The End

**SPOILER** If you haven't watched the finale of LOST, then read no further.

Well, it's finally over. What do we do now, right? I wanted to get all of my thoughts in writing before I talked to anyone or read anything so that I know they're all mine, so here we go.

After sleeping on the finale, I'm going to say that I'm happy with how the show ended. There's really no way they could've pleased everyone, but I think they did a fair amount of fan service without ruining the plot to try and please everyone. Sure, there were bunches of unanswered questions: why was Libby in a mental institution with Hurley? what made Walt 'special'? why exactly couldn't women survive childbirth? Sayid's soulmate was Shannon? Hell, I still have a stack of questions about the island, Jacob, Smokey, and all the mysticism. But, in the end, the finale was not only sufficient, but I liked it a lot. So, here's a list of what I liked specifically:

• It answered the one question I'd come to care about more than any other: did the bomb work? Thank goodness, no, it didn't. Double thank goodness, it didn't make some stupid-ass alternate reality like Star Trek or Back to the Future. Finally, a show or movie gets it right: what happened happened. I'm glad they didn't pull a 180 to say that variables could change the past or some bullshit. Jack had always set off the bomb...er, well, Juliet.
  
• I like what they did with the alternate reality by making it Purgatory or some other between lives thing. It accomplished the above task, but it also means that it was nothing but fan service. It was unimportant to the plot, and that's the way I like it. We all got to play the "what if?" game, and it brought Sawyer and Juliet back together. It would have been nice if Juliet never died, but I think they might have had trouble sustaining that great chemistry. Plus, her death at the end of season 5 was the single most gut-wrenching scene of any movie or show I've ever seen. It was sad, but it was powerful.
  
• I love the idea of Hurley and Ben palling around the island. Spin-off plz?
• The real ending--and this is important--is not that they all went to the afterlife together. The ending is that Jack, like John Locke, was ultimately a martyr to the island. The show ended the way it began, and it was perfect.
• On that same note, the way it wrapped up really drove home that Jack was the main character, and that the whole purpose of the story is Jack's redemption and his sacrifice.
• In the end, John Locke was right, and without him, Jack never would have realized how important he was.
  
• Although it's frustrating that they never really answered what the island is or how it came to be that way (and who the hell built the drain), I guess I'm glad they didn't. Any answer probably would've been pretty cheesy. Just let us imagine that the Egyptians built it...or whatever.
• It didn't end with a question or a cliff hanger. We have a sense of closure, and thank goodness for that.
• All the mysticism and mysterious 'rules' surrounding the island suggest that there is in fact something greater in this world. The ambiguously religious--though very Christian-influenced--sideflashes make sense within the canon of the show. Dead people were always showing up here and there, and the unworthy ones, like Michael, are forced to whisper in the woods of the island. It makes sense, then, that the redeemed get to enjoy an afterlife, and that they can only begin it after realizing what their lives could have been without the island and how much they impacted each others' lives. It's a bit cheesy when looked at out of context, but it fits with the theme of the show.
  

So, anyway, those are a lot of the things I like about it. I can't stress enough how much I liked what they did with the flash sideways in the end. I would have been soooo disappointed if it ended up being the true reality or something. Don't underestimate how important it is to me that the bomb didn't work. Plus, what other show has done that? The whole being reunited in the afterlife ("See you in another life, brotha") thing is something I don't think I've ever seen. That may be because it's cheesy, but I don't care. LOST had me wound around its finger so tightly that I was really just along for the ride. That being said, one thing that does and always will piss me off is how Jin and Sun died and orphaned their daughter.
On a side note: Something that I'm disappointed with was the third to last episode because all it did was paint Smokey in a sympathetic light. Jack's sole purpose in life culminated with him defending the island from Smokey, but that episode failed to show exactly why the island must be protected and why Smokey must be eliminated. Honestly, the show might have been better without that episode.

The last thing I want to re-stress is for the potential those of you who didn't like the revelation that the side-flashes were of the afterlife: don't dwell on that. In the end, they're trivial and completely unimportant in terms of influencing the events of the show. They were purely fan service: they gave potential answers to the question of "what if Jack and Daniel's plan did work?" and they offered a chance for the characters of the show to reunite and be together again...I mean, if you didn't get a little emotional when Sawyer and Juliet reunited, then you might wanna make sure you still have a soul.

