The Pavelow thing is a glitch - it's supposed to count, and I think IW is gonna fix it when they fix the Javelin bug. Don't quote me on that though. Matchmaking, at least on PS3, seems totally retarded. It would make all kinds of good sense for them to match you with players of your approximate level, but I don't think they really do at all in most gametypes. I was playing on my roommates account earlier (level 17), and we were getting thrown into TDM and domination matches with level 70s and like 3rd prestige level 40s right and left. But it did seem like there were also a lot more enlisted ranks in the matches peppered in with the really high level guys. On my account (55) it feels like everyone is at least level 30... I can't remember the last time I saw chevrons in a non-Free For All match on my account. Bizarre. I would be really impressed if they did something about that, and made an effort to put people in matches with, say, people within 25 ranks of them?
the ranks in MW2 don't really matter. When I started I was put in with a bunch of lvl 40+ people. I still kicked their asses, not as well as I could have, but I still kicked there asses. The only thing you get with more levels is more weapons, and once the barracks is available, you get enough weapons to do some damage. But the whole online matchmaking needs to be fixed. I dont want to start my own room when I am going to be combined into a different room .0001 second before the game starts.
Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer is just not as fun to play as I expected and this guy explains it pretty well. http://blametruthproject.com/sorry-but- ... ucks-guys/ Anyone else agree with this? Or is mw 2 really an improvement over cod 4? I think infinity ward took a shit on the aggressive style of playing that was prevalent in the first mw with the new emphasis on killstreaks and camp friendly maps. Seriously, whats the point of the SMG class anymore if you can have one as a secondary weapon?
Now, I didn't play CoD4 or WaW, but I have played my fair share of FPSes in my day. Here are my thoughts: I sort of agree, but here's the %s as far as what you are going to get from the care package (via http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Care_Package): 14.78% - UAV 14.78% - Ammo 13.04% - Counter UAV 10.43% - Sentry Gun 10.43% - Predator Missile 9.57% - Precision Airstrike 6.09% - Harrier Airstrike 6.09% - Attack Helicopter 4.35% - Pave Low 4.35% - Stealth Airstrike 2.61% - Chopper Gunner 2.61% - AC-130 0.87% - EMP Yes, it's random, but the Pave Low, CG, and AC-130 are the only things that are really going to up your kill streak significantly, and that's only if the opposing team is completely retarded in the case of the CG and Pave Low. I agree the map rotation can be pretty awful, especially if you are constantly joining new games. I swear every Ground War game I join is a Quarry match that is halfway over. That being said, I disagree that running and gunning is totally worthless. Every one of my matches where I was over 10 KDR has come running and gunning, and probably 1/3 of them I was using the UMP. I do somewhat agree that the ARs are overpowered, but not 7/9. I'd probably put the number at 4/9 (M16, SCAR, FAMAS, and ACR). That being said, if you play it right you can have great success with the UMP or P90. I do agree with him on the 1887s. Those need a nerf bigtime. There is no reason that they should have the range that they do.
I'm on the same page as you except I use the P90 silenced. I have a setup that's entirely run and gun with all the perks making you fast and invisible to anything except visually seeing me. I'm consistently 3:1 with this whole deal with around 20 kills per match, at least half of those being knife or throwing knife...its just so unexpected in a map like quarry to see someone sprinting around knifing people.
So I just finished my first run through of Dragon Age. I might create a new character and play through again, if only to get the experience of playing differently and get the some of trophies I missed the first time through. In reality, I'm just biding time until Christmas, now, at which point I will get many new games to dive in to. On my list were Batman: Arkham Asylum, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Assassin's Creed 2, The God of War collection (yes, I have never played a God of War game, so I am somewhat eager to get my first taste here), New Super Mario Brothers Wii, and Scribblenauts. If I only get 2 of the games I asked for for Christmas, I am going to have HOURS to kill. Am I the only one who feels like there is suddenly a massive amount of great games coming all within a one year span? It seems like the end of this year and into march or april of next year are seeing a lot of highly anticipated and very good games being released. None of this even takes into account games like CoD: MW2 (which I can't play, due to my tendency to get nauseated and sick after only 5 minutes of any FPS game), which is clearly the biggest game to hit this thread, ever. It could just be me, though.
