Pay to Play Call of Duty? GTFO!

If you’ve got nine minutes and eight seconds to spare, watch this video:

If you haven’t the time, allow me to run down the important bits.

– some Head Douche at Infinity Ward Activision thinks that Call of Duty fans are just itching to get hold of a paid subscriber based Call of Duty title……. Oookay, I’m not sure which fans he’s spoken to. But it’s usually not a good idea to believe the people in the boardroom who are paid to nod in agreement at everything you say: “Right guys, what do you think of this… what about if we charged a monthly subscription for Call of Duty?”
“Wow boss, that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard!”

I know most of you regular readers here are also Call of Duty players of various longevity, so how about you tell me how good an idea it is:

– Microsoft Post-Natal (Knect) and Sony Move are a feeble attempt at snaffling some of Nintendo’s glory and basically suck to everyone but the most casual of gamers.

– Playstation+ is a pointless waste of money. Although the idea that it’ll die is probably incorrect. It’s more likely the first step to charging for the service completely in the same way as XBL. I reckon once they hit about 30% uptake the subscriber only switch will be announced.

I must start wearing my tinfoil hat more often. It’s as if Thingy-ma-bob in the video has been looking directly inside my head. Damn you alpha waves *shakes fist in general direction of the intertubes*.

Peas and loaves

Want to know how to comment on or subscribe to this blog? Click here.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Modern Warfare Resurgence Map Pack Announced

Just when the Stimulus pack becomes available to the PS3 and PC community Infinity Ward, or Activision, or maybe Roy the intern/tea boy has announced that the new “Resurgence” map pack will be released to Xbox Live in early June…..

Good luck with that.

Three new maps and…… two CoD4 maps. Makes you wonder if this was some sort of deliberate marketing ploy to begin with, or a result of having pretty much the entire development team jump ship.

Either way, I am totally underwhelmed and not even toe deep in enthusiasm (although if I was standing on my head that could be taken as a really positive position…). The good news is that the Xbox Beta Testers guys get to try out the maps for at least a month before they are released to the other platforms. So plenty of time to decide whether or not they are worth getting on the PS3.

That reminds me – Stimulus Pack…….. nah, still not getting it.

From DigitalSpy:

The returning maps include ‘Vacant’ and ‘Strike’, while the new maps are titled ‘Trailer Park’, ‘Carnival’ and ‘Fuel’, according to VG247.

PS – Message to Activision….. I can play CoD4 maps any time I want. I only have to boot up CoD4 and voila there they are. I don’t want to pay for them again, and releasing them on MW2 only gives the constant complainers something more to complain about.

Peas and loaves.

Want to know how to comment on or subscribe to this blog? Click here.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Weekly-ish Update #3

Thursday Thursday Thursday – it’s Weekly-ish Update Day! This is the Reader’s Digest version of what’s gone on in the past week. This is aimed at new visitors to the blog who may not know what’s going on and as a recap not only for you subscribers, but for me as well. It’s nice to get everything in one place and give any little updates that would be missed on the original post.

Cheating
It’s been an interesting week for the subject of cheating. Premier Call of Duty site codnation.net launched it’s own Boosting/Modded Lobbies section. I initially thought that it was to flag said goings on, but alas it was actually to promote the practice. That made me decide to leave their site and the story is told in the Boosters, Boosting and general disappointment post. I haven’t viewed any of the responses to my Goodbye post on codnation.net, but when I checked the site earlier the Boosting/Modded Lobbies was no longer visible to me. The section is still accessible though so I don’t know what’s going on there.

On the same theme – Wings of Redemption has caused more controversy. This time by allegedly touting the services of a prestige hacker……for a price. The Who is Wings of Redemption post has been updated with that information and given a bit of an overhaul to make it easier to read.