In the end, LOST is the single finest piece of television I've ever seen and will probably ever see, and the finale did the show justice. I'm sure everyone has something to say on this matter, so go ahead and sound off. I'm looking forward to it.

--Chilly P

Update: see comment #5

The Space/Time Continuum of Multiplayer Gaming

It's not a particularly novel concept, but it is interesting to look at how we play games with our friends in terms of space and time. Are we playing together in the same room, or are we in separate places and competing over the internet? Are we playing together at the same time, or can our play time be mutually exclusive? It should seem quite obvious that the most popular form of multiplayer gaming is remotely synchronous. Every online shooter falls under this category, and it's this category of competitive gaming that companies spend the most amount of time and money on... Right?

Well, it's not entirely true, and I'll get to that in a bit. First, let's look at which realm the first form of competitive gaming was in: co-located synchronous. Spacewar! and Pong were both strictly multiplayer games that required both players being in the same room looking at the same screen. It's interesting to note this, because the next wave of arcade games were almost all single-player. Pac-Man, Asteroids, Centipede, Donkey Kong; just about every other old-school arcade game you can think of is single-player, but they did issue in the second realm of multiplayer gaming: co-located asynchronous. While you were not directly competing against anyone, every game had a leaderboard, so you took turns going for the best score, and in that way you were competing against everyone who came before you and everyone who would come after you.

So, if you think about it, leaderboards are still the most common form of competitive gaming, but now they're all online. Just about every Xbox 360 game has some sort of online leaderboard, but when the boards are so expansive they tend to lose meaning. They're great for competing for the best kill-to-death ratio in Call of Duty or the for the highest Pacifism score in Geometry Wars 2, but they're such minimalist interactions that they barely qualify as competition. In fact, they're more of a meta-game than a game, since you don't play leaderboard. So, if you exclude leaderboards, the most common form of competitve gaming these days falls in the remote synchronous quadrant. While I would never complain about this, I would like to enjoy games in the other realms as well.

Party games, much like blockbuster PC games, seem to be a dying breed, which is just a shame. Super Smash Bros. Melee and Halo: Combat Evolved pretty much mark the the last hurrahs of co-located synchronous gaming. We definitely live the age of online gaming, and the problem with it how impersonal it can be. Sure, split screen was and still is a nightmare, but we've become so spoiled by Xbox LIVE and the like that it's almost become taboo. Hell, Call of Duty and Battlefield won't even allow you take a friend online with you, which is almost unforgivable. LIVE games are great for keeping in touch with friends who've moved away, but it's ridiculous that if I'm hanging out with a group of friends and we all want to play our favorite multiplayer game, everyone has to return to their respective residences to play on their on 'Boxes. These days, the only company that seems to still encourage the party game is Nintendo...which not-at-all coincidently has the worst online gaming network.

So, there's my little rant about synchronous games, but what about the asynchronous? Well, if you take leaderboards out of the equation, they don't exist all that much. There are turn-based games like Chess or Advance Wars, but are they truly asynchronous? I guess I'll accept a "yes," especially if you're playing Advance Wars on a single Gameboy since people usually take turns observing the gamespace.

Something that I hadn't seen very often until quite recently is the asynchronous remote game. The first game of this type I remember enjoying was Scrabulous on Facebook. Now I play Words with Friends on my iPhone, and it's essentially the same thing, but I like it better because playing it on my phone is far more convenient. It's absolutely fantastic. For those who don't know, it's the classic Scrabble board game (with a few minor changes to avoid copyright infringement), but you can take as much time as needed between turns and simply play at your convenience. It's a way to throw in some quality gameplay with friends while you should be doing something else. I would love to see more games like this in the future.I'd love to see more original games of this type that aren't adaptations of established board games like Chess or Scrabble. Advance Wars (well, it'd have to be a copycat of it) would be particularly great.

So, anyway, I hope I've given you guys something to think about while I'm out of town this coming week. For those of you familiar with Words with Friends, check out the 1500+ point play in the picture above. Somebody had the play of a lifetime; although I suspect it didn't come about organically.

--Chilly P

World of Goo + Charity = WIN!!

Everyone. Stop what you are doing and go check out the Humble Indie Bundle if you haven't yet done so. It's 5 indie games for the price of...whatever you want to pay! Want to be a cheap ass? Then pay nothing. Want to actually feel good about yourself and help either those in need, those who deserve it, or both? Then pay something, however much you want. Your money can either go to charity or to the developers or both. Seriously, opportunities to do some good and get some cool games don't come around very often.

