Humiliation Defined - Death in MW2

AS POSTED AT SFX-360.COM

Humiliation is defined by Webster as "to reduce to a lower position in one's own eyes or others' eyes." In the world of multiplayer video games, there is a gamut of ways to be reduced to a lower position in your eyes or in the eyes of your online opponent. This little opinion piece could literally be pages upon pages, each listing a number of humiliating ways to perish in various video games. Instead of boring you with just a list, I will focus mainly on mortifying ways to succumb in the hot game of the moment: Modern Warfare 2.

When I speak of humiliating ways to die, I am not talking about dying by the pre-patch javelin glitch or the noob tube into your spawn. What I am talking about here is, as the kids say, "getting owned" or the popular variant, "getting pwned". So here you go, here are some of the controller breaking, leg punching, drywall busting, swear a blue streak to make a sailor blush, most humiliating ways to die in Modern Warfare 2:

1. The Throwing Knife - Nothing quite promotes the common utterance, "what the f*ck?", like the throwing knife. There are a couple of different levels of humiliation with the throwing knife. There is the sneak up on the enemy from behind, line it up, and let it fly throwing knife deaths. This fashion is not that humiliating. The one that makes you hang your head in shame is the one where you line the dude up in your sights and right before you pull the trigger...whap. Right between the eyes. You can pretend that you do not know what I am talking about, but you know...

2. The Riot Shield - This plastic shield of death is pure pain with the right player behind it. We have all seen the noobs try to use it without great success. What is scary is the veteran player uses it with the proper perks/equipment. It is a bit scary to see this monster slowly walking toward you as you throw everything in your arsenal at him. You empty your clip at him. He lumbers forward. You noob tube. He moves forward. You stick him with Semtex. He laughs and presses on. You try to flashbang him and you stun yourself. Before you know it, he gives you the first love tap. As you panic to fight off the plastic shielded juggernaut of doom, he taps you again and sends you to meet your maker.

3. The Predator Missile: Now I am sure that you are thinking to yourself, how is the Predator missile a humiliating way to die? Sure, we have all been hit by them, but doesn't it seem that sometimes they are picking on you? Ever think that perhaps they ARE picking on you? Whenever I have the chance to drop one of these whistling death angels, I fight the urge to drop it into the crowd of red squares. Instead, I look for the guy that is trying his hardest to avoid getting hit. You know, the one red square that is making a mad dash from the pack to avoid the incoming missile...yeah, I always aim for him. That son of a gun looks like he has the most to lose. Hopefully it ruins a lot of kill streaks.

4. The Care Package - Yeah, sure...like you have never been killed by getting hit by one of your own care packages. If you haven't, good for you. If you have, you know it sucks. It is even more embarrassing if the enemy drops one of his packages on you.

5. The Self Death - This one comes in a variety of pretty packages: Falling off a building, misjudging a cooked grenade, hiding behind a burning car, holding down your post next to the burning barrel, etc...

So there you have it. I, like many others, have been on the receiving end of every one of these ways to depart the virtual earth (with the exception of being hit by the enemy care package - that is just wrong). If you have other embarrassing stories or ways to die, please share them in the comments below. Happy fragging!

Halo Hype Claims Another

AS POSTED AT SFX-360.COM

Perhaps I was one of the only gamers in the Universe that was not excited about Halo: Reach. Before you all flame me off the interwebs, let me explain…

Let me give you some background. I am a Call of Duty/Gears of War kind of guy. I like the Halo series and I find it entertaining, but I lack the fan boy drive that makes me want to eat, sleep, and dream about John 117. I have played the campaign and I have fought numerous multi-player battles, but for some reason, something was always seemed to be missing from the franchise for me. Perhaps it is because I am not that skilled on the multiplayer front. I can hold my own, but as a matter of routine, I receive free lessons from the community on the finer points of the tea bag. There is something very humbling about getting dismantled by a 11-year-old and then being told all about it in the lobby. My humility aside, new Halo games and Halo map packs were reason for the “Halo Kids” to stop screeching in my ear on Call of Duty and move back to the lands of Cortana and the Flood.

All of that changed two days ago. My new issue of Game Informer arrived in my mailbox and I was immediately enthralled by the cover. This front and back beauty provided a little taste of what Halo: Reach was about in beautiful muted tones. I gawked at the hulking Spartan, I looked over the shoulder of a leader Spartan, I saw a smaller Spartan, I gazed at a Spartan with a skull design painted on his helmet, I scanned over a ravaged landscape. Excited, I flipped right to the Halo: Reach article and dug in. I devoured the article word for word and carefully dissected the pictures. Shocked by what I was doing, I stopped. I could not believe what was happening to me. I became genuinely excited for this game, giddy even.

Wrestling with my thoughts, I began to think through what was making me so excited for this game. Now that I am thinking more clearly, I have compiled a list of reasons below for our faithful readers:

Squads: We have seen what one Spartan is capable of. Imagine what kinds of awesome a squad of Spartans can provide?

Class Based: Working in conjunction with the squad theory, it seems fairly obvious that Halo: Reach will be class based. Finally, you will be able to specialize in your favorite brand of combat. Does this mean no more races to the sniper? Heavy Gunner, Sniper, Scout; they all seem to be represented in Reach.

