Black Ops and new Bioshock Information

That picture is of the Call of Duty: Black Ops Prestige Edition. You get a working remote control car with a camera on it that feeds video and sound to the driver. Being the type of sucker who owns a pair of Modern Warfare 2 night vision goggles, I may soon be the proud owner of such a toy. There's a new multiplayer gameplay trailer as well, which I've embedded below. The RC car will be a pretty fun killstreak, but it looks to only require 3 consecutive kills, so I guess campers be damned. There's also a nifty spy camera shown in the video. What makes me nervous though is the ballistic knife. It looks like it shoots knives at people and gives the user a pretty sizable lunging range. The best news, however, is that Call of Duty is finally starting to catch up to Halo 3 in terms of multiplayer features. Ladies and gentlemen, we will have the ability to record previous matches. Hooray for the end of clan disputes (now if they could just fix the mess that CoD:Mod2 left Search & Destroy in). As for the potential balance issue with the knife and whether or not we'll still have to deal with grenade launchers, we'll just have to wait for the supposed full multiplayer reveal in September.


Oh, and if you were waiting for a true sequel (prequel?) to Bioshock that's being done by the original studio and helmed by Ken Levine, the original visionary, then you're in luck. It's just been announced. Sequels done by separate studios tend to be devoid of risk and they always feel a lot like fan fiction. But when you get the masterminds themselves to make a follow-up, well, I won't spoil anything. Enjoy the shit out of the trailer:



--Chilly P

p.s. Gimmedat crossbow NOW!

Thoughts for Tuesday 080310

I know I haven't been posting much recently, but all I've been playing recently is Hydro Thunder Hurricane and Halo Wars. The former isn't particularly deep and I've said about all I need about the latter. Anyway, the Madden NFL '11 demo came out, and I have to say that I do like the new feel of the game. However, apparently online franchise was the least used feature in last year's edition, so word on the street is that they haven't updated it much. Since online franchise was literally the only thing I cared about last year, it may not be worth it for me to pick it up this season.


On a random side note, remember this commercial? I liked it.

For those of you who love Instant Queue-ing on your 'box, I've got three new shows to recommend. Two of them ran only one season and the other never made it through the second season, so it should be pretty easy to get through each of these shows' entire runs. They are, in order of recommendation, Better Off Ted, Stella, and The Unusuals. The first is an ABC critical darling that just never found an audience, the second is an extremely quirky comedy from Comedy Central starring that dude who loves the 80s and some other The State vets, and the last was one of the many shows to fail at following LOST's time slot during its 6 year run. Speaking of the The State, I believe that's on Instant Queue these days as well. I've never seen it, but it's apparently where all the Stella and Reno 911 guys got their starts, so that's probably next on my docket.

If you have Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on the PC and want to try making your own levels, the tools to do so are available for free on the internets. They're actually quite easy to get into (especially compared to Unreal Tournament 2004, in my opinion), and there are a good number of helpful videos on YouTube. CoD4 runs about $30 wherever you look these days, which isn't exactly cheap for a 3 year old game with two sequels on the market.

Lastly, no I don't have Starcraft II yet and yes, I wish I did. I played the beta, and that made it painfully obvious that my laptop was not capable of running such a glorious program.

--Chilly P

Thoughts for Wednesday 070710

Map Pack 4 has been released for Bad Company 2. If you guessed that it didn't included any new maps, you'd be correct. We've now got Atacama Desert available in Rush and Port Valdez in Conquest. Are we finally gonna get chopper battles in Rush? I'd be more snide about this update, but I really wanted Atacama for Rush.

I got Sin & Punishment: Star Successor for Wii. Like all Treasure games, it punishes you. The game is nothing short of incredible, though. The gaming world can essentially divided into two halves: interactive media and video games. Where games like Mass Effect 2 and even Call of Duty can be called interactive media, Sin & Punishment is 100% video game. Remember back in the SNES and N64 days when games didn't have that much of a story or any AI whatsoever and the entire game was scripted and demanded that you memorize the game in order to get the high score? Man, those are video games, and that's what Sin & Punishment is. For those of you who missed my recommendation of the the first game, S&P:SS is an on-rail shooter akin the Star Fox 64 or Panzer Dragoon. Yes, you can do barrel rolls, but no, you aren't instructed to do so in a memorable fashion. I haven't made it through the whole game yet; my plate has been pretty full. Having a real job sucks.

We broke out Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare last week and got our beaks into some clan matches. Good times, dude, good times. I tell you what, that game had awesome graphics in its time (way back in 07), but next to Bad Company 2 it looks like shit. I also kept hitting the back button trying to spot people and getting the score menu. It's also crazy how quickly you kill people in that game.

I played some Guitar Hero II last night. I couldn't believe how hard it was to see hammer-ons compared to Guitar Hero 5. I tell you what, though, that game's setlist was and still is unparalleled. Even the bonus songs were incredible. I can also tell that I've gotten a lot better since the days when I used to play that game non-stop. To think I used to have trouble with Thunderhorse...

--Chilly P

p.s. Blood Gulch is coming back. Let's hope they don't screw it up this time.

Top 10: Most Disappointing Sequels

What's nice about movies is that when a sequel comes out, you can just expect it to suck. It's only once in a blue moon that an Empire Strikes Back comes out and eclipses the original. In the video game world, however, I'd say it's about a 50/50 chance that the sequel will be better than the original. Often times, even if it's not as good, it's still close. Sometimes, though, you let yourself get too excited and just set yourself up for disappointment. The following is the list of the ten sequels I found most disappointing. It's important to note that these are not all bad games, but some of them definitely are.

10. Burnout Paradise
Burnout Revenge was the first racing game not featuring turtle shells I ever played that got me hooked. It had a blinding sense of speed, physics built for fun before realism, and spectacular car wrecks. The only drawbacks were the lacking online mode, limited car models, and 2-player only local multiplayer. All I wanted for the first true next-gen Burnout was a larger variety of cars (instead of just two basic models), giant multiplayer races, and next-gen crashes. I only got one of those things (and *damn* did the crashes look good). Unfortunately, the good people at Criterion decided that we a sandbox racing game. I'm not going to lie, the game is very impressive, and there are a lot of people who like it and play it to this day. Hell, they even managed to have an in-game DJ who actually succeeds in sounding cool. I'll also give Criterion major props offering arguably the best post-release support this generation. The problem, though, is that every race just goes from point A to point B. Point A is a random stoplight and point B is one of eight cardinally-directed finish lines. The races are too short, too hard to organize, and it takes way too much memorization to stay on course. Burnout always succeeded in balls-to-the-wall racing where you always felt a little out-of-control, but the courses did a good job a directing you. When you have to quickly react to turn signals and turn down the right road, it's pretty easy to accidentally find yourself going 90 degrees in the wrong direction. Plus, having to take right turns just interrupts the flow of the race. It certainly has its great moments, but they're too short-lived and too few-and-far between.