This guy makes some good points, particularly about certain overpowered weapons, and it sometimes being a connection war, but to me it's just someone bitching because they can't cope. His beef with killstreak rewards for example: he's upset that someone with one good streak can do better overall than someone who did really good without their killstreak. So what? Should rewards be based on k/d ratio? What exactly is his solution? And really, if I'm having a bad game I love having my ratio saved by my killstreaks. And everyone can get them, and you can shoot down basically any killstreak except the Predator and Counter-UAV, so there is a counter-strategy to that as well. Again, I think this guy is upset because he can't cope. Yes, it's annoying when someone camps in a window, but the obvious counter to that is to turn on Cold-Blooded and Ninja and sneak up behind his ass for the stab. Or fight fire with fire and snipe his head off. There certainly are legit problems he points out, like Akimbo 1887s, spawn problems, etc. but particularly towards his last paragraph he lost me in whining: "Painkiller (giving a player double health after dying 3 times in a row) overly rewards people for dying." Seriously? Painkiller fucking blows as a Death Steak, and I think 10 seconds of extra health for sucking ass is not "overly rewarding" whatsoever. Shit, half the time when I spawned with Painkiller I would see absolutely no one for those 10 seconds, making it completely worthless. Sure, it's annoying to die because someone has Painkiller, but it's only because they died three times in a row. It's not like anyone ever thinks: "Gee, I really want Painkiller because it'd be so useful. I'm gonna go die three times so I can have extra health for 10 seconds." Fucking retarded.
You repeat at least twice that "this guy can't cope!", as if valid, well-argued points are negated by someone sucking at a game. Too bad that's not just a baseless assumption, you're also flat-out wrong. His very first sentence mentions that his K/D ratio is an amazing 3.0, and it's immediately clear that this guy has played as many FPS's as people play games total. Personally, I find it hilarious that you're threatened by the views on his article. Really, all he is saying is that as a COMPETITIVE FPS, Modern Warfare 2 sucks. And he's absolutely right. The Akimbo 1887s are invincible on some of the smaller, more open maps, very good on the others, the assault rifles are certainly overpowered, and a camping style is especially powerful with the houses, windows, and kill streaks. Your solution of stabbing them from behind with Ninja and Cold Blooded is of very limited effectiveness against a good player, and sniping them out of the windows, while the only real counter-strategy (duh...), doesn't negate how good camping is. And yes, the spawning system sucks. At the same time, just because the game fails on the competitive level doesn't mean it can't be very fun/exciting as a casual game. And that's exactly the case with Modern Warfare 2, which I've had a lot of fun playing. On the other hand, the author of that article is examining the title with the higher, competitive player's criteria in mind, and thus for him, it's not fun. Overall, MW2 is a great game, but as a competitive FPS, it's poor.
