I Stand Corrected

After giving in selling out and purchasing Modern Warfare 2 for the 360 to play with some 360 friends (I 3N3MY I from http://backseatgamers.blogspot.com/) I realized how mistaken I had been about this game. Bobby Kotick still may sturggle public relations is still a huge douchebag but Infinity Ward definitely made a great game. In the end, I just had to purchase this game for the PC as well so instead of boycotting, yes, I purchased the game twice.

The single player is very short but full of fast, furious action, several twists and turns, and a cliffhanger ending that makes you shake your fist in the air and curse Infinity Ward for the time it will take to make Modern Warfare 3 Call of Duty 35. Without ruining too much, it's an action movie, a rollercoaster ride that will leave you wanting more. I already played through it twice. Unfortunately, the Regular difficult on the PC version was easier than the Recruit version on the 360. At least, for someone like me who is used to the mouse and keyboard. For those of you who scoff at the difficult level I play on, I play single player games for the story, not to be continuously killed by A.I. enemies with aimbot programming HAXORS! on Veteran difficult. I guess it gives you something to brag about but online is where the challenge or lack thereof is at.

The co-op is enjoyable as well though I have yet to play it with another person. I've done several solo and they are fun but quite challenging. You also see some different scenarios from the single player campaign, such as the fight across the bridge.

And then there is the breath of fresh air that is the multiplayer which more than makes up for the short single player campaign. It appears that Infinity Ward listened to gamers' legitimate complaints and created a multiplayer experience that puts the shooter back into First Person Shooter. The first Modern Warfare, in my honest opinion, replaced shooting with frags, air strikes, frags, juggernaut, aimbot choppers, frags, spammage, frags, noob tubes, frags, and martyrdom frags. With everybody running around with 3 frags and another one not included in their inventory but magically appearing as martyrdom when they died, the game was full of people without skill 10 year olds who could only get kills by spammage and not actually shotting someone with a gun... in a First Person SHOOTER.

The perks are balanced better, there are more guns, deathstreaks help you comeback, awesome maps, killstreak rewards not adding kills on to the next killstreak reward, titles, emblems, and numerous weapon unlocks all create a experience that can only be summed up with one word. Scrumtrulescent. I have 49 hours into the PC multiplayer and I'm level 54 I think and I'm still addicted. It's been a long time since I was truly blown away by an online FPS game. Modern Warfare was addicting until you realized how full of spammage it had become. World at War kept me occupied but I could only play it for an hour or so before it became annoying.

On the downside, there are no dedicated servers. The matchmaking isn't nearly as bad as I originally expected it to be but it's still kind of... meh. It's nice to all join the same side but we are constantly leaving the so-called servers to make a party as another clan member jumps into Ventrilo and wants to play with us. And with smaller groups, maximum of 18, we are forced to play Ground War if we have more than 6 people in our group or we must split. Then again, the game splits us up anyways sometimes. Then there are the disconnects which makes the game pause to find a new host (very similar to the occasional crash of a dedicated server). And let's not forget the hackers that still proliferate PC gaming no matter what Steam or IW or Punkbuster or any other alleged "security" does. And without dedicated servers, we are forced to leave or play with the hackers as they can't be kicked/banned. I'm still hoping that IW opts for dedicated servers which I doubt or maybe they'll utilize them again in the next Call of Duty after they see the success of dedicated servers in Bad Company 2.

Regardless, Modern Warfare 2 is a fun and addicting experience that we'll keep me busy for quite some time. It's enjoyable and rewarding to earn a new title or emblem or complete a challenge or achieve a pro-perk (which is pretty easy). Unfortunately, the problems with the game are ones that could've been easily avoided had Infinity Ward decided to follow in the foosteps of numerous other shooters on the PC. Hackers continue to taint PC gaming. Having started out with Battlefield 2 with rocky play completely sucking and working my way up to be the player I am today, I still have yet to grasp the appeal of replacing skill with hacks that are usually bought out of pocket or using a hacked dedicated server to "rank-up" and earn Prestige Level 10 in no time at all. It's great to be called a hacker when you are playing so good (with skill, not hacks) that you receive that kind of immature reaction. Someday, maybe the hackers will realize they can't hack their way through life and will actually have to develop skills and learn things, very similar to improving gaming skills...

...but let's address hackers in a later blog.

Shock and Awe

In the light of a recent video game release CoD:MW2, I have had to explain my Activision boycott stance to countless just a few people who seemed shocked that I would be in the small minority the one person on the planet who would not purchase Modern Warfare 2.