9. Gears of War 2
If you were to pick this game up for the first time today, you might wonder why it's on this list. However, those of you who picked this up week 1 know exactly what I'm talking about: glitches and head-scratching balancing issues. Why, for the love of everything holy, would you let everyone spawn with a stun grenade that ragdolls players for 2 agonizing seconds? Why would you let ragdoll physics impact the outcome of each confrontation and why would you stun someone that long? In the heat of battle, 2 seconds is an eternity. Aside from that issue--which they've fixed--there were the unlimited and nearly indestructible grenade plants, the unbalanced weapon cycling, the broken matchmaking, the nonsensical ranking system, and the schizophrenic shotgun with a mind of its own. I'd list more, but at this point it's beating a dead horse. I've harped on this before, but the lesson here is that you should always do a beta test for a highly anticipated game. Epic got caught with their pants down big time.

8. Resident Evil 5
This is another game that wasn't necessarily bad, just not as good as I'd hoped. Resident Evil 4 was the critically-acclaimed and 100% bitchin' revamp that the series desperately needed. The big thing that game accomplished was being smooth. It was an incredibly well-crafted experience from beginning to end, which stood in stark contrast to its clumsy predecessors. RE5 kept RE4's revamped control scheme, but added back a healthy dose of clumsiness. The cooperative play was a nice idea, but it just didn't work particularly well. It just felt so forced, and by consequence, RE5 was stripped of a large number of the nice touches that pushed RE4 into the all-time great category. The weapon, inventory, treasure, and upgrade systems were all greatly reduced and felt naked in comparison. Not only that, but inventory was strictly limited and had to be managed in real-time. There's a reason co-op shooters don't give players inventories. On the story side, the Uroboros were way less cool than las Plagas, and while RE4 had some of the best boss fights in recent memory, RE5's boss fights ranged from dull to uninspired. Had the co-op been an in-game spin-off like Assignment Ada, the game could have been a lot better. Forcing co-op throughout the entire game (and I say "forcing" because trying to play it with an AI partner was excruciating) ended up crippling the experience.

7. Perfect Dark Zero
The current generation of games got off to a really rough start. Where Super Mario 64 and Halo: Combat Evolved let us know that their respective generations were going to take us places we'd never thought possible, Perfect Dark Zero introduced us to the Xbox 360 with a whimper. Never has the premier launch title of a hotly anticipated console sucked so much. Not only that, but it was supposed to announce the return of Rare, who was of the former king of console FPSes. Honestly, I can't really list off a bunch of specific problems because I returned it the day I bought it. It was archaic, unpolished, clunky, and ugly. The graphics weren't even noticeably better than Halo 2's. Had it not been for the surprisingly solid Call of Duty 2, there wouldn't've been any reason to own an Xbox 360 for the first year of its existence. Oh, and seriously, what is with the redesign of Joanna Dark's character model?

6. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Knights of the Old Republic was one of my favorite games of all time and remains my favorite RPG. When Bioware decided to turn the sequel over to Obsidian, I was understandably nervous. Turns out my fears were completely justified. The game just felt like it had no soul. Like the developers just didn't have any passion for the Star Wars universe. The story felt empty, the characters were uninteresting, and your character got too powerful too quickly, so the game was too easy. It was impressive technically, but the experience just felt hollow.

5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
I've never seen a developer get so cocky as to blatantly remove functions that gamers wanted, and then scoffed at their complaints. PC gamers like dedicated servers? Well, screw you, you don't get them because their stupid. Xbox gamers like party chat? F that, we're taking that away, too. May your Modern Warfare sessions echo with the prepubescent screams of nine year-olds. On top of that, there's the whole knifing issue, the terrible maps, the incoherent single-player, and infinite grenade launcher rounds. This game was so close to being the best online shooter ever made, but IW got out of control.

4. Twisted Metal III
Twisted Metal 2 was awesome. Then, 989 Studios took over for the sequel, and it was just terrible in every way. That's about all there is to it.




3. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
I don't I've ever been more excited for a game's release as I was for this game's (maybe Melee). Metroid Prime is my favorite game of all time, but its sequel was a huge let down. First off, let's just forget that I was actually excited for the multiplayer, which ended up being little more than a afterthought. The first Prime was incredibly atmospheric. Echoes was half purple. Half of the game was spent in a parallel, dark version of the planet where everything was an ugly purple. The enemies here looked like they were handcrafted by a 4 year-old, and for some reason it was necessary for the player to take damage in this world when outside of protective light bubbles. Traveling to the dark version of the planet was not something one did with anticipation, but with agitation. Add to that that three of Samus' four beams required ammo, something that had never been a part of Metroid and hasn't since. As a result, instead of getting to wield fire, ice, or electricity at will, the player basically stuck to the boring old power beam and saved the light and dark beams for boss fights. The game wasn't exactly terrible, but it's just so much worse than its predecessor.

2. Grand Theft Auto IV
This is the only game on this list that seems to be universally acclaimed by reviewers (Modern Warfare 2 had good initial reviews, but it quickly fell out of favor), and I'll never understand why. Is it because of the convoluted, meandering story line? The annoying incomprehensible accents? The impossible-to-drive vehicles? The clunky aiming and running controls? The God-awful cover mechanic? The blatant disregard for checkpoints? The constant pestering of in-game characters? The confusing world map? The creepy character models? The boring side missions and mini games? Niko's inability to buckle a seat belt? The absence of tanks? The fact that at no point during the entire 90 mission long campaign was game fun? I'm tellin' ya, I just don't get it. They took away everything that was fun about Vice City and expanded on everything that was annoying about it. Ever wish they went down a more Vice City-esque path? Go play Saints Row 2.

1. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
And here we have the inspiration for this entire list. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was one of the most surprisingly good games of the last generation. Hell, it was great, and even won some Game of the Year awards. It started the whole parkour game thing, and the level design puts Assassin's Creed II to shame. Sure, the game was entirely linear, but it worked well that way. The Sands of Time also had an incredibly moving story about lost love, and the ending was pretty gut-wrenching (but still very good). The Prince was also a very well-crafted character who was very likable (which is very rare for an action game character). He had a softer side, but could kick ass when necessary. The problem is that while The Sands of Time was critically acclaimed, it sell as well as, say, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. So for the sequel, Ubisoft decided that the parkour platforming needed to take a back seat to the combat, and that the prince needed to be more of a badass. So, in the opening sequence to this sequel to an extremely tasteful game, the Prince is on some ship in the middle of a storm, doing battle with some "bitch" in a metal thong. See that America? The Prince swears now! He's so much cooler. So instead of trying to regain his lost love, he's running around killing random people and forcin' out swear words at every turn. I fuckin' love swearing as much as the next guy, but it was just so out of place here. There are games on this list that were worse sequels to better games, but no other game on this list completely bastardized everything the original stood for like Warrior Within.

--Chilly P

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

Abandon Ship

Holy crap, have you seen this? Infinity Ward employees are jumping ship like it's the Titanic. What the hell is going on here? They were setting the world on fire just this past November. Man, I hope this comes back to bite Activision in the ass. I'm trying not to jump on the evil empire band wagons anymore, but it's hard not hate Activision at this point. As you can see from the above image, peoples don't much care for Bobby Kotick. He deserves it, too.

