Zannah said:
I have to disagree - playing with Harrier -> Chopper Gunner -> Nuke, achieving the nuke isn't actually that hard, assuming you manage a 7 kill streak without streak-goodies to help you.
I disagree for while getting seven kills in a row isn't hard, often get gunships through nothing but gun kills (like my supply drops) so it isn't that I am disagreeing with. It is the assumption that it is easy to find a team of idiots that don't know how to use anti-air or cold blooded that will let you rack up the needed 18 straight kills to get a nuke since that point. First off a harrier can be shot down with one rocket and often has no more then a second in the air unless your playing against a whole team that is composed of people who don't know cold blooded or anti-air exists. Even so a gunship doesn't make it that simple to rack up the additional 14 kills you need, again unless you have a gift finding those teams that have no skill what so ever. Oh and avoiding being auto selected to their side... oh I so hate that, but I am a jinx for a reason.
Neither does it defeat the purpose of the game - should one person / team be completely dominating, and they get to nuke, they win, als they would have, but in less time, and in a more fun manner - however i have up to know twice (once of which it was my nuke) witnessed the true epicness of being in the inferior team in a domination / ctf / hq match, and turning around a 45 : 180 loss, by nuking the map. And that hillarious epicness, is exactly what the tactical nuke was meant to provide.
Again, can't argue that someone who is dominating shouldn't end the game quickly. It isn't the nuke that I am bothered with it is how easily it attracts people who cheat. A game should not, under any circumstance, end within the first two minutes of begining. I kid you not, I have seen this more then a dozen times since my brother accidental put MW2 on my steam account. When you join a map only to find one person racking up a K

ratio that even a god would be envious of one has to just wonder if he is cheating and sorry, most times he is. I don't even like being on the same side as these people.
On halfrelated point - what have people going on with cheaters in Mw2? In around four days or so I've played online, I encountered one, >> 1 << cheater. I have however seen thousands of accusations of cheating against various players including myself, not because any of those players actually hacked, glitched or cheated but because, frankly spoken, he or she didn't suck.
Been accused too... though after shot gunning a whole team in only 2 seconds even I was blinking so I can let that slide easily. Stupid reload though, I was only one person off a gunship and he got me cause my weapon was dry! We all have the means to pull off bullshit shots, this I accept and don't care if someone is having a good run... twice so if they use mic and have a good attitude then the troll that comes on, guns 20 people down in a few seconds and yells 'fag.'
What gets to me about cheaters, a lot of them don't hide it in the slightest.
I have had more then once situation where a person has head shot me through a wall with in the first few seconds of a game. When ghosting I have seen players line up shots through walls or do 180 spins while head shotting a crowd and other bullshit. There are so many cheaters out there but fair enough, more accusation then the number of cheaters does exist.
On topic: A weapon that gets replaced later on isn't useless - it was the best option you had, until it got replaced. A different story is something like half life (2) or Max payne (2), where you don't actually replace guns, but are occasionally forced to, after enyoing proper weaponry in one level, work with stuff you abandoned hours ago, the other level.
As I said so can't debate this topic, weak guns at the start of the game are part of the 'thanks for playing our game so far, here have a better gun' format that is typical to games. I do still think they shouldn't be seen in MP based games though, simply as it irritates the new comers who now have to fight tanks with pea shooters.