Last on the cheating bus is the announcement from FourZeroTwo on Twitter that they are patching the super fast lobbies. I don’t actually know what these are as it appears they are an Xbox phenomenon, but I do know someone who finds themselves in them all the time…

Links, Link Throughs and The Geoff Effect
As I’ve said before it’s a bit of a surprise to me that people not only read this blog, but come back for more. And it’s great! So thanks everyone who has subscribed and those regular visitors and posters. I would like to make special mention to Geoff (sasbenjr) who has harnessed the power of YouTube and sent an ungodly amount of people this way…..twice

Link throughs from Geoff = many peeps

I was happy getting visitor numbers that barely made double digits so seeing this many visits is mind blowing.
Thanks Geoff, and to everyone else who has linked here – the offer still stands regarding graphics for regular contributors (Geoff, Paul, Donncha etc). I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read and contribute here so please don’t get offended if I haven’t mentioned you by name.

There are a couple of new blogs in the blogroll on the right (and there are also a couple more blogs that I’m subscribed to but haven’t yet added) that you might like to have a look at.

Big post, Little post?
As I have a tendency to post a load of entries within a short amount of time I was concerned that some of you might not appreciate your inbox being flooded with yet another entry from me. So I put it to the polls and so far it’s overwhelmingly (statistically speaking) in favour of the ad hoc posting as opposed to one massive post per day – and only one Spartacus…..

General Gaming
This was the week that wasn’t. I played more Mario Kart on the Wii than Modern Warfare2, plus I was a bit under the weather with the same thing that everyone else seems to have at the moment – basically a cold. Mario Kart Wii still disappoints me, but it’s not as bad as I initially felt. And now that I’ve gone back to a proper FAL loadout MW2 is no longer the mass of donkey balls it was while using the Acog Scope.

I’ve also been watching quite a few BFBC2 videos and so that may on the cards at some point…..

The Hauppage Fund

Minor set back. Normal service will resume shortly…..

YouTube
SneakyMode has joined OnlyUseMeBlade and taken a leave of absence from video making. It’s a shame as he was working on a nice interface and then all of a sudden…..gone. Oh, well, good luck to him.

Meanwhile, my channel (MrCheapkills) is bumbling along as usual. Three to Watch is up to Week 5 – and continues to have a positive response. However, I think I’m going to have to diversify a bit and include at the very least BFBC2 vids.

MW2 Stimulus Pack
Xbox beta testers (hehehe)…. only five days to go! PS3 and PC – end of April apparently. I think we’ll see a resurgence of interest in MW2 from this – despite the grumblings that people have about the price. Personally, I’m looking forward to it and will be raiding the penny jar for this DLC. More info here.

Search Terms
Unfortunately I can’t better “phalanges of pterodactyl” in the search terms used to find this blog. For most of the week the search terms have been pretty constant with the top 5 being:
#5 heartbeat sensor noob
#4 modern warfare 2 vs bad company 2
#3 sasbenjr
#2 wings of redemption
#1 mw2 stimulus map pack

That is pretty much it for this week. There are a couple of other posts that have been made on various things. I hope this has found you well, and hasn’t taken up too much time to read. As ever, thanks for taking the time to read my posts and sharing your thoughts with me and the other readers.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Infinity Ward Demo of the MW2 Stimulus Pack

To be honest, I was expecting a bit more detail about the maps…..
If this was the only demo of the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 stimulus pack then I’d be thinking two things:

1 – they saw Heavy Rain and took their titling cues from that
and
2 – …..”hmm doesn’t seem worth the money” to buy five maps where you’re fighting two feet away from the enemy (like ‘Rust’ or ‘Shipment’ from Call of Duty 4).

So thankfully, and I already posted about this one, there is a better more rounded view of the map pack available:

With the amount of grumblings about the cost of the stimulus pack you’d think that Infinity Ward would be really pushing the boat out in the marketing of this. Or maybe they’ve decided that “less is more” is a suitable strategy. Or perhaps they know that even without advertising the map pack is probably going to be the biggest DLC seller this quarter, if not, this year.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Crazy Mirror People from Another Dimension?

There have been numerous rumours as to what will and will not be included in the much anticipated Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Pack. But none so controversial as the inclusion of Crazy Mirror People from Another Dimension. Information regarding their in game abilities has been scarce – Infinity Ward has kept that securely under wraps. But following a tip from Geoff (sasbenjr) I can now confirm that the Mirror People are known as “Snailartsua“.

You can see this clearly in the following video that Geoff sent me. It’s a Stimulus Pack video from WoodysGamertag:

Did you see it?