Anyway, there is going to have to be some backlash after all of this. I kind of feel bad for Treyarch because they might get stuck fending for themselves with the Call of Duty franchise, and I doubt they hack it for too long. You know who's lickin' their chops right now? Bungie. The Reach beta comes out soon, and it's right on the heels of an overpriced map pack and a colossal falling-out at their biggest rival. This is also setting EA up pretty nicely. Medal of Honor, which is straight-ripping Call of Duty, comes out this summer, and the two IW execs who are in a epic lawsuit of he-said-she-said with Activision have formed their own studio which is working with EA Partners (which puts them under the same roof as Valve). Hell, even Epic has decided that now is the time to announce Gears of War 3 (which has an April 2011 release date; making room for a beta test, this time?). This is going to be interesting to watch unfold.

--Chilly P

p.s. Just for the record, I've been saying this for a while now.

p.p.s. Some background info on Infinity Ward that sheds some more light on the situation.

Thoughts for Monday 041210 (Mostly about Bad Co 2)

PSA: April 15th is the last day that you can play any original Xbox 1 titles on LIVE. Bust out your copy of Halo 2 for the last time.

I'm almost 17 hours into Final Fantasy XIII and the game is still going nowhere. This is when most games are wrapping up, yet FFXIII has decided that it's still time for plot development. Seriously, there hasn't even been any real rising action yet.

Trying to play through Perfect Dark on Special Agent has given me a whole new appreciation for check points in FPS campaigns. I've been stuck on the same level for a long time (Infiltrating Area 51).

And now the rest is about Bad Company 2...
In no particular order, here are my 10 favorite kits for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (one kit per gun; vehicle perks and side arms not included ):

• Medic: M60, Defibrillator, Red Dot Sight, Magnum Ammunition
• Medic: USAS-12 Auto, Defibrillator, 12 Gauge Slugs, Magnum Ammunition
  
• Assault: AN-94 Abakan, 40mm Grenade, Red Dot Sight, Assault Marksman
• Assault: M16A2, 40mm Grenade, Red Dot Sight, Magnum Ammunition
• Assault: WWII M1A1 Garand, C4 Explosives, Light Combat Equipment, Magnum Ammunition
  
• Recon: M24 Sniper, Mortar Strike, 12x High Power Scope, Improved Demolitions
• Recon: VSS Snaiperskaya Special, C4 Explosives, Red Dot Sight, Magnum Ammunition
• Recon: Type 88 Sniper, C4 Explosives, 4x Rifle Scope, Magnum Ammunition
• Engineer: PP-2000 Avtomat, M136 AT4, Ammo Hip Bandolier, Magnum Ammunition
• Engineer: AKS-74U Krinkov, Anti-Tank Mines, Explosives Leg Pouch, Improved Demolitions
  

And, hey, you know what's nice about BC2? I can carry all of those kits and more into battle! I can't stress enough how awesome it is that I don't have to pre-build kits before battle. I hate being stuck in a situation where I could really use a certain class and I just can't. For example, if we're getting bogged down by tanks and I really need to go tank bustin', I can throw together an engineer class that is completely geared toward shooting a lot of rockets at tanks. You may notice that I put Magnum Ammo on nearly everything. Well, it's easier for me to tell the benefit of magnum ammo than the benefit of ceramic armor in that game. Maybe if it was like Call of Duty and told me when I was shooting at someone using body armor (a.k.a. Juggernaut/Pain Pill) I'd be more aware of it. As it stands, most of the specializations in Bad Company 2 only offer marginal benefits, so it doesn't make that much of a difference.

I think I may be the only person who likes the USAS better than the Saiga. I know the Saiga has better stats (that's indisputable), but something about the USAS just feels better.

I've now gone gold with every gun except the G3, M9, M93R Burst, and the MP-412 Rex. Having spent quality time with every gun, I can pretty positively say that the AEK-971, the Uzi, the F2000, the MG3, the Thompson, and the SV98 are my least favorite guns.

I have a total of 4 tracer dart plants. I fail to see how tagging a helicopter is sufficiently easier than hitting it with a rocket.

The "Stimulus Package" ended up being the fastest-selling map pack in XBL history. So much for $15 being too expensive. To everyone who bought it: thank you very much for raising prices.

On that note, DICE has said that they'd like to make all of their map packs free, but it's not really up to them. It's up to EA. Giving away free map packs would be a good way of steering more gamers away from the Call of Duty franchise. I honestly can't imagine anyone liking Modern Warfare 2 better than Bad Company 2 after having played both. Having said that, I really don't want BC2 to be more popular than Mod2. You know how Macs always brag about how they don't get viruses? Well, why do you think that is? Is it because OSX is a more secure operating system, or because Apple hardware is more robust? No, it's because the Mac user-base is exponentially smaller than the PC user-base. It's not even close. Plus, almost all businesses use Windows. So, if you're going to write viruses or spyware, why go after such a small portion of the population? Writing viruses for Macs is a waste of time. By that same reasoning, Modern Warfare 2 is plagued by asshats and glitchers because it's the most popular shooter on the market. Sure, Infinity Ward should have done a beta and that would've caught stupid things like the Model 1887s, but even if they had, there would still be near-constant attacks on their code base. The point of this aside is that I'm worried that if BC2 becomes more popular than Mod2, that all the hackers and idiots will bring all their nonsense to that community and I'll have to go elsewhere once again. I know it's completely selfish and I wish nothing but the best for the guys over at DICE, but if some ridiculous thing like the javelin glitch happens to BC2, it will be a sad day for all of us.

Speaking of free map packs, why not just port some maps from the first Bad Company straight over? The only adjustments you'd have to make--that I can think of--are changing all of the Artillary guns to UAVs, adding UAV spots to each new offense spawn, updating the vehicle spawns, and making certain buildings collapsible. Valley Run was a fantastic map (here's a quick refresher for those who played the first game) and I'd love to see that one come back. I would also love to see Over and Out because defending that last point in the bottom of a bunker was a blast. I loved Harvest Day's farm setting, but I think it'd be too open for BC2. Snipers would just wreak havoc on that map. Oasis was good, but there's no need to bring that back because it's just an inferior version of Arica Harbor. I really liked the enormous cranes that you could snipe from on Deconstruction, but they'd have to alter that map to make the second leg easier for the offense. Getting across that bridge was an exercise in futility. End of the Line involved way too much running/swimming and was so open that you actually saw people too infrequently. Final Ignition had that giant building at the beginning that was way too easy to defend and got frustrating. The last map was Ascension, which was a nightmare for the offense. It was like Nelson Bay, but the offense had to run uphill the whole way, and the entire map was congested with buildings. It might not have been any fun, but it did have a castle at the end which was a cool-ass set piece. That's something that the new game lacks. Leguna Presa really missed an opportunity when it used the dam as just the background. How cool would it be to snipe from/at the top of the dam? I also wish they'd bring back the golf course setting. The campaign of the first game had a level where you infiltrate some rich Russian guy's house, and you have to fight your way through a golf course to get there. When they eventually released the Conquest gametype, they had a golf course level. It was awesome.