Halo: Reach I know it's A LONG ways away, but here is some things that have just been leaked about the game. There are some semi-spoilers so I'll throw the spoiler tag on my quote. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=378966 Spoiler This first mission was just like Halo 1's 2nd mission where you had to find the marines that crash landed throughout the map, but in halo reach you are finding spartans. It's a pretty big map, and the worthog was very useful for getting places. The worthog can carry as many as 5 people (the driver, the front passenger, the gunner, and two seats below the gunner that face left and right, not forward) The second mission was pretty action packed. You start out getting dropped off, and the action immediately begins. You are with squadmates. Throughout this mission you have to cover your spartan friend (whos a girl) and give her coverage so that she can hack into the computer. There are 3 big guns on the map that she has to hack into. Hacking into them gains control of the gun, and I guess it gives them control of the air (you see banshees and hornets flying throughout the entire level) The third stage is very similar to Truth and Reconciliation (the 3rd stage on Halo 1). You and another spartan have snipers. You have to get into the enemy base from the cliffs (you start out on the cliffs). While you go in the base, your spartan friend covers you from the cliffs above. At the end of this level, you save a bunch of scientists or marines (not really sure who they are actually). They are humans who refused to leave their site even though they ordered everyone to get out. At the end of the level you save them and get picked up by a pelican. Those were the first 3 stages. As for gameplay, everyone on those forums are talking about the perks. I guess I kinda used the wrong word. It's not really a perk, but rather a device that you can pick up. You can only carry one at a time. I found 3 different devices in the first 3 missions-Halogram, cloak, and sprint. So it's not really a perk, like you would think from call of duty. They are just devices you pick up and that have cooldowns. The new BR is the 12 round, 1 shot with the scope. I think it's more powerfull than the burst fire BR from halo 3. The sniper rifle has a longer delay between shots (I was upset with this). The gameplay seem VERY similar to the other halos. It still has that "slow" feeling. The enemies also fight the exact same way, even the hunters. The new needler carbine gun is cool. It takes three shots to make the needles explode on someone. However, if that person has a shield, you have to take out the shield before the needles can stick. So this gun can be effective if you shoot grunts and jackals, that way they explode and do more damage. You can't just shoot an elite three times, you have to bring his shield down first, then when you shoot him 3 times when he doesnt have a shield, the needles explode. When you cloak, your radar is jammed, so you see red dots everywhere. Also, you can't hear anything going on. It's like trying to hear someone say something when you are underwater. There is a new worthog that shoots volley missles. It seemed very overpowered, but fun. It would shoot about 4-6 shots and they explode upon contact. Then there is about a 5 second wait. Then you can shoot again (basically a 5 second cooldown for every time you can fire). I found something really extraordinary. In the middle of mission 3, you encounter a bunch of covenant fighting this big ass monster (it had tusks, it seemed like some sort of prehistoric animal) When you see the covenant fighting the monster, you are told not to engage combat, but to just go by unnoticed. You stand and watch the covenant fighting the monster, only to see the covenant get owned. You must understand that this game is still LOOONG from being done. People on the forums are making too early judgments, like saying the graphics were horrible. Well I played the game and the graphics were pretty bad. That's because they havn't finished it yet... In fact, they didn't even have human voice overs when someone would talk in the game. Overall gameplay was about the same as the other Halos. Enemies battles are similar too. I don't know if you can dual wield. They made me play through the first 3 missions. The first mission was on a pretty big map, and I had to find other spartans on the map (similar to Halo 1's second stage where you have to find the crash landed marines). Second stage was pretty action packed, main goal was to take control of several huge missile guns throughout the map, and provide coverage to a spartan that would hack into the guns and control them. Third stage was very similar to Halo 1's 3rd stage, Truth and Reconciliation. You start with a sniper and cloaking perk, you sneak into an enemy base at night, and you shoot from cliffs. This game WILL be on the circuit I KNOW IT FOR A FACT, I am an mlg 50 and was a level 40 in h2 hardcore and know what competitive IS!
I'm looking for some suggestions for new games. I have a PS3. Currently, I'm playing Obllivion, Elder Scrolls, and I think it's the best game I've ever played. I'm going to pick up Morrowmind. Anyone have suggestions for really solid PS3 RPG games? Thanks guys (and gals).