The big reason I did it was to get my hands on World of Goo, which I'd heard is great. I'm here to confirm that it's not only great, it's fantastic. It's like a cross between architecture and The Incredible Machine. You basically use these little balls of goo to construct structures that either build up, down, or across gaps. Behold the supporting power of triangles! It's creative, fun, and challenging. I haven't been this hooked on a PC game since Roller Coaster Tycoon. I haven't played the other 4 (possibly 5) games of the bundle yet, but World of Goo was worth every penny I chose to spend. I don't know anything about the other 5 games I got, but if they're half as good as World of Goo, I'll be stoked. Oh, some of the developers are also offering up the source code to their games, which is very cool. Unfortunately, they're not packaged into Visual Studio projects (or something similar), so I'm-a wait until someone makes that available.

Why are you still reading this? Go do some good.

--Chilly P

p.s. I'd also like to give a shout-out to Ray Ray for letting me know that you can now get Portal for FREE.

Trivia? !?!?!?!?!

(ht: Polska)

I hate trivia... but I know many people do not. So here is something for those of you who like this sort of thing.

Quiz for Halo games.

I did about 10 and then lost interest, so I can't really offer a "score to beat."


Enjoy.

Reaching for the Stars

Alrighty, I don't want to hammer on the Reach stuff too much, but I had already typed this once Chilly P had done his... so I will go ahead and post my stuff that I typed yesterday. I won't edit it or change it to ensure authenticity.

Upon reflection, my initial "debbie downer" approach to Halo: Reach might not have been entirely fair. I was very upset at the lack of strength with the majority of the guns (still am), but I have played the game a bit more to uncover a handful of things that make the game fairly enjoyable.

The Pistol-

The pistol is actually not as bad as I initially thought. To be honest, it is a viable option and my new go-to weapon when playing this game. If you are smart with how you shoot it, meaning patient, you can see delicious results. At a distance, you are able to knock someone's shield down with 4 or so shots, and then dink them on the dome for the kill. But as I mentioned, the pistol's (as well as the DMR) effectiveness depends on your patience with the gun. I first thought the "recoil" on this gun wasn't a big deal. The more I use it, the more I realize that you must wait until the pistol comes back square before firing your next shot (when shooting at a distance). When you do this, it feels astonishingly like the ol' Halo 1 pistol (not nearly as powerful, but still).

A quick note- Running the trigger when in close range is shockingly effective as well. I am starting to actually win battles (regularly) when using it against "spray and pray" guns.

The DMR-
Same goes for this gun, timing is everything. But different from the pistol, I think the DMR might actually lose strength when you don't allow it to gain its composure, so to speak. When you are completely calm and collected, and fire when the gun is perfectly accurate, it is a strong and impressive gun. Yet if you fire this bastard when the reticule isn't completely centered, the accuracy is laughable as well as the damage seems to drop as well. So here again, having poise is key.

-SWAT is still awesome. Despite an amorphous and sometimes confusing hit box for head shots, this gametype still is a lot of fun.

-Stockpile is about as fun as reaching your hand into a bag of dicks. I hate the premise, and I hate the randomness with the spawns of the flags. There is a strange aspect of offense/defense that I don't enjoy, so I rarely find myself smiling when playing this.

-1 Flag ctf is also not something I like to play. Halo 1 (the original daddy) never had offense and defense gametypes, and there was a good reason for that. It is a stupid fucking gametype unless your name is Counter-Strike. Reach tries to slip it in there occasionally, and you end up having to endure 2 minutes or so of hectic gameplay that results in everyone using sprint and running around like a bunch of assholes.

-I wish the game made a noise when voting was going to begin, because all too often I am on my computer not paying attention, and the next thing I know I am being visually sodomized by fucking stockpile.

Alrighty, that is enough for now.


SC

Reach Out and Touch Faith

...because faith is almost all I have to go on at this point. Every time I dive into Reach, I have fun for about 30 minutes and then I find myself wondering, "Is this it?" There are times when Reach really shines, and there are some aspects of the game that truly are the best of the series, but it's just not keeping my interest. Since the beta came out, I think I've actually logged less time on it than I have Bad Company 2 since then. I see why Bungie's ready to move on, because the formula is getting old.