I've heard some people grumbling that M14 and G3 don't have available RDSs and 4x scopes. They discussed this on the Battlefield Blog and his reasons make sense, especially with the M14. If you want a powerful semi-auto rifle, use the T88 S.

I wish they'd make it so that if your teammate puts C4 on your UAV and blows it, your UAV should explode. It's pretty cheap that three guys can systematically destroy every MCOM station without ever leaving their spawn. Sure, a good player should always spot a UAV when he sees it, and the team should be able to shoot it before it flies away, but there are newbies who have no idea what's going on, and it's not really fair to them.

Top 10: Best Achievements

Yeah, a lot of people hate them or think they're a waste of time. Hell, I hate 'em; I just can't stop going after them. I've spent far too much of my life 'cheevo chasin'. But, even though the majority of Achievements are mundane, sadistic, or just stupid, there are some truly great ones out there. Some are even iconic. So, what makes an Achievement great? It could carry a large amount of prestige, be hilarious, or even inspire copycats. Without further ado, here are my top ten 'cheevos of all time, and no, I haven't gotten them all.

10. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 -> 'Et Tu, Brute?'
The first 'cheevo on the list makes it there because it's perfectly suited for hilarity. This Achievement rewards you for getting five of your friends' dog tags. Not only is it awesome that you can get an Achievement for embarrassing your friends, but DICE had the wisdom to do this one right. 5 is not a large number, but it also requires a little time. This way, you probably can't get the Achievement in one sitting, but you shouldn't feel the need to grind for it ("Okay, come let me knife you and then you knife me"). Plus, you don't have to knife 5 unique friends, so don't expect random friend invites from strangers looking for this Achievement. Also, since you sometimes end up on the other side as your friend if you join him midgame, there should be ample opportunities to get this one.

9. Portal: Still Alive -> 'Out of the Blue'
This one makes the list because it's one of those Achievements that adds a fun challenge without decreasing the fun of the game. That being said, this is no cake walk (sorry...and wtf is a cake walk, anway?). The goal is--once you control both portals--to only use the orange portal as your entrance and always come out of the blue one (geddit?). I've tried this one a couple times and I'm still not entirely sure where I've failed. Guides on the ingterwebs suggest that you have to make sure you get through every portal as quickly as possible. But, hey, don't let the challenge dissuade you. Plus, Portal's just such a good game that you shouldn't mind playing it a few times.

8. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved -> 'Pacifism'
This Achievement tasked you with surviving the first 60 seconds of a game without so much as firing a single shot. People loved this Achievement so much that the sequel had an entire gametype built around the idea. No, it wasn't all that difficult to get (it should only take a few tries), but it was definitely a lot of fun to get. Plus, since Geometry Wars was one of the first games on the 360, you could really say that this 'cheevo paved the way for Achievements revolving around trying to play the game a certain way or by handicapping yourself.

7. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock -> 'The Inhuman Achievement'
No, I don't have this Achievement. I've never even beaten the intro. This Achievement is on here simply because it's probably the most prestigious Achievement in existence. It's not like 'Seriously 2.0' where any monkey can get it with enough patience. This takes an ungodly amount of skill and a shit load of practice. If you have this Achievement, you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you really are one of the best Guitar Hero players in existence, and that you will probably have carpal tunnel in the near future. Oh, and let's just get this out of the way: yes, 'Kick the Bucket Award' (GHII) came first, but "Through the Fire and Flames" is both a better to listen to and tougher to beat than "Jordan."

6. Battlefield: Bad Company -> 'Darwin's Parachute'
When you read the description for this Achievement, it says, "(Online) Glide in the parachute for 3 seconds." Seems simple enough. So, you get yourself a helicopter and fly as high as you can and then jump out. A moment afterward, you realize you're plummeting towards the Earth and that you have no idea how to open the parachute. You start randomly hitting buttons, but your efforts are fruitless, and you smack into the ground at terminal velocity and get to wait for your next respawn. "Crap, how do you open the parachute?" you think. Then, before you can even finish that thought, you unlock the Achievement. You quickly hit the guide button to make sure you're not crazy. Yep, there it is, but now its description reads, "There is no parachute, right?" Yes, that's right, you just got tricked into killing yourself, and now the title of the Achievement makes sense. This is hands-down the funniest Achievement I've ever seen.

5. The Orange Box -> 'Little Rocket Man'
I did not have the patience for this one (and I, uh, never found the gnome), but one of these days I'm going to go back and get it. This was a very popular Achievement, and it even inspired a follow-up for Left 4 Dead 2. This Achievement takes dedication unlike any other, and shows just how much you want to help a garden gnome reach his dream of making it into space. For those of you who don't know, this Achievement tasks you with carrying a garden gnome from the beginning of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 all the way to end. So, after every firefight you have to go back and pick him up. The most frustrating part is trying find a good place to wedge him in the car you have to drive for a large portion of the middle.

4. Dead Rising -> 'Zombie Genocider'
You earn this Achievement for killing 53, 594 (the population of the local town) zombies in a single playthrough. No, this Achievement was not particularly fun to get. In fact, I outsourced about half the work to a friend. This one makes the list for a few reasons, though: you unlock the bitchin' Mega Blaster weapon for earning it, it was one of the first well-known and much-coveted Achievements, and it inspired several copycats. The first copycat was Left 4 Dead's Zombie 'Genocidest', which was awarded for killing 53, 595 infected over all games. The second was [Prototype]'s 'Trail of Corpses' Achievement for killing 53, 596 infected. In other words, this one makes the list not because it particularly great, but because of its legacy. Speaking of legacies...

3. Gears of War -> 'Seriously...'
Getting 10, 000 kills in Gears of War's multiplayer was no small feat. You were lucky to get 30 kills in a 45 minute game. If you had this Achievement, it meant two things: you played a lot, and you were probably pretty good. Sure, any 12 year-old could get it, but they usually didn't. This is still the most prestigious online Achievement, and almost anyone who has it proudly wears the emblem as their gamer picture. Like Zombie Genocider, it also yielded copycats (The Club's 'No, Seriously' for 10, 001 online kills), including the follow-up 'Seriously 2.0' in Gears of War 2. 'Seriously 2.0', however, was hugely disappointing, as it required 100,000 kills across all gametypes. Anyone who has it probably spent an inordinate and ridicule-worthy amount of time replaying the brumak rodeo over and over again.

2. Halo 3 -> 'Vidmaster Challenge: Annual'
We're getting down to the end, and here we have my vote for the funnest Achievement of all time. This Achievement required you and three of your 'cheevo chasin' friends to beat the final level of Halo 3 on the hardest difficulty with the Iron skull turned on, but with a little twist. Instead of allowing you to use a couple of warthogs and allowing you to strand stragglers, everyone had to be in their own ghost and everyone had to get to the end. It required team work, persistence, and a little luck, but it sure yielded a handful of laughs. This Achievement is the shining example of how to add challenge and fun simultaneously. Oh, and this 'cheevo grants you exactly zilch in Gamerscore, so fun's the only thing you're gonna get out of it...that, and you'll be one step closer to Recon.