I am certainly biased because MW2 has infectious gameplay and that may impair my ability to accurately judge it's competitiveness, but I still do believe it is competitive. Care package is random, and all aspects based on randomness in a shooter are shitty. Wait, what? You realize when you shoot your gun, where the bullet goes from between the crosshairs is random, right? So when people spray and pray, whether they kill you is based on randomness. That doesn't make it stupid because in the long run these people get shitty scores from dying so much. Same with care package. In the long run you're going to get a lot of ammo and UAVs. Not to mention you're vulnerable while getting the package in the first place, and that it's stealable. Oh and it doesn't add to killstreaks either. As for the maps, every map has certain nuances, and not all maps cater to camping. If a map does cater to camping, then prepare for campers. Don't sit there and complain about campers. Camping is not a "trump-all" strategy. For one, people know where you are after you kill 1 person if you're not using a silencer, and usually catch on shortly after if you are. That is a huge disadvantage. The other part is hard campers that literally sit in one space usually stop paying attention, and it's easy to pop in and kill them when that happens. Smart and skilled campers deserve their kills. It's not as simple as popping out of a window every couple of seconds, and if you reduce it to that you've never camped before, or you did and maybe broke even or a little better than even. Just like a good run and gunner deserves his kills (and will rack up more kills quicker because he enters more interactions), a smart camper deserves his kills. I agree the guns are imbalanced. The solution is don't use guns that suck. He named a whole list of weapons that are good: Assault rifles, LMGs, shotties, machine pistols. Yes the 1887's are broken and they will probably be fixed, but otherwise it seems like SMG's are underpowered, not that everything else is overpowered. The biggest complaint I have is that the spawning system is bullshit. Also it is admittedly less balanced than COD4, but I think that is because there is way more stuff packed into MW2. Considering this fact, I think it is still extremely well done and still very much competitive.
Two words, Demon's Souls. Fair warning though, this games chief mission is to treat you as it's bitch and it does so frequently. You know you are in for a world of shit when the end of the training stage kills you and you can't stop it. Don't know if it's technically an RPG but you couldn't go wrong with Fallout 3: Game of the Year edition either.
Anyone who right off the bat mention their kill/death ratio being 3 is a complete tool and doesn't know jack shit about competition. My highest killstreak in this game is 32, digitalpunk (forgot his name on here) watched me go 30-1 on derail. My point? In competitive gameplay that would not happen. You know why? You play S&D with PERKS and KILLSTREAKS turned off...on hardcore and no respawns. There are variations to that ruleset obviously for MW2, which would have to be adjusted for people using the heartbeat sensor. Your not just going to be running around with dual shotguns mowing people down. They would hear your ass from a mile away and dust you as soon as you turned a corner. This guy isn't a competition player, he is just mad that when he trys to play "tactical" in a 9v9 deathmatch some idiot with an 1887 comes and wrecks his shit. And I agree, the 1887's are ridiculously strong which have made some public matches terribly frustrating, and there are tons of things wrong with the game, but you arguing that he is looking at it from a competitive viewpoint is false. At the end he says the devs for modern warfare have kill/death ratio's near or below 1. You know why? Because they are giving as good as they are getting. They aren't smashing are clueless new people who have no idea how to toss a frag. As a casual game, this is a massive failure with no dedicated servers, shit spawns, terrible glitches, IWnet.
Whoa nellie, that's not what I said at all. His valid, well-argued points that you point out later stand, it's the invalid, poorly argued ones that I take issue with. Where are you getting any of this? Literally. How are you getting that I was threatened, based on my critique, and where are you getting "Competitive FPS" when he doesn't even use the word "competitive" once in the article? What exactly makes it competitive? He's clearly still pretty good at it, he's just not having fun anymore. Yes, these are the points I was alluding to when I said "he makes some good points." However, saying my solution of stabbing someone is of limited effectiveness against a good player makes me laugh because any strategy is difficult to use against a good player; that is what makes them good. The points that were in contention for me were things like him saying Painkiller overly rewards people for dying, which to me proves he's not thinking clearly. Camping has been around for a long time in FPS, as this guy should know, I don't see MW2 doing anything to particularly encourage the strategy. At the end of his article he says he's going back to COD4 or WaW, as if this will solve any of his woes. Quite a few things obviously were changed to make MW2, but it didn't make camping particularly better. And is it that bad of a "competitive FPS" compared to those two? Maybe I'm missing something, but he claims it's so skill equalized as to be not fun, and yet like you say, he maintains a godlike 3.0 ratio. And his solution at the end of the article is to go back to playing COD4 or WaW, which still have quite a few problems on their own. Like I said in my original post, this guy is just upset because his particular strategy isn't fun for him anymore. A legit complaint, possibly, but he's putting all the blame on the game when part of it is his own mindset.