I'll go through the positives first because I don't want to give the impression that I think this is a bad game. First, the level design (for all two levels) is fantastic. Both maps are intricately planned and offer tons of corridors for battle. They're not as plane-Jane as Guardian or Epitaph, not as pointlessly open or symmetrical as Snowbound or The Pit, not as confusing to learn as Ivory Tower or Lockout, and they're not filled with the awkward set pieces that made Hang 'Em High look like a paintball arena in a canyon. Learning you way around takes seconds, but mastering the intricacies takes hours. Both levels also have a great sense of verticality, something that suits Reach far better than any FPS I've ever played.

Second, I like the armor abilities. They seem fairly well balanced, and each has its advantages and pitfalls. Clyde's a fan of invisibility, while I feel naked without a jetpack. The aforementioned verticality (I think I just invented that word) of the levels gives the jetpack the edge it needs to be competitive with the other abilities, since it would offer little to no use on a map like Snowbound or even High Ground. The only problem with the armor abilities is that they make the hammer and sword better. The jetpack, cloak, dive, and sprint all make it much easier to get in close before the enemy has time gun you down.

Lastly, I really like what they've done to compliment gameplay. Adding names to map locations is brilliant, they finally mapped melee to a shoulder button, you can queue yourself to automatically join a friend when they finish their game, and navigating your friends list to send and receive invites is all done in-game now. Okay, let's get to the complaints.

First and foremost, where the fuck is my BR? Is it really so hard to balance a single shot weapon with a three-round burst weapon? You already have loadouts, just let us choose which rifle to start with.

Okay, got that off my chest; time to talk like an adult, now. My main problem with the game is that it's some sort of bizarre hybrid between Halo: CE and Halo 3. For every step the game takes forward, it takes another 2 back trying to recreate the first game. It just doesn't work that way. That game wasn't built for Xbox LIVE and a lot of aspects that fit that game well don't work in Reach. This is what happens when you let incessant fanboys with rose-tinted glasses cloud your judgement. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people who like the sequels more than the original, but they're not as vocal because they can still play their favorite version to their heart's content (hang in there, guys!). Here's the thing: bringing back health packs, fall damage, and single-shot rifles doesn't automatically mean you're getting the CE fans on board. Halo 1 was about horizontal play in spacious areas--don't act like you played anything other than Blood Gulch or Hang 'Em High seriously. Yes, both maps had elevated areas, but there was very little overlapping. The magic of Halo 1 was using an impossibly accurate pistol to gun down enemies you could hardly see. Hell, even the shotgun had pretty incredible range because close encounters were so few and far between. The reason health packs and fall damage were appropriate for that game was because these long range battles were the norm. Without health bars, a skilled pistolero could have wreaked havoc on lesser players because there was no good way to sneak up on him and he could typically manage to isolate encounters to one on one.

With the move to dual-wielding in Halo 2, maps became much more intricate and close-quartered. Having a weapon as deadly accurate as the pistol in that game would have rendered dual-wielding useless, and having health bars would have made stringing kills together even harder than it was. Plus, maps became much more vertical with a lot more layering, and having fall damage would limit your mobility too much.

So, the problem is that Reach is trying to be every Halo at once so it can please everybody, but it does it all wrong. The maps are tighter and more vertically oriented than ever, and having fall damage and health bars just adds an unnecessary amount of stress to the gameplay. The developers at Bungie are no better than Icarus' father who gave him wings that would melt as soon as he had too much fun with them. The difference in winning and losing a close-quarters battle is so minuscule that having health bars just punishes the good players after winning the first time. The open, long-distance gameplay of CE allowed the better marksman a fighting chance regardless of whether he shot first or had more health. The closer the battle, the better chance the lesser player has, especially when they fire first. To add to the problem, Reach plays more close quarters than any other Halo game to date. The shotgun has very, very little range, the rifles are entirely inaccurate unless fired very slowly, and the assault rifle and pistol have one hell of a time trying finish someone off in a single clip. The problem is that only a couple of weapons can actually kill someone who's more than 20 feet away before whatever armor ability they're using allows them to escape or close the gap. If they do close the gap and get within 10 feet, at that point the rifles are too weak to be of any real use. It's ludicrous how often the best strategy is to get in close and punch twice...or just spam hand bombs.

