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Modern Warfare 2 Comparisons – A war about nothing
By Kyle Kulyk 
The upcoming release of the sequel to Infinity Ward’s monster hit, Call of Duty 4 is creating quite a buzz on internet gaming sites. So is it due to Modern Warfare 2’s intense action? The perfect scores already being posted? The controversial airport segment?
No. Internet forums are aflame with speculation on which version of Modern Warfare 2 has a miniscule edge, the PS3 or the 360.
The gaming site, Lens of Truth, who apparently persuaded their local Play N Trade to break Modern Warfare 2’s street date in order to provide them the opportunity to run the two versions against each other his succeeded again in fanning the flames of fanboyism with their most recent comparison. Lens of Truth are known for pitting both 360 and PS3 versions of the same game through a series of tests to compare how each game stacks up, often coming to eyebrow raising conclusions on which version comes out on top.
In this case, Modern Warfare 2 is the target of LOT’s comparison. Their ultimate verdict? The Xbox 360 is the favourable version of the anticipated franchise.
“Regardless of which version of CoD: MW2 you decide to buy, you will not be disappointed. Infinity Ward has done a great job of matching the quality of the game between the platforms. But like every Head2Head we need to judge the versions against one another. And even though the differences are minor, the Xbox 360 version is the definitive version to purchase”
The question that comes to mind first off is, are they correct? Given LOT’s past of questionable conclusions such as 2 seconds of load time difference trumping terrible control issues (their comparison of BlazBlue) it is apparent that LOT’s comparisons are as subject to interpretation, opinion and human error as any other review. Added to that, German gaming site www.cynamite.de also ran comparison screen shots of each version but these screenshots appear to favour the PS3 version of the game for sharpness, lighting effects, etc. Without another unbiased site to confirm LOT’s findings, who can really say if their conclusions are even close to accurate?
The second question that comes to mind is, when a game like this is so close, who cares? Is there a place for these types of comparisons? Do they really serve a purpose for gamers or are do they simply serve to garner hits for websites such as Lens of Truth by fanning the flames of console fandom?
Despite all the web furor over these comparisons, how does Infinity Ward feel about the respective versions? Here’s what an Infinity Ward developer had to say about the issue via comments on Neogaf’s forums.
“I took many comparison shots and videos during development to make sure both platforms were identical. In my findings there is some (extremely) slight differences in color temp (I guess due to how the systems output video), but as long as you’ve got your console set up properly for your display it should look the same. If the PS3 version is looking washed out then you’ve got something set up wonkily. Make sure to follow the brightness adjustment guide in the options menu.
And yes, on a lower end setup Full RGB _will_ crush blacks. It is not a foolproof “fix”, as is the reference level adjustments on the 360.
In doing blind side by side tests at the office the ONLY person capable of picking the right version was the programmer responsible for a lot of the rendering code”
So, are sites like Lens of Truth really providing a service to gamers? Metacritic scores seem to reflect what many in the gaming community already suspected. 2007 was a rough year for multiplats on the PS3, 2008 evened things out and now in 2009 the majority of multiplatform releases are either the same or better on the PS3 console. With differences usually so miniscule that the average gamer cannot tell versions of these titles apart and given that no gamer will ever play these games side by side, do comparisons like these have a place in the gaming review sphere, or should gamers stick to professional game reviewers to tell us when there’s a noticeable difference?
Thanks for the article. Seems to me like you were just trying to get hits to your site bt riding the wave brought on by Lens of Truth. If you are looking for credibility check out this article by Kotaku. I hope you don’t feel they have no credibility either.
http://kotaku.com/5400921/modern-warfare-2-360-vs-ps3-part-ii . If they look at Lens of Truth for “credible” comparisons, shouldn’t you.
Who said Lens of Truth weren’t credible? This article simply pointed out they’ve come to questionable conclusions in the past. It asked readers to consider how much stock is placed in these type of articles.
And nowhere in your link does Kotaku say they agree with or endorse LOT’s findings, nor is the word “credible” used anywhere in the article.
There seems to be a common misconception we’re seeing on internet forums that this article, while critical of the usefulness of these types of comparisons, is disputing LOT’s findings or conclusions with regards to the recent Modern Warfare 2 comparison.
This is simply not the case.