Yeah, no kidding about the competitive rules portion. The point being, the game in its online multiplayer form is SO far away from what you described above, it becomes too much of a random connection battle, which for him, makes it not fun. That's certainly a valid view, wouldn't you agree? Yes, he writes about those failings too, and I agree...those downgrade casual as well as more serious play. Because you kept mindlessly droning that he "can't cope" and seemed to take the article as a personal insult? Okay, so out of the 10-15 complaints he outlined, the only one you're seriously disagreeing with is the Painkiller comment. Let's assume you're correct, and he's wrong. Great. Now there's still 9-14 other, more serious problems he's outlined that hurt MW2. You think this invalidates his article? Did you actually read the article? The author goes into specifics about why camping is better in MW2; namely, the numerous houses and windows on most maps, many of them very obscure and hard to reach. If you think that's wrong, then you need to argue against this assertion.
I don't take it as a personal insult, as you seem to think I do, but I do think that the fact that he is apparently insulted by the "skill equalization" smacks of arrogance. Because his chosen strategy doesn't work like he wants it to, this game sucks. That's not a legitimate critique. He refuses to alter his strategy to fit a new game, and thus "can't cope." I'm not mindlessly droning that he can't do so, I'm reading between the lines and saying what I think his real problem is with this game. If you really want to know what I think of each and every complaint in the article, here it is, in spoiler tags for the sake of brevity: Spoiler Agree with most of this, but most people are speculating this will be somewhat fixed when the patch comes out; particularly the akimbo 1887s. But this, to me, is just him upset that he might have to change his strategy from the last game because of the new features. He can call it "skill equalizing" but to me that just makes it more competitive. Maybe they equalized things in the wrong way particularly by overpowering certain guns, but bitching about "skill equalizing" in general is ridiculous to me. If you're a skilled player, it will show. Oh noes, the weapons are good, whatever will we do? Certainly some weapons are overpowered, but I think 7/9 is pure exaggeration. And I hate connection battles as much as the next guy, but unless there are dedicated servers that will always be a problem, and it's not something I blame on the game itself. Friend getting kicked sounds like a fluke; I have not experienced this issue (and I have played with a few large parties). His problem with Care Packages seems like more of his arrogant "people that suck can get good things, when only I should be able to get them because of my leet skillz." If that makes the game less fun for him, fine, but I don't think you can say that because it's more competitive the game sucks and act as if this is a legitimate critique. And streaks aren't that much more important than they were in COD4, which again he's apparently going back to because it's somehow better. What does he even mean by "it's no longer about out gunning"? You can't out gun someone and build a good streak while doing so? Or does he just hate killstreak rewards, which if so, he shouldn't be playing a Call of Duty game. Oh noes, someone used their killstreak reward to actually get kills. You can shoot that shit down, you know. His scenario is dependent on someone shooting down the good player's rewards, but then he ignores this possibility to counter the second person's rewards. Stupid. As for his last sentence, would he rather rewards be based on total k/d? Why is he playing Call of Duty games if he hates streaks? Bitching about campers. As someone stated earlier, if they have the patience to sit and wait for someone to come around that corner, more power to them. Personally, I've had a decent amount of success running and gunning to build streaks before, and I don't think streaks necessarily encourage camping. If you can't root out a camper or hit him with a grenade before he gets to his big streak rewards, then it's probably because he's doing more than simply camping and you aren't good enough to stop him; it is not the game's fault. He's right here, of course, but like he says, the problem would only be truly solved with dedicated servers. If he's playing on console, then that's how it was for COD4 at least, and since at the end he says he's going back to it because it's "better," this must not be that big of a deal for him. Legit critiques, but again, "still an issue" and he's going back to COD4 because it's better. Yeah... Already done. I never played WaW much online but yeah, those features would be nice. Too bad. Again, his problem with it being "skill equalized" just smacks of arrogance to me, and I can't take him seriously. Sure there are plenty of legit critiques, but as has been said, this guy is a tool. That's why I felt the need to rail on the article. Obscure and hard to reach? Whatever. On some maps, sure there's lots of houses, but others, like Wasteland or Quarry, are pretty open. Even if there are too many houses on all the maps, his bitching continues to be that he can't adapt to this scenario (He can't cope! I'm an obsessed madman!) and doesn't like that other people are good at it. Like someone pointed out campers deserve their kills as far as I'm concerned. Personally, I don't have the patience to sit there and wait, and wait, and wait. There are plenty of strategies to counter campers, and claiming that killstreaks and the level design encourage it is a weak argument. Some levels encourage camping, wide-open levels encourage sniping; different designs incentivize different strategies. They can't all be levels where running and gunning is the best strategy just because that's what he does and can't wrap his mind around other people wanting to do something different.