Luckily, I think a lot of this can be fixed. Unless they plan on opening the levels up and flattening them out, I say get rid of fall damage and add some sort of recovery rate to the health bars. They don't have to be as immediate as the shield, but a surviving player shouldn't have to leave a strategic position to have to find a damn health pack. I understand the motivation to limit camping, but the health bars really hurt the wrong people in objective-based gametypes. No one should have to make a detour to a health pack before getting into the hill or trying to gank some last-second enemy flags in Stockpile. Also, if they want to please the Halo 1 crowd (or, well, anybody who's played any console FPS ever), put the range back in the game. The recoil concept either needs to be thrown out or severely lessened, and the rifles need a slight boost in power. It's hilarious that they tried to make the rifles more like the pistol by making them single shot, but then made them harder to use and less accurate than the BR. Obviously, they missed the point. Anyway, if the DMR and needle rifle are made as accurate as the CE pistol, Reach should have CE's range game, and that's all it needs from CE (other than wacky Warthog physics).

Next, boost the power of every other gun (not including explosives or melees weapons) so that Halo 2's dynamic close quarters combat is back. It's ridiculous that punching someone twice is easier, faster, and more effective than the shotgun or even a fully-loaded assault rifle. Punching needs to be nerfed back to where it was in Halo: CE. It really needs to just be a last resort so you don't get that ridiculous trend from early Halo 3 days where people would just run straight at each other trying to get the winning punch. If I remember correctly, punching was originally made more powerful in a Halo 2 patch as to give single-wielding players a chance against dual-wielders. It made a lot sense for that game. But, since dual-wielding became less of a focus for Halo 3 and was completely nixed for Reach, why is the punch still so powerful? All it does is promote brainless bee-lining between players, and makes the sword and hammer all the more effective since someone wielding a gun has lost their best strategy. It's okay to make the assault rifle actually good, it just needs to lose to the pistol and rifles outside of 10 feet. Hell, make it effective from range if tap-fired correctly. There's no reason for it be nothing but a last (spray 'n') prayer or just a set up for a punch. If you make the guns better, the power weapons become less dominate (but still powerful) and the game will become less frustrating.

If all these changes are made, the game will still be dynamic and have the variety that made Halo 2 and 3 so great while also reviving the simple point-and-shoot nature of the first game. It doesn't matter which of the first three Halo games is the best because that debate will never settled, and it really doesn't matter. Bungie is never going to make a sequel that feels more like Combat Evolved than the sequels because it's a step backward in most areas. What is indisputable, though, is that CE was the most easily accessible Halo, and that's what they need to bring back. All that the recoil, the fall damage, the health bars, and the weakness of the guns do is make the game less accessible.

--Chilly P

Halo : Reach - Initial Thoughts

(I am hoping that Chill P doesn't post about 4 hours later disputing everything I am going to try to say (like this), but we shall see.)

The game feels much better than I figured it would, which is encouraging, but there are still some complaints that I have.

On the positive side:
-The game's general feel reminds me more of the earlier Halo games, and less of Halo 3.
-The new armor loadouts are intriguing, and add a nice wrinkle to the game.
-There is voting in matchmaking now, so you have a variety of options each time you want to play.
-Team SWAT is delicious.
-The controls have been changed on the controller to a more user friendly style that makes shooting and meleeing easy. (In the past, if you wanted to be quick on the sticks, boxer or green thumb were your only options. Now, Bungie finally got their shit together and moved the melee to the right bumper.)
-While moving around the map, the game has built-in names for all locations... so no more of "Steve's rock" or "Bill's hill" to describe stuff. Now, it will say something descriptive that everyone can learn and therefore instill uniformity.
-Health packs are great and allow for action after your shield goes down. You know exactly how much life you have, and finding health packs isn't that easy where you would be able to complain.

Ok, so how about the negatives?

My thoughts on the Halo series of games all boils down to the success that Halo 1 had, and the foundation it laid for the rest of the series. Halo 1 was built around slow, methodical, precise shooting from medium to long range, but also allowed for up close combat that was sporadic and exciting. The pistol dominated the game (like it or not, that is still what made the game as great as it was), but shotguns, plasma weapons, or even assault rifles had their purposes. With all of this, long range fighting still took place by ample amounts of sniper rifles (on most levels) as well as pistols being used. (Oh and also, I would be rude to not include the king of multiplayer Halo 1, which was the rocket.) Anyway, these were the crucial vertebrae in the backbone of the greatest multiplayer FPS that consoles had ever seen.