"Gasp!" you exclaim as your fist clutches your chest due to the pains that have no doubt occured as your heart falters after reading the paragraph above. I know you wouldn't dare use words yes, you would, you tool like fanboy or douche or noob or nub or nublet to describe me. I mean, it is my choice, after all.

1. Being the avid PC gamer fanboy that I am, I have a close, tight love/hate relationship with dedicated servers. The members of =TPE= http://www.thepublicenemy.net/ I met on their dedicated server for Battlefield 2142. I popped in, owned some people with my superior machine gun claymore skills running the medic recon kit. Given an odd addiction to WoW (that I overcame through some serious counseling and intervention from some of my most caring friends and family members) that caused me leave them for a bit, they have been a steady group of guys that I have gamed with. If we had matchmaking on the PC, I would have never met these guys and would still be the former Lone Wolf sad and lonely PC gamer that I once was.

2. The CEO of Activision, Bobby Kotick, is a jerk. http://www.geeks.co.uk/7282-activision%E2%80%99s-bobby-kotick-hates-developers-innovation-cheap-games-you There is this idea of PR (Public Relations) which many use to "reach out" to their consumers, or supports if you have the misfortune of being a politician. Some of the comments that come out of this guys mouth makes me wonder how many other companies follow this ideal insanity but just aren't stupid enough to blurt them out in public for everyone to hear. Sorry, this guy does not deserve my money.

3. Raised prices. Now, I know many 360 players would argue "Hey, you PC fanboys have only had to pay $50 for the same games we pay $60 for. It's about gosh durn time!" and I would counter with nananananana the fact that we pay FAR more for the rigs that run our games. I have owned two "real" gaming PCs (as opposed to the HP laptop that barely played Diablo 2 and the Dell whose case was so small I couldn't upgrade the video card). The first was an Alienware that I paid $3600 for. WHAT!?!? Yes, that much but it lasted me 4 1/2 years and ran awesome the whole time. I only upgraded the video card once and bought a skinny monitor. I don't count the wireless card for when my roomate at the time would not run a ground line down to the basement. We call that time The Dark Ages. And the gaming rig I have now was $1500 and I built it all by myself under the proper guidance and instruction of someone who knew what they were doing.

4. There is a sneaky suspicion that the whole idea of "matchmaking" is to force us PC fanboys to purchase the DLC, when in the past we have received it as a free download. Optional, but still free. With matchmaking, you play a map or two and then get kicked off when a new map comes up on the rotation from the brand new DLC that you didn't buy because you spent all your money on your gaming PC. Again, gamers may argue that they had to pay for it on the 360, why is it free for me. Please recognize the $1200 price difference between what I use to play games and what they use. Someone may argue that's my choice. That's true but I am far better with a mouse and a keyboard, for one. Not to mention games that exist only on the PC, such as Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 which are on my must have desperately want list.

5. This is the smallest of the reasons because even though all my clanmates have banned and boycotted and refuse to play an CoDs after 2, the games have their balance issues. "Hey," Bobby Kotick says one day in his office while brainstorming about how to be a bigger douche and rip people even more. "I've got an idea. Let's reward people for kills so they get more kills which unlock more rewards that net them more kills. It'll be great. Oh, and we'll make a Martyrdom perk so if you suck at shooting you can still run into a room and die and get 5 kills and get an artillery strike... cuz you suck. Oh and for the noobs who are good at shooting and exactly how many bullets from each gun will kill an enemy, we'll create juggernaut to piss them off. Oh, and claymores for general lameness and three fag perk to completely erase the need for guns. The whole battlefield will be one big frag fest and by the time you throw the third nade, you'll die anyways (dropping another nade with Martyrdom even though your inventory says you have zero frags left). I'm the genius douchebag of the century! Eat your heart out, Bill Gates!" I put Bobby's direct quote in bold to emphasize how important he is. I can jump in CoD:WaW with Rifle Grenades and Martyrdom and get numerous kills without ever pulling a trigger on a gun. And yet the game is classified a First Person Shooter. Where does the shooter come from?

In the end, I'm not really alone. http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?dedis4mw There are a LOT of people who want dedicated servers. BUT, this reason alone is not enough to persuade me to boycott MW2. However, I may purchase a used copy of the game so that my money goes to Gamestop instead of Activision. Of course, that's like selling your soul to an Archdemon as opposed to Lucifer himself. They are both pretty evil.