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare -> 'Mile High Club'
This really shouldn't be a surprise. If I were a betting man--and I am--I'd wager that more time was spent globally trying to unlock this Achievement than any other. It's very prestigious, but only requires a minute of your time to unlock...if you get it the first time...and you won't. What made this Achievement so cool was that it was so hard to get, but it was always just out of your reach. Every time you start up the Epilogue, you think to yourself, "Okay, this is it. This is the time I actually beat this thing." Sure, it required luck to unlock (AI is inconsistent, so the pure memorization of the NES days isn't an option), but once you unlocked it, it was like taking a monkey off your back. And I'm not talking about a cute monkey like Spike in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, I'm talking about the kind of mokey that throws feces at you and your friends. If you've unlocked this Achievement, you're in the club.

--Chilly P

DICE Makes Another Parody Video

If Digital Illusions CE doesn't want me to love them, they're doing a terrible job. They just released parody video of Infinity Ward's F.A.G.S. (I didn't come up with the acronym) video, and it's definitely funnier than the original for several reasons: A) It's closer to the truth B) It has Sweetwater in it, and C) It even pokes fun of the celebrity in the video. Anyway, here're the original F.A.G.S. video and DICE's F.R.A.G.S. parody:





You know, when I first saw that F.A.G.S. video, I thought to myself, "Oh, good. They're getting rid of cheap kills." Obviously, I was mistaken. Anyway, DICE also had a pretty good parody for the first Bad Company of what is probably the best video game commercial of all time. I'm feeling generous, so I'll go ahead and embed those as well:





That one's not as good as the F.R.A.G.S. video, but it's still pretty funny. It was more an excuse to put that "Mad World" trailer on there...still gives me goose bumps. Anyway, since I'm one of the few people who's really looking forward to a Mirror's Edge sequel, I guess that makes me a pretty big DICE fan these days. I just hope they eventually get their shit together in whole single-player level design department. Both BFBC2 and Mirror's Edge had the tools to be great single-player games, but they fell way short in the level design. I'll stop rambling now. I'm going to be in Orlando this weekend to go see my 'Stros play, so I won't be updating much. Sweet Cylde may have something for you, though.

--Chilly P

$15 for 5 Maps? No Thanks.

What happened to the days when map packs would cost $10 and then become free after ~5 months? Halo 2 did it. Gears of War 1 did it. Halo 3 used to do it. What happened? Now Activision has the gall to charge 1/4 the original price of Modern Warfare 2 for three new maps and two remakes (one of which is more Overgrown, which was terrible). They charged $10 for three new maps and one remake (Chinatown was a remake of a Carentan) for Call of Duty 4, so I guess they feel an extra remake is worth $5. I was reading some of the reactions to the news on Joystiq, and they seem overwhelming negative. I just feel like this game is spiraling downward toward a disaster. Remember when Titanic had a 10-month run in theaters, became the highest-grossing movie of all-time by a landslide, and won a record-tying 11 Oscars? How many people do you know that still like that movie? It's starting to look like Modern Warfare 2 might get that same sort of backlash, and if that happens, the entire Call of Duty IP may follow. Honestly, it wouldn't really bother me, but it'd certainly be interesting to see.

Now that I've bashed Activision and suggested (you could say, 'hoped that') they may be in for a whirlwind of backlash, let's take their side for argument's sake. First of all, before you bring up Bad Company 2's free release that same day, know that they're not releasing two entirely new maps. A friend and I actually got into a game of Rush on Laguna Presa once (and we aren't the only ones), so clearly I already have that capability and it just hasn't been unlocked. That's not so much an argument for the $15 price tag as it is a knock on the argument for the other side (Also, I don't want to bash EA on that either because I completely understand the strategy, and I don't really mind all that much. They're going after Goliath.).
Anyway, let's compare this to Rock Band's DLC. They come out with new songs every week and charge $2 for each. Infinity Ward is offering 5 maps at $3 each. Wouldn't you say that a new map adds more replay to Modern Warfare 2 than a new song does to Rock Band? Wouldn't you also agree that a lot more work goes into creating a new map than goes into making a new song? I know a large portion of that price point is because of licensing, but wouldn't you still argue you get more bang for your buck paying $3 for a map than $2 for a song? I never hear people bitching about Rock Band's DLC pricing, yet companies charge for map packs and the world explodes.

All that being said, I'm not buying the "Stimulus Package;" however, I'm not going to ask you to boycott Infinity Ward because I think that kind of shit is fucking ludicrous. Let the market determine pricing, and if some yahoo wants to pay $15 for a map pack, then by golly, he should be able to do it without being harassed. Honestly, I don't think this thing is going to sell as well as Activision wants it to so I'm betting this won't happen again, but who knows? XBLA prices have skyrocketed ever since the success of Braid; $15 is the new $10. This may even become a common trend. I don't think it will, but we'll see. If 68% of the people who bought the Call of Duty 4 map pack buy this one, Activision will have made more money, and that's really all that matters to them (and for good reason, they're a business).

If you want to buy the maps, then go ahead. If you don't, then don't. I just know that I'm not, but a lot of that has to do with Modern Warfare 2's community becoming a cesspool of cheesers. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a bracket to fill out.

--Chilly P

p.s. What's with the [noun] [preposition] [noun] naming convention of WWII games? Think about it. Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Band of Brothers (HBO mini-series, but it still fits), Brothers in Arms, Day of Defeat, World at War, Hour of Victory, Company of Heroes, Hearts of Iron... I know not every WWII game follows that convention, but a whole lot of 'em do.

Who's the Current FPS King?

So Joystiq just posted some early impressions on the next Medal of Honor game, and I came away with basically thinking that EA has scrapped everything from the shit storm that was Medal of Honor: Airborne and is just straight ripping Call of Duty 4. Hell, the article even says its campaign seems like a truer sequel to CoD4 than CoD:Mod2 was. It also says that DICE is developing the multiplayer (EA Los Angeles is doing the campaign), and given how much I'm loving Bad Company 2, I might actually have to keep an eye on this one. But then I got to thinking...

The new Halo: Reach trailer mentions having loadouts, and even Bioshock 2's multiplayer aped CoD4. So here's the question: is Call of Duty the new king of the shooters? I guess the answer would have to be, "yes." I mean, Modern Warfare 2 was the fastest selling-game of all time, beating a mark once held by Halo 3 and then broken by GTA IV. Now, it's not exactly a fair fight because both GTA IV and Modern Warfare 2 are multi-platform games, but still. It says something that all these new FPSs are trying to mimic the Call of Duty formula when for so long everyone was chasing Halo. Have we already seen that fabled Halo-killer?

Just think about that. I remember a few years ago thinking that the idea that a Halo-killer could possibly come out before Bungie was done with the series was just preposterous. Killzone and Killzone 2 were both hyped as Halo-killers and I think we all know how that turned out. I can't believe that I'm about to type this, but Halo: Reach is playing catch-up to Call of Duty. Halo is no longer the leading innovator in the genre. How did this happen?