New Weapons/Armor/Vehicles: The Game Informer article briefly touched on some of the new weapons. A needler rifle? A Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR)?, Armor abilities, a Falcon attack/transport vehicle? Yes please.

Back story: The Halo Universe is deep and well crafted. The events of Reach allegedly take place before Halo: Combat Evolved. Any prequel that shines more light on the Halo Universe is sure to be gripping.

An updated Halo Engine: If the Game Informer screen shots are any indication, serious upgrades have made to the Halo Engine. This means better graphics and a better overall game play experience.

Modern Warfare 2: What? Yes. Modern Warfare 2. For once, Bungie has a challenger to the FPS throne. Modern Warfare has swiped Bungie’s thunder and has become the premier FPS (sorry kiddies, it’s true). This forces Bungie to up the ante. Competition leads to better products and service for the consumer. This is Bungie’s chance to regain the FPS heavyweight title and we all benefit from it.

The Public Beta: Modern Warfare 2 may be the current king, but a number of bugs and glitches have left dissension among the ranks. A public beta would have served it well and likely would have prevented a number of bugs and glitches that pushed some players away in the first months. That said, Bungie realizes the value of a good public beta. Allowing throngs of the biggest Halo fans to pound on an early code of game will provide Bungie with invaluable data and hopefully prevent game breaking glitches. Let us not forget about the obvious here; the public beta also gives early access to the most anticipated game of the year.

Bungie’s Last Hurrah: Halo: Reach is also Bungie’s last (announced) Halo game. If this really is true, you can bet your right arm that they are going out with a bang. I, for one, am really looking for to it.

Flawed Beauty: Modern Warfare 2 Mulitplayer

AS POSTED AT SFX-360.COM

Three weeks post the release of Modern Warfare 2, I challenge you to ponder the following: Is this the game we were expecting? Let me preface this by saying that I am huge fan of Infinity Ward and the quality titles they produce. I have logged some serious hours on their Call of Duty games (50 plus days on CoD4 and at least that much on CoD2). As sad as that fact may be, I feel comfortable offering critique and constructive criticism.

I love Modern Warfare 2. I really do. That said, I just cannot help but feeling a bit cheated by it. Faulty multiplayer lobbies, glitches, overpowered weapons. Wait a minute…is this really a title developed by Infinity Ward?

Call of Duty 2 was the pinnacle of beautiful, simplistic first person shooter. The only choices the player faced was weather to be a rifleman, sniper or machine gunner. Every player spawned with three grenades and a smoke. It was simple and it just worked. Modern Warfare came along and expanded beautifully on the tried and true formula used by Call of Duty 2. Modern Warfare expanded player options and added some minor role playing elements called perks. This would allow for differing styles of play. If the player wanted to camp and snipe, they could. If another player wanted to go silent and infiltrate, they could. Infinity Ware took these minor role playing elements and beautifully expanded on the Call of Duty experience. The result was a AAA title that easily held up for the two years until the release of Modern Warfare 2.

Ah yes, Modern Warfare 2. I cannot recall being more excited for a game than I was for Modern Warfare 2. I fulfilled my nerd obligation and ordered the Prestige Edition. I wanted in the cold for a midnight launch. I took time off work. I played on launch day until I could hardly see. This game blew my socks off.
All was well until about a week after launch. Regular play started to reveal some disturbing and frustrating trends:

1. The Lobby System: A highly touted and anticipated game to ship with a borked lobby system is a no-no. Joining lobbies regularly turns into games of "Who did we lose?" and "Back out, we dropped so-and-so". This is inexcusable when there are countless games that have fully functioning multiplayer lobbies. See Bungie/Halo 3.

2. Overpowered Weapons: I am sure I do not even have to expand on this point, but I will anyway. Akimbo Shotguns. Shotguns should not have the range of an assault rifle. For some reason, the Akimbo 1887s do. Not sure why...they just do. Even the great Penny Arcade made reference with the recent comic strip, "Witchblades". These little doozys need to be seriously nerfed with the first title update.

3. Glitches: The Javelin glitch anyone? Is this glitch ruining the multiplayer experience for anyone else? Headquarters and Domination are virtually unplayable thanks to this oversight. Infinity Ward Community Manager, Robert Bowling (@fourzerotwo) announced via Twitter this week that a patch was in test and would be pushed through Microsoft certification as soon as it was done. It is disappointing that the game was even released with this in the first place. More glitches seem to be popping up daily. I refuse to mention them here as I do not wish to promote their already inevitable spread.

I cannot help but think that Modern Warfare would have greatly benefited from the public beta that its predecessor was afforded. Having millions of hardcore Call of Duty fans beat on the game prior to its release to the general public likely would have solved the problems that are marring the multiplayer experience. Public testers are the best kind of testers. I wish Infinity Ward would have utilized us better.

No matter how mad I get at this game, I still love it. It is kind of like a kid that crashes the family station wagon. Sure you are mad, but you still love them. I have no doubt in my mind that Infinity Ward will make things right with the first update. I am just a little disappointed that I have to wait an extended period of time to enjoy the game the way it was meant to be played.