Thursday, September 25, 2008

Call of Duty: World at War - A CoD4 Mod

Call of Duty 5 In Game ScreenshotWith many people waiting in anticipation for the newest addition to the Call of Duty franchise known as Call of Duty: World at War, I keep hearing of just how great it will be with people talking it up like its going to be the greatest installment since Call of Duty 1.

The question I have to ask is WHY?

I recently wrote an article explaining that Call of Duty: World at War will be a CoD4 Mod and how you are going to be paying $50 for Call of Duty 4 with WW2 models. This new game will be using the Call of Duty 4 Engine (confirmed) and the majority of the perks are coming straight from its predecessor with only a few new additions. Sure they are adding vehicle warfare but one of the things I loved about the Call of Duty series was the intense, up-close and personal firefights that came with the relatively small maps. It just seems to me this game is trying to capitalize on us with anyway they can.

Another big complaint I have with this game is how its mimicking Call of Duty 4, and anyone who has ever played the game knows how noob-friendly it is. From the super-fast weapon firing rates, perks like martyrdom and sonic boom, regen, lack of recoil, helicopters, and m203's, the game caters to the player in every possible way that my grandmother could consistently frag me. Call of Duty: WaW will be exactly like this but with more bushes and grass for idiots to hide in and now they can also drive tanks.

Who knows, maybe I'm just putting down the game because I was disappointed with how Call of Duty 4 turned out. I mean, the singleplayer was amazing, and sure I had a blast playing multiplayer when it first came out, but the more you play it the more you realize that CoD4 was only made for the masses of ps3 and xbox players, and can easily be identified as such when you look at how the game actually plays. How any joe-nobody can kill you regardless of whether you are a veteran of the series or he just picked up the game yesterday. That's just how the game was made and its also what makes me disappointed about it.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

How to Save PC Gaming

With all the negative press revolving around the PC Gaming scene, combined with the fact that many game developers are simply creating console games and porting them over to PC (see Call of Duty 4 and the upcoming CoD5:WW ), its no wonder that we are seen as a dying breed of gamers. According to GamesRadar, in order to save ourselves we should be looking to bring more casual console gamers to the PC Scene. Heres how:

1. Be a platform champion. Microsoft obviously isn’t doing it, so it’s up to us. Get educated about how your PC works, at least insomuch as it affects your upgrading schemes. As Dan Stapleton said recently, “If PC gaming is costing you ‘thousands’ per year, you’re doing it wrong.” Today, $700 will get you a new PC that’ll handle just about anything for the next two to three years, with maybe $500 a year spent on upgrades—but not everyone needs to drop that kind of money, which is why you should also…

2. Be a goodwill ambassador, especially to “casual” gamers. After all, they’re just hardcore PC gamers who don’t know it yet. If we want to grow our ranks, we need to make it easier for people to join them. Help new and casual players out when it comes to hardware questions—they can make the PC barrier to entry seem very high. Make people feel OK about learning to game on “easy.” Don’t grief away our future community—we want to bring people into the fold, not run them off.

3. Be honest
—don’t contribute to the piracy problem. If you’re stealing games, then you cannot complain, ever, about the demise of PC gaming, because you are directly causing it. Besides, stealing is bad karma, and I don’t want to see you come back as a cockroach or a politician or a reality television contestant.

Source: GamesRadar