Halo: Reach seems to follow in the footsteps of Halo 2 and 3 in that it still lacks the killing power from medium range. The DMR and pistol are great, but they still need too many shots to kill, which is frustrating. Put simply, people aren't dying very quickly unless you have extremely powerful close range or long range guns. All too often, I get into DMR battles with people where I am pelting their face and the shield keeps lighting up as the person just runs right at me with their favorite "spray and pray" gun and kills me. This isn't the way Halo should be played. The skill and precision have been toned way down, and the "hold the trigger down" factor has been upped dramatically. I would hope that the DMR/pistol will be increased for the actual game, but we shall see.

Oh, and God forbid you get into the "covy team slayer" gametype, because the covenant rifle with a scope is firing licorice candy apparently. You have to shoot until your fingers are tired to actually kill something.

This will work for now, but I will need more time with the game to really get a feel for it.

Something to remember is that this is only a Beta, and the game will probably be much different than this come the fall. But as of now, I would love to see gun strengths increased so that the constant holding down of triggers and hoping for a kill comes to an end.



SC

Slappers Only FTW

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1933149

Rearranging Modern Warfare 2's Perks

I'd say that perks are good. I like them. They add spice to game and give you a nice bit of extra customization. The problem I--and many others--have with Modern Warfare 2 is that the perks are no longer the garnish complimenting a wonderful meal, but more like a heavy steak sauce that dominates all other flavors. MW2 had some of the best primary weapon balance I've ever seen, but unlike the game's predecessors, it wasn't so much about finding the right gun as finding the right perks. You could argue that the perks are too powerful--and I wouldn't say you were wrong--but I submit that the core problem is that the perks are stacked in such a way that certain combinations yield exponentially increased benefits. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty:World at War had a categorizing philosophy to how the perks were organized so as not to provide too many benefits to a single aspect of the game. These categories were essentially "extra supplies" (blue), "combat augmentations" (red), and what I call "spice of life" (green). The red and green perks didn't fall exactly is this line of thinking perfectly(Last Stand and UAV Jammer come to mind), but they did a good job of making sure that perks were not overpowering.

Then they threw all of that out the window with Modern Warfare 2. In fact, I would certainly say that they made sure there were certain combinations that when used together, augmented the effectiveness of each perk. The most glaring example is Lightweight, which is exponentially better when combined with Marathon and either Commando or Ninja. So, in order to re-balance the game so that people will actually use bullets to kill one another, I suggest the following grouping of perks:

Improved Mobility
Marathon
Lightweight
Commando
Ninja
Cold-Blooded
Scrambler

Improved Longevity
Stopping Power
Danger Close
Scavenger
One-Man Army
Last Stand

Spice of Life
Hardline
Bling
Sleight of Hand
Steady Aim
SitRep

There are two important changes with this organization; the first is that each player gets exactly one perk that helps them move around the map either more quickly or unnoticed. A player with good awareness should always be given some sort of clue as to other players' location. No longer can players dart around the map at blazing speeds or move around without a hint of their existence. All of the perks in the first group are designed to help you be in a place where the enemy doesn't think you are, and now you can only choose one. The second is that players only get one perk that significantly increases their chance of survival, whether that be by getting stopping power, extra ammunition, or a second chance. Last Stand Pro essentially awards you extra health, and that needs to be balanced against extra damage. Also, by moving Scavenger and One-Man Army to the same group as Danger Close, no one gets an infinite arsenal of high-impact explosives.

The "Spice of Life" category is mostly perks that people use less frequently and shouldn't stack particularly well with others. While SitRep is still as useless as ever, Sleight of Hand, Steady Aim, and Bling all still function as nice little additions that don't overpower. However, there may still be cause for concern.

There's a reason that Hardline and Cold-Blooded were matched against Stopping Power, and I worry that they may become over-powered when used with it. This is especially true for Hardline, which may become a clear favorite over the rest of the spices of life.

In any case, using these groupings should cut down on the wackiness of playing Modern Warfare 2 online. This arrangement emphasizes actually using your guns, and makes finding the right weapon for you the most important aspect of building a class. Now, as a disclaimer, I have no way of play-testing this, so it is entirely possible that there are exploitable combinations I haven't thought of. I also came up with schema solely in the context of standard play, so it may have negative effects on Hardcore modes. It's also possible that with the decreased emphases on perks and mobility, that the game will become even more camper-friendly and even more dominated by Killstreaks, especially if Hardline and Stopping Power can be used in tandem. However, I can only tackle one problem at a time.

--Chilly P