I have to agree with you. Houses and windows might seem like attractive places to hide, but camping for the most part is suicide. I frequently come in 1st place on the Favela map (the map with possibly the most places to hide) and I do it with a mini-uzi, shotgun (usually the m1014 because it rocks just as hard as the 1887) and my trusty knife. When the map switches to Quarry, I change it up. The sprinting knifing strategy doesn't work anymore so I ADAPT. As for the map layout, he is 100% wrong. The maps in cod4 were much more linear and I encountered way more campers hanging out at choke points all the time. The maps in mw2 are laid out perfectly so that one can avoid choke points and flank campers. Every strategy in this game has a counter. If you choose not to adapt to different maps or players and get killed for it, well you deserve it. Oh, and sub machine guns only suck if you try to use them like ARs. It doesn't work that way in this game like it did in the first one. The key is moving quickly with them to try to get the drop on enemies before they can pull the sights up on whatever "better" gun they're using.
I'll second Demon's Souls. But it is not your traditional RPG at all. First, it's addictively difficult. You need to use strategy to beat just about all the enemies, and whenever you're in a new area just about any enemy can kill you if you're caught off guard or act recklessly. That said, it isn't unfairly difficult. Every enemy clearly has a weak point and opens themselves up to attack. When they kill you, you don't think "goddammit that was cheap," but instead you think "dammit I should've been more patient and dodged first." The difficulty makes it much more rewarding and intense. You may fight all the way through a level and get to the boss, just do die at the boss. When this happens, you have to play almost the whole level again (this does vary though, on some levels you can open up short-cuts to get back to the boss battles quicker on a second time around). So when you DO reach the bosses, you know theres a punishment for dying, and the whole thing makes the battles MUCH more intense and rewarding when you beat them. You can "grind" or "farm" to level up to make certain levels somewhat easier, but the challenge is still there to a lesser degree. In this sense it is much different from other RPGs. This isn't mindlessly getting into random battles on a world map, then repeatedly pushing the attack button, then getting xp, and eventually becoming invincible. It is much more engaging and exciting. However, unlike the other RPGs, there is practically no story. I kind of like the fact that there aren't 20 minute cutscenes or volumes of back story. It's just simple: Demons are here, they are fucking the place up, and you've gotta ruin their shit. Get to it. If what I've written sounds cool, pick it up. For me, it has been the best game all year by far.
To return to the MWII-fest, I caught some people nuke-boosting today on Scrapyard(? - with the broken airplanes in the middle). I saw it going on from outside and when I started shooting into the room the guy on my team who was involved started yelling and screaming at me to quit, so I went up and shot the other guy. My team guy yelled at me some more, and I decided to just hang out with him. Killed his accomplice when he came back. They both quit and sent me angry messages. It was satisfying. Infinity Ward can't stop this, because it isn't like Tactical Insertion is broken, so it's up to players - if you catch nuke boosters, kill them and hassle them, if for no better reason than they get really bent out of shape and it's hilarious.
Just like the javelin glitchers, you can report these guys to xbox live. It's not a glitch, but it's still exploiting a feature of the game to gain an unfair advantage.