Infinity Ward brought us Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which many gamers were calling a masterpiece and possibly the next best thing since sliced bread, but alas it seems the franchise has taken a sharp turn into a dark region, known as the crap zone. The multiplayer on each platform is plagued with issues from players having the ability to hit their 10th prestige without earning it on the PS3, to players having speed hacks on the PC version, to just an utter loss of control of matches on the Xbox 360. there have even been matches where players do not reload and have infinite ammo during death matches, Infinity Ward needs to get on these issues before players lose interest in taking part in a multiplayer system that is obviously not working.

I have to say that I play mostly on the Xbox 360 and matches over Xbox Live are a terrible mess. I like to play 3rd person tactical (yes I guess I am in the minority here) and every time I try to "Find a Match" it loads up a random game that sometimes has nothing to do with 3rd person tactical at all. I have spawned into matches on Rust, which is a very small map, where it has been "glitched" into an 18 person free for all in which a kill against anyone gives you points. I have taken part in matches where the cross hairs to aim have disappeared and you are literally shooting from the hip. I have even taken part in games where you spawn and literally seconds in you are already dead or seen a player take aim at a harrier with a javelin and have the rockets come back and hit him. 3rd person can even turn into an FPS match, go figure.

Infinity Ward needs to address these issues in a fast tracked manner because if not the fans of their game will quickly become frustrated with this as I am getting. The other night I played on a map where the creator made the match only via a tactical nuclear launch, which on small maps with 18 players running around is a feat that will almost never happen as the probability of you getting shot in the face before racking up 25 kills is very high. In essence I was locked into a never ending game but didn't realize this until I had already spent a good 15 to 20 minutes of my time wasted. I was literally a prisoner of Modern Warfare 2 and a very frustrated game that night.

The major problem with the current affairs of map glitchs on the Xbox 360 is that you as a gamer have no control of what kind of map you are joining. If I knew that the game were glitched I would not join, but I have no choice as it throws me and I will not know until I go into the game. Many gamers are losing patience with what is going on, while some are using the exploits to quickly boost their way through the ranks or unlock different attachments for guns. The other problem is that once the creator of the game leaves the glitches do not fix themselves so you are still playing 18 player matches in maps that are not designed for that volume of players which leads to lag issues and just a general change in strategy as you can no longer play the maps as they are intended.

I am curious to see how Infinity Ward plans on handling this new batch of issues hot on the heels to their patch aimed at fixing the dreaded javelin glitch? At least the javelin glitch was something annoying but was not something that completely changed how the games are played or how long games take. Can we expect massive bannings or just a patch to fix the current hot mess that is called Modern Warfare 2? Many have brought into question the QA at Infinity Ward and how much testing went into the game in the first place in order to have a multiplayer that is almost entirely screwed up.

Have you had this happen to you, share your experiences in the comments so Infinity Ward knows that these are not isolated incidents.