I’ll be reviewing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 soon, but I just wanted to say something about it while it’s fresh in my mind, and my fury is at its most potent.

You see, one feature in Modern Warfare 2 makes me FURIOUS. You are not allowed to use Party Chat in most of the online game types. This is completely pointless, and a very severe step over the line.

Sorry, Infinity Ward, but I lost all respect for you when you did this. I am the only person who is allowed to dictate who I do and do not talk to. You have no right whatsoever to force me to into anything like this. You’re forcing Xbox users back into a dark age of talking to one person only or having to deal with hearing the inane babble and offensive slur of pre-teens with glass-shattering voices, or teenagers who only know the word “fag”.

See, we all had to deal with this bullshit for so fucking long, and then, FINALLY, Microsoft implemented Party Chat. You could talk privately with all your friends at once, and completely eliminate the bitching and screaming of all of society’s dregs that congregate in online games. It was a golden age. Suddenly it seemed like an enormous weight had been lifted from our shoulders. We could FINALLY play in small groups of friends and talk amongst ourselves and just have a good time without having to talk over (or stop talking for) some fucking retards who shout and scream and bitch and whine and insult us for no reason.

But you listened to those screaming, shit-flinging chimps. “WAAAAH, someone from the other team might use party chat to get someone on our team to give away our locations!”

That’s not even a valid reason. Even if someone went to all that trouble just to do that, the game is far too fast paced for it to ever be a game-changing event. And need I honestly remind you that there is a perk available that lets you listen to the enemy team’s in-game voice chat anyway? A perk that you made available in your own game. And now you decide who I can and cannot talk to while I try to enjoy a product I spent money for. A LOT of money, thank you very much. I could understand if you disabled Party Chat for Search and Destroy mode, since it could actually be used here for foul play, but to ban it in almost all game modes is simply ludicrous and defies all logic. However, an even simpler solution here would be to force dead players to watch from the perspective of a still-living teammate, rather than giving them an advantageous view of the map with which they could aid the remnants of their team.

I would also like to make particular note of a certain fact that I find incredibly worrying: Party Chat is an Xbox Live feature. Xbox Live members pay a subscription fee to make use of Xbox Live’s features, including Party Chat. Party Chat is in no way connected with Call of Duty or Infinity Ward. How fucking dare you, a third party, remove a feature of an unrelated service that I’m paying for?

There is no wiggle room here. There is no compromise. You have made a terrible, stupid mistake, and I sincerely hope you fix it so that millions of people and their friends can simply enjoy playing a game together.

Fuck you.