Well, way back in 2007, Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare were released. I still consider the former to be the premier shooter on the console, but I'd say I'm in the minority. I think where they lost their audience--not to imply that Halo 3 is struggling to find an audience, they're just not way out in first place anymore--is that they spent too much time innovating in the wrong areas. More on that in a bit, but first a little background: Halo 3 was the first game to eclipse Halo 2 in online activity, and this was after the first Gears of War and three Call of Duty games had come and gone. While Call of Duty 4 was a much-hyped contender (Game Informer named it, not Halo 3, as its most anticipated game of 2007), there was little reason to believe that it could actually top Master Chief.

So where did Halo 3 misstep? While I know Sweet Clyde has some considerable distaste for the game, I would probably say it's my favorite game of the series. It's a lot like Halo 2 but with more dressings. That's the problem, though. While Forge and the ability to save replays are awesome, they're not features that will draw in more people than a fresh experience. The problem was that Halo 3 felt like Halo 2 in HD with more features but the same gameplay. While I loved that, I'm not playing it anymore. I feel like I've been playing it since 2004. Sure, Grifball was enough to bring me back for a while, but they won't offer it to me on a consistent basis, and the gametype doesn't yet have the staying power I'm looking for. The fact of the matter is: Halo 3 didn't innovate gameplay and Call of Duty 4 did.

So, back to the question I proposed in the title: who's the current FPS king? Honestly, I don't know. Is it Call of Duty 4 still or Modern Warfare 2? With Activision pumping out a "new" CoD game every November, how long before that series becomes stale? Maybe Halo: Reach will take back the crown in a year when the CoD torch has been passed to Treyarch. Hell, maybe even Bad Company 2 or Medal of Honor can come in and take the reigns. There certainly seems to be room because if nothing else, Modern Warfare 2 was cocky as hell. It's actually very easy to draw a parallel between Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3. They were both sequels to what was the most popular FPS on the market, and neither felt particularly fresh.

If there's a recipe for success when creating a sequel to the most popular game on the market, I think it's following the footsteps of Halo 2. Sure, there are still people who are waiting for a "real" sequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, but if Halo 2 had just been more of the same, the proverbial Halo-killer may have arrived years earlier. You can't just follow the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" philosophy because otherwise people will get bored. I know Sweet Clyde saw jet packs in the Reach trailer and groaned, but that tells me that they're trying to create a fresh experience (Yes, I know Tribes had jet packs, shut up. No one else is allowed to do jet packs because Tribes did it? Did you consider Halo: CE a Doom-clone, you narrow-minded prick?).

I know I've rambled on about this for a while now, but if you take one thing away from it it's this: the state of the current FPS market is in flux and we may never again have one series that is the golden standard for the genre.

--Chilly P

How to Fix Modern Warfare 2

I said I would get to this last week, but since Bad Company 2 came out the matter has seemed less urgent. Nonetheless, Modern Warfare 2 is an incredibly solid game with a mountain of aggravating problems. Fortunately, there are a few relatively simple ways to fix this game's online experience without having to change the core makeup of the game. So, here are some ways to make the game more competitively balanced but without sacrificing too much content.

1. First, and this is the easiest one, bring back Team Tactical in first person. That one's really easy, and it's just inexcusable that it hasn't been in there from day one.

2. Get rid of roll-over kill streaks in Search & Destroy. No one should ever get an f-ing harrier--much less a chopper gunner--in Search & Destroy. That gametype is completely ruined by overpowered killstreaks. While you're at it, make sure nothing above a precision air strike is allowed in a care package in S&D. Sure, no one will use them, but that's the point.

3. I completely understand why you don't want to allow party chat for Search & Destroy because it's basically cheating, by why the hell can't I have party chat for other gametypes? Now you're just purposely pissing off your user base.


4. Make some sort of MLG-esque playlists. You don't have to go strictly MLG because they'd want you to completely remove killstreaks and I think that would make your game lose a lot of its appeal. However, you need to offer Domination, S&D, and Headquarters playlists that do not allow the following features:
* Machine pistols
* Shotguns (Unless you want to make them primary weapons)
* Tactical Nuke, Harriers, Chopper Gunner, and Care Packages
* All hip-fire aiming reticules (this will nerf grenade launchers considerably)
* One Man Army, Last Stand, Commando, Scavenger, and Lightweight
* Deathstreaks
* Thermal scopes
Honestly, I would prefer the entire game was like this, but I understand that you'd want to keep a lot of the wackiness of your game. Just offer people some sort of respite from these cheesers running around knifing people. If you're worried about people having trouble with illegal classes, just set defaults for illegal classes: USP, Marathon, Stopping Power, and Steady Aim. I'm sure you can come up with an algorithm that realigns illegal killstreaks, and worst-case they're stuck with just UAV and Predator Missile.

At this point, you can completely ignore me if you want. I'm not sure I care anymore. I'll just keep playing Bad Company. It's just such a shame because the primary weapons are so remarkably well balanced in this game, and it's all ruined because of all the crazy shit you allow to happen. This game could have so easily been better than Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

--Chilly P

Top 10: What the Hell Were They Thinking?

I like lists, so I'll be doing top 10 lists every so often. This edition is about some of the all-time fuck-ups in game design for this current generation (Otherwise the QB Vision Cone would be on here...possibly twice). Note that something like "The Javelin Glitch" won't be on this list, because there wasn't some fart-knocker over at IW who thought it'd be fun to sneak that into the code. It wasn't a design decision. So, here we go: a list of some shit that broke the game, some shit that was unfair, some infuriatin' shit, and shit that's just dumbfounding.

10. Brutal Legend-> Roadies
I know a lot people probably didn't play this game (let alone played it online), but let me run down the basics. It's an RTS (Schafer is lying to you) where the only way you can win is by destroying the enemy's stage, which is their only non-defense-tower building. Only one unit in the game (which belongs to one of three factions) is anti-building: the Roadie. The roadie is also the only unit that is invisible unless you are close to it. It's an invisible unit, which destroys your base quickly. Yeah, sounds balanced, right?

9. Mass Effect-> The Mako
Holy shit, I hated the Mako and I'm so glad they completely axed it for the far superior sequel. Trying to drive that jalopy over mountainous terrain was about as entertaining as rubbing my knuckles against sandpaper.

8. Grand Theft Auto IV-> Entertaining Friends
I'll never understand how this game got such a high metacritic score. You had your whiney, needy, backstabbing "friends" calling you every three damned seconds to insist that you go bowling or dart throwing or mini golfing (oh, wait, the mini golf course was just a prop), and they'd bitch and moan if you couldn't shake the cops in your greased up Admiral (more on that later) in time to satiate their spontaneous demands. Then, you finally pick up your annoying cousin or that incomprehensible Jamaican dude and when you finally get to the bowling alley, you find yourself spending 15 agonizing minutes playing a minigame that wouldn't make the cut in Fuzion Frenzy.