Here’s the still in case it wasn’t as obvious as we thought:

Snailartsua - Coming soon to MW2?

For those who may have missed it, I’ve zoomed cropped and done some other work of the devil to highlight the evidence that Snailartsua are about to make an appearance in MW2:

Ohhhh... Australians!

Obviously Infinity Ward and Activision have got wind of Geoff’s vids and decided to feature him – but in order to avoid paying him any royalties they’ve turned him into a Crazy Mirror Person from Another Dimension. *Cue Twighlight Zone music*

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Infinity Ward – Is this the end for gaming?

This post relates to the sacking/quitting of Jason West and Vince Zampella by Activision for “breach of contract and insubordination”. Now the only people who currently know what really happened are Jason West, Vince Zampella, and Activision. I’m not in a position to speculate on what happened, or who did what to whom and why (there are plenty of other resources to look at if that’s your thing) but I did want to touch on one rumour that was bandied about when the news broke. Allegedly Jason and Vince had had a meeting with EA Games and Activision got wind of it. How true that is may or may not come out in the wash, but the very notion of them being in discussions with EA fills me with horror.

To understand why, we need to step back in time……..

2002 – Medal of Honor:Allied Assault (developed by 2015 for EA) was launched to much fanfare and it was for the time a relative commercial success. It was my first real online PC shooter and I had just got the wonderous new technology called broadband so I was able to pwn some noobs (that’s not strictly true, I’m as bad at shooters now as I was then). It was a great game, except for cheating, hacks and exploits online being used by certain groups in the gaming world. At one point it became almost impossible to find a decent game. EA didn’t really address the issues to any meaningful extent and promised that everything would be sorted with the Spearhead expansion pack.

So the Spearhead expansion pack came out for a small amount of time everything was rosy. The expansion pack was good, the maps and new stuff added a new dimension to the game…..but then the cheats, hacks and exploits crept back in and we were back to square one. There were calls for EA to implement PunkBuster or similar technologies, or at the very least….do something.

Then two of the 2015 Medal of Honor guys left, founded Infinity Ward and there was word of a new WW2 shooter called Call of Duty in the pipeline. There was much discussion on the forums and within the groups that I was playing online with about the title. Don’t get me wrong, Medal of Honor was a fantastic game and I spent many hours playing it, but the title was sorely let down by EA. In the end it was obvious that EA only cared about retail sales and had no interest in resolving issues that the gaming community had.

When Call of Duty came out it really was a “Wow!” moment. The game was amazing. It was innovative, it looked good (for the time) and it pushed the boundaries. But even more important was the fact that Infinity Ward actually responded to the gaming community concerns, there was PunkBuster and even more crucially – they patched hacks and exploits quickly. It was like the Golden Age had arrived and its heralds were…..Jason West and Vince Zampella.

So for them to allegedly to have been meeting with EA would have been the end of gaming for me because I no longer buy EA games. Since 2003 every EA title I have purchased has been a disappointment. On the surface the games are pretty, but after playing for a while it’s obvious how repetitive and ugly they really are with clunky controls and glitches. Sometimes when playing EA games it feels like I’ve paid £45 to be a beta tester to find bugs that won’t get fixed – in 2007 I said enough was enough and blacklisted EA.

So there we have it, potentially the end of Infinity Ward as we know it, and unless someone else steps up to bat the end of FPS gaming for me (I don’t like Quake or Halo).

And in other news:

I’ve taken the Cheap Freaks off my controller due to slippage – read the update at the bottom of this post for more info.

It’s the weekend so I’ve been getting my arse handed to me online. I’d like to blame it on the fact that I couldn’t use my headset last night for the majority of time I was online, but in reality all that would have improved would’ve been the forewarning that I was about to get shot in the face. No scores or maps listed as it really doesn’t matter – I went negative on most of them. It was so bad I was considering ringing a victim support line…..

