak to a supervisor, to be called back (she said that wasn't possible) and for her to get a supervisor out of a "meeting". I doubt there was a meeting but kinda hope there was. I did finally get someone claiming to be a supervisor who SOUNDED very helpful. We agreed that the Hardened Edition will be dispatched within 24 hours of the phone call and that he would get customercare@play.com to respond to my email.

Failure 4: Didn't dispatch in time, again & no reply to email

Surprise!!! Didn't happen. The "supervisor" had broken another promise. Again I ring then up to complain. This time all the person on the other end of the phone would do is get a supervisor to call my back in the morning. Weird how he said that and the day before I wasn't told it wasn't possible. I did really doubt that but as always all I could do was wait.

Failure 5: Didn't call back.

So this where we currently stand. I didn't get a call back from a supervisor to sort this out. I did however get 2 emails. First saying I had returned Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Hard Editions... obviously impossible as I hadn't received it. The second was a new gift voucher for the one I had used in the order. So they refunded me when I just wanted the correct item and had agreed over the phone that would happen. So tonight I made sure it was canceled and tomorrow morning I'll be ordering the Prestige Edition from HMV. I deserve those night vision goggles for all this rubbish treatment from Play.com.

This hasn't ended. I'm very pissed off with Play and I'm waiting for them to reply to my email.

Update 20th November: HMV rock! I get the prestige edition within 24 hours of ordering it. Nice job HMV!

Update 25th November: Still no word from customercare@play.com so I'm forwarding my original email and a link to this post.

Update 2nd December: On Friday, 27th November I received a call from some guy at Play. He was trying to explain what happened and how the game was send in time for delivery (still doubting that).  He admitted the service I have received was very bad. Anyway, after a long conversation he said I could keep the wrong version. He also said he'd email me his email address so that I can help him track down the previous phone conversations to help improve their servers, detail any expenses (there was none because of freecalls to 0845 number on BT but a nice offer) and so that I can email him direct if I had any other problems. I didn't get that email!

I put the spare copy of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 on Play Trade. I only used them because I had some Play Trade funds left I wanted to use up. Anyway I got about £29 for it after fees and postage. Funnily enough that's more than Sainsbury's were selling it for (£26) on release day. So £29 for all the trouble? I think that's alright really but what would have happened if I had sent it back? That's not the case so never mind. Well the problem has almost paid for two Christmas presents. I also ordered a My Name is Earl t-shirt for myself  with some of the other Play Trade funds I had previously. Let's see if they deliver.

I will keep this post updated...