7. Halo Wars-> Prophet Rush
It is nearly impossible to beat a Prophet of Regret rush in 1v1 or 2v2 if you're using the UNSC. Even if you do possess the skill to fend off the rush, it takes way, way, way more time, effort, resources, and skill to defeat the rush than to execute it. I know they've nerfed the Prohpet by making him slower, but it's still a pain in the ass. Why the hell does he get an overshield? At least make him upgrade once or twice before you make him the only leader with auto-regenerating health.

6. Modern Warfare 2-> Akimbo Shotguns
I think anyone who's played Mod2 (and there are a lot of you) know exactly what I'm talking about. Sure, Akimbo made sense for SMGs and pistols because those are guns that lose significant accuracy when hip-fired, but who aims down sight with a shotgun? Ever? It just doubled the effectiveness of an already effective gun. That first patch couldn't come fast enough.

5. Call of Duty: World at War-> Bouncing Betties
The very first time I my head got blown off by one of these little bastards, I was dumbfounded. Where the hell did that explosion come from. I then sat back, stupified, as I watched the killcam show a nearly-invisible mine hop right out of the ground and explode in my face. It was from that moment on that I realized that World at War was not a game I would enjoy. Now, before you say, "Just put on Bombsquad," let me say this: fuck you. Don't defend them.

4. Gears of War 2-> Grenade Planting
I talked about this in my Rules for Shooters. A lot of people complained in the first Gears that it was too easy to get kills by grenade-tagging, so they responded to that in the sequel by letting you grenade tag EVERYTHING. The best part is that before they patched the game 30 times, the planted grenades were nearly impossible to shoot down if you did luck into seeing one before it killed you, and any douchebag running around the map controlling the 'nade spawns could actually plant infinite grenades. How the hell does it not occur to you that some douche is going to just plant a grenade next to grenade spawn and then run around planting grenades all over the damn map? They didn't even disappear when you die, so every game of Annex turned into a damned minefield. Ugh, terrible. To make matters worse, some maps had rotating weapon spawns that switched between frag and ink grenades and one team would get frags every time while the other was always stuck with inks (they patched that quickly, but what an inexcusable oversight). They have since patched the game numerous times so that a player can only have two active mines at a time and they're slightly easier to shoot down (although it still takes multiple shots for some reason). It's an improvement, but I would still prefer this feature be removed entirely.

3. Grand Theft Auto IV-> "Realistic" Car Physics
Hey, remember in GTA: Vice City when it so entertaining to just drive around in a Comet or a Cheetah and e-brake your way around every turn? Remember in GTA IV the first time you tried to e-brake around a turn, and the car went careening uncontrollably into the nearest pole, and then you went flying out the windshield, and a cop ran up and busted your ass on the spot? Yeah, that was fun, wasn't it? I looked "realistic" up in the dictionary, and this may shock the folks over at Rockstar North, but "fun" was not listed as a synonym. Also, Niko, buckle your seat belt. Not that hard.

2. Gears of War 2-> Smoke Grenade Stuns
I mentioned this in my rules post, but yeah, the 2 second rag doll effect was awful. The worst part is that it was inconsistent, too. Get stunned on some stairs and your floppy ass is gonna slowly slide all the way down while Cole Train patiently follows you down so he can chainsaw-domize you as soon as you get up. I actually remember wondering why they didn't just use the same animation they used for when your teammate hit you with a mortar. It only took them about a year to figure that one out.

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl-> Random Tripping
Here we are, folks. The most mind-boggling design decision of all time: random tripping. I'm really not even sure what to say about it. I guess it's supposed to be some sort of rubber band system for leveling the playing field, but why can't I at least turn it off? I'm really just dumbfounded by this one. It's just so profoundly stupid. I guess I can postulate as to how the idea came up in a meeting:

"Alright guys, we've already taken away wave dashing to make sure our game is less fun for the people who will play it the longest, but I'm still worried our game is too good. We certainly want these people to buy our game, but we can't offer downloadable content on the Wii, so we need them to get bored with the game and buy Wii Fit. Any ideas?"
"We could take Mario out of the game."
"No, we need them to still buy it in the first place."
"Let's have the guys who compiled the soundtrack for Sonic Adventure 2 do the game music."
"No, no, the soundtrack really is a purchasing incentive for a nostalgia-based game like this."
"I got it. Let's make people trip randomly like they slipped on one of Diddy's bananas."
"My God, Jusaka-san, you've done it! It's perfect! It won't keep anyone from buying the game, and the hardcore players who buy a lot games in the first place will be infuriated by such a blatant random event! Fellas, crack open the sake and break out the hentai!"

The reason this is number 1 is because out of every fuck-up on this list, this is the only one where I really can't imagine any reason a sane person would include this in the game. It's not a balance oversight, it's not there to show off any sort of techno-babble, and it's not supposed to simulate something observed in real-life (maybe Bugs Bunny cartoons). I really just don't know what the fuck they were thinking.

--Chilly P

Chilly P's Rules for Online Shooters

I've played a heck of a lot of online shooters over the years. Not so much on PC, but I'm a bit of an Xbox LIVE expert. Anyway, mainly drawing from the Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War, and Left 4 Dead series, here are some basic rules I think all games should follow. Later this week I'll go over some all-time best features and worst fuck-ups.

HUD and Other On-Screen Information
The heads-up display is one of the most important and often over-looked features of shooters. One thing that drives me bat-shit crazy is when information like how much ammo you have will just fade away at times. Little things like an ammo count never obscures your view, just leave them there. Always (unless--and this is rare--it should be removed for gameplay purposes). For example, when I'm a charger in L4D2 and I'm choke-slamming some poor sap, why does my health bar disappear? Sure, I can't move anymore, but it's nice to know how much health you have. Just leave it there.

I also don't understand why games like Gears of War have no radar whatsoever. Call of Duty has a perfect model for this: you see the map in the upper right-hand corner, and dots show up when people fire. This makes sense. If you're in real life and you hear a gunshot, you can tell where it's coming from. Games use stereo sound, so until surround is the default (which it probably won't be any time soon), information like this should be expected. Another thing CoD does which I think should be in more games is the grenade indicator. If someone throws a grenade at me in real life, I'm going to hear where it bounces. This compensates for a lack in technology, and that makes it a good thing. Actually, the lack of the two aforementioned features in Hardcore mode is the reason I think that mode is ridiculous. It's supposed to be more realistic I guess, but I think taking away things that compensate for technological deficiencies is just stupid.

Another thing that's important is feedback for hits and misses. Halo does it by showing flashing energy shields, Call of Duty does it with that little 'x' in the middle of your screen (accompanied by a little 'tsk' sound), and Gears does it with blood spray. I really don't have any complaints here, I just thought it was worth mentioning.

It's also important that objective markers and other on-screen data do not obscure your view. That damn "C" marker in Domination on Underpass is like a dick coming out of someone's forehead. It's already hard enough to see on that map, don't make it worse with giant green/red arrows.

Be careful in how you distinguish teams. Halo gets bonus points for brightly and distinctly coloring each team. Gears gets a C- because the Locusts make more noise and are thus less sneaky than the COGs, and Call of Duty gets an F+ because it's nearly impossible to tell who's friend and foe without seeing a name above their head (which can lead to confusion when a friend is behind a foe and it looks like your friend's name is above that bastard who's about to gut you with a striker). You may think an F+ is too harsh, but let me also remind you that ghillie suits all look the same, and the fact that the team wearing black scuba suits on Sub Base has a distinct disadvantage to the other team of guys in snow camo.

If you're aiming down a scope and someone shoots you, your scope should be interrupted. Halo does this correctly.

Auto-aim is a necessity on consoles, but try not to let it go overboard. I can't tell you how many times I've killed people in Call of Duty because my auto-aim starting tracking someone I couldn't see. Yeah, I use it to my advantage, but it's pretty unfair.


Button Layouts and Weapon Swapping
Halo: CE got it right. Two weapons max, switch weapons with "Y", and map grenades to their own button. It's as simple as that. Battlefield: Bad Company does this archaic crap where the shoulder buttons cycle through different items, one of which is grenades. No. Don't do that. I don't want to have to switch to grenades. Ever. BC commits another no-no in that knifing results it actually keeping your knife out. This is also dumb.

You should also never have to cycle through anything. This is why the two-weapon idea is so important. Cycling is a pain, requires too much memorization, and can cause some serious problems in the heat of battle. One button, "Y", should switch between two weapons. Don't over think it. No cycling, and no mapping weapons to the D-pad. I'm looking at you, Gears. Nobody needs to spawn with a Lancer, shotgun, and a pistol. You already let people choose between a Lancer and a Hammer Burst, just let them choose two guns to load out with. Before you ask, "Well, who the fuck is gonna want a damned pistol?!" let me tell you who, you vulgar little delinquent. This would balance the meat shields and boom shields because--wait for it--you have to have a pistol to do it! There, now the boom shield isn't the most advanced piece of weaponry in the game. "What about the grenades?" you may ask. Like I said, map them to their own button. "LB" and "Y" aren't particularly useful in that game; I'd say go with "LB" since I know you'll have mapped weapon-switching to "Y" like I asked. Tap "LB" to blindfire (blindthrow?) a grenade; hold "LB" to start swinging it like a foxtail. You're welcome, Epic.

Two more things on this subject: always map reload to either "X" or a shoulder button, and never make me press a button to pick up ammo. Left 4 Dead has reload mapped to "B." Why? To spit in the face of console conventions because you want to be different? No! Bad Valve (slaps wrist). Oh, and Active Reloading in Gears is an awesome idea. No complaints here.

Other General Rules
Never, ever let physics interrupt gameplay. I'm looking at you, Epic. Remember when Gears 2 released and smoke grenades made you go ragdoll for 2 agonizing seconds? Dumb. Sooooo dumb. I know you've fixed it since, but you lost a lot of players because of that.

Do let physics be hilarious, though. Remember warthog jousting in Halo: CE? It was awesome, and I wish you could somehow turn that on in Halo 3. Also, so-called "gibs" in Gears are quite funny as well. Dead people flying around like weightless ragdolls is always a good laugh.

Proximity explosives should be visible and delayed. Good: Claymores in Modern Warfare. Bad: Bouncing Betties in World at War and grenade planting in Gears 2. Claymores are perfect. They have ~180 degrees of effectiveness, you can spot them around corners if you're careful, and if you're not, then you die. Even if you know there's a grenade planted around a corner in Gears 2, it's still pretty impossible to avoid it. It takes forever to shoot down (if you even can) and they go off nearly instantly. Bouncing Betties are just too hard to see without Bomb Squad.

Never have lock-on weapons for use against user-controlled vehicles (this excuses the necessary Stinger in Modern Warfare 2). Remember in Halo: CE when you had to kill vehicles with a well-timed grenade or rocket? Yeah, took skill. The Missile Pod? Not so much. Actually, let's throw Spartan Laser in there, too. Vehicles should never be death traps. Make people earn their vehicle kills. Now, I know the splaser and the missile pod are there mainly to shoot down Banshees, but it's not my fault the developers decided that the most elusive vehicle should also be the only one with an unexposed pilot. Maybe they should've thought of that before.

Offer a variety of playlists. Bungie gets, like, 12 gold stars for this. Modern Warfare 2 gets one gold star. Why only one? Where's my MLG playlist and 1st-person Team Tactical? Actually...

If your game has "cheap kills" (think energy sword), offer a set of MLG playlists. You know why Modern Warfare 2 is losing players? There's no where to escape the knifers, shotgunners, and n00b-tubers. I'll go into more detail about this in a later post. Sneak peak: Hardcore does not count as a satisfactory playlist for "hardcore" players.

Do a beta test. Seriously. Gears 2 and Modern Warfare 2 didn't do betas and their games launched as glitchy, unbalanced messes.

Don't let multiplayer achievements affect gameplay. The first Gears and--to a lesser extent--Halo 3 did this, and it's really, really annoying. However, I'm not saying that you shouldn't have multiplayer 'cheevos. I likes me my 'cheevos. Just be smart with them. It's also smart to emphasize winning over K/D or getting kills with specific guns. A player's first priority should be winning.

Flamethrowers are never a good idea.

Dog tags (Bad Company) are an awesome idea. In fact, if you have to do a kills-based 'cheevo, you should probably require unique Gamertags (and, obviously, a smaller number to compensate). That should get rid of those damned grinders. Buncha jerks if you ask me.

Never let people be temporarily invincible (unless it's to counteract spawn-camping). It was so annoying in Gears having to wait until the pick-up-weapon animation was done before I could pop some knucklehead's dome, and don't get me started on that temporary invincibility when you pick up the overshield in Halo 3.

Sprinting is good; holding down a button to sprint is bad.

Dual-wiedling is okay, just be careful how you implement it. They had to patch Halo 2 because dual-wielding was overpowered (although I say Halo has become better because this led to melees and grenades being more powerful), and I think we all remember those damned Akimbo Model 1887s.

If melees cause victims to be stunned, be sure that stun time is less than cool-down time. This was an issue in the first Gears because you were stunned longer than it took to perform a second melee. Also, the melee-spamming in Left 4 Dead was unbalanced in favor of the survivors (they patched it to include a cool-down after a few successive melees).

I actually can't believe I have to say this, but don't make the amount of time it takes to reload longer than the reload animation. In Left 4 Dead 2, the sniper rifle (my personal weapon of choice) takes ~3 seconds to reload, and when the animation is done, you're still not quite finished reloading. You have to wait a moment until that '0' becomes a '30' before you can switch weapons or take some pills. If you do it an instant too soon, you have to start all over next time you switch back to your sniper rifle. Honestly, you should make the animation run a little longer than the amount of time it actually takes. Props to Modern Warfare 2 for getting this right.

Summary
You may or not agree with me on all of these principles, but you probably should. I'm not trying to take away anything that made these games unique, and I understand that newbie-friendly game elements exist as a way to level the playing field. I'm just saying that certain conventions have proven to be much, much better than their alternatives, and that if you do want to include newbie-friendly weapons and/or classes, offer some way for the seasoned vets to avoid gameplay mechanics that feel cheap.

--Chilly P