One highlight though was playing HighRise. I decided to try and play a bit more tactically on there after watching sasbenjr’s YouTube videos. Unfortunately there was some idiot running around with commando and the tactical knife…..and it wasn’t me! So after the third time he got me I changed to my Game Rage class but he was still getting me. Using some of sasbenjr’s tips the tac knife commando numpty became my bitch as he kept using the same route! After the fifth time killing him in the same place he became a bit more wary……which just made it easier. He was even the game winning kill cam to my MP5K – HOORAY! So even when you spend the evening being violated, there’s always a bright side.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Modern Warfare 2 Pet Peeves

I try to be as upbeat and positive as possible when playing and discussing a game (because we shouldn’t forget that Modern Warfare 2 is just a game at the end of the day) but recently I’ve been slipping into grumpy gripe mode. There’s a number of reasons for this and all of them are my fault except for two. The issues that are completely my fault and nothing to do with Infinity Ward or MW2 are:

I aim like I’ve had a thumb transplant from an alcoholic
I leave lobbies only to rejoin games that are in the their final death throws with me spawned on to the losing side

But there are two issues that frustrate me more than any other, and these are things that can be placed fairly and squarely at IW’s door:

Being invincible when you press melee with Commando equipped
Auto Aim

I’ve already posted a number of times regarding Commando – and while I don’t actually have a problem with the perk itself (and do have it equipped on my “Game Rage” class) I do have a problem with the level of invicibilty it bestows on the user. Under any other circumstances a user who is able to become impervious to bullets would be called a cheat/glitcher/hacker but not so with Commando. The perk itself sort of makes sense, but the outcome does not – knifing impossible distances, through walls, round corners, and all under a hail of bullets that would ordinarilly kill you so bad you’d have to respawn twice.

And auto aim……ugh! I came to console gaming from the PC. You didn’t have auto aim on the PC, if you did it was called and aimbot and you were a filthy cheat. I understand that console gaming is different and aiming can be harder to get right, but why don’t we have the option to turn the auto aim off!? It’s not so much of a problem with fully automatic or burst fire weapons. But when you’re reticule is dragged across the screen like you’ve got Alien Hand Syndrome becomes a real problem when you’re trying to level up the FAL or any other single fire weapon.

I think the majority of my aiming issues would be resolved if I could turn off the auto aim. That would only leave me being cock-eyed and having roving thumbs to sort out and I would be BEAST.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

The Invincible Commando

In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (also known as CoD6) there is a perk/ability called Commando. I’ve watched The Discovery Channel and know for a fact that real commandos don’t wear underpants, and can wipe their bums with a single sheet of toilet paper. Although double hard and twice as tough I’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere that commandos have some sort of supernatural shield that makes them impervious to bullets coupled with the ability to lunge forward an impossible distance to stab their enemy in the face.

In game, and it is a game so reality may be suspended at any time, if someone is shooting me then I basically can’t do anything unless I’m already shooting them and get a lucky hit in. However, if I’m shooting someone else and they have commando equipped they are mysteriously able to ignore the incoming hit markers and stab me to derff!

I don’t have a problem with commando as such. I use it on some of my classes to reduce fall damage (and so that I can lunge at someone from across the map when the sniper rifle failed to do the job). There are many people who complain about commando and call is ‘nooby’ (that old chestnut) or ‘cheap’ (the new ‘noob’), but just like everything else that people complain about in game they only complain about it when it doesn’t work for them. But, to a certain extent I agree that there is a problem with it.

The problem isn’t the lunging. It’s the invincibility of it. It would be more acceptable if the Commando Lunge only worked if you haven’t taken any damage, or at the very least are not in the process of being riddled with bullets. For example:

1 – Walk round the corner – uh-oh enemy in my face, no time to react, they haven’t reacted either….STAAAB! – perfectly acceptable.
2 – Walk round the corner – uh-oh enemy waiting for me, getting shot, STAAB – i r 1337!!!111!!!! – totally unacceptable.

Unlike other people who are calling on Infinity Ward to immediately remove Commando from the game – because that is not going to happen – I’d just like to see it toned down a bit, just have the “Suspend Reality” option turned off when the melee button is pressed.

The difference between normal knife distance and commando:

And here’s an example of running through a hail of bullets (it looks this guy had the little known perk “Teleport” equipped rather than Commando)

Your thoughts on Commando?

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE