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Black Ops thoughts
So I finally got around to completing Call of Duty: Black Ops’ singleplayer. I can’t say that I really enjoyed it as much as others seem to have. To me it felt much too scripted. To elaborate on that is that I ran into quite a few moments where because I did not do what the developers intended for me to do, I broke a sequence or got royally screwed over very quickly. Situations where I ran into enemies literally spawning infront of me in the open and my team being way behind me in an otherwise empty area. Why? Because one enemy out of their sight was still alive. He wasn’t even shooting at them, nor could he even see them.
Other than such moments it’s a competent shooter but I have to say that script-breaking really takes you out of the game and I often found myself thinking “Right, what do I have to do to get A or B to happen here..” As for the story I really enjoyed, it’s just such a shame that the big ‘twist’ towards the end was so obvious. I won’t go in to detail about it to prevent spoiling it for others but very early on there’s some things that gave it away. All the time after that I was thinking “But that’s not entirely true, or this doesn’t really make sense.”. As for my Veteran-run, screw that. I still died a couple of times(mainly just in 2 or 3 specific shots) but I really don’t feel like pushing myself onward for that, I really just wanted to have the singleplayer over with.
Overall it’s not a bad campaign but I much prefer Medal of Honor’s campaign. Maybe that is to do with the fact that I acted more like the developers expected me to or maybe I just got lucky as a lot of people have had similar complaints with both games. Medal of Honor has the better singleplayer experience and a competent multiplayer while Black Ops has a lackluster singleplayer but a bigger multiplayer aspect. Saying that I’ve had more issues connection-wise with Black Ops with people lagging, hosts dropping, lobbies hanging and other stuff.
So make whatever you want out of that really, it’s a mixed bag.
Medal of Honor, New Games
So I read an article on kotaku saying that EA/Dice have decided to switch the name of the Taliban to “Opposing Forces” due to all the complaints. I really don’t get why, sure it’s an ongoing conflict and there’s families who have family members stationed there actually fighting the taliban. But the game’s been developed with that setting and no matter what you call the Taliban, they’re still the taliban. You know it either way so… I’m really confused as to why they would do that. If I call an apple a “lantern”… it’s still an apple. Also There was this new trailer which looks good, I’m very excited for that game. 
I also bought a bunch of new games recently including some good old ones from GOG (Good Old Games) which recently made the news on just about any gaming site due to them shutting down, but it was awkwardly worded exactly for that purpose. What they instead did was re-launch the site and they’ve since added some big titles. I liked the site before but now it just seems that tad bit better to navigate as well. Gog, incase you didn’t know, is a site which as it name may suggest is focused on re-releasing older games and making sure that they’re compatible with current-generation pc’s. Many old games just don’t (fully) work on new systems or emulating them brings a lot of issues. Gog offers the games as a digital download including the game manual, artwork, wallpapers and other additions which are very welcome. If you ever wanted to play an older game again, you should definitely check them out. Oh, did I mention that everything is DRM-free? No limitations at all, which is a business practise I love.
As for some other games I bought outside of gog include Red Dead Redemption, MAG, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and The Dark Eye: Drakensang. Some new full-titles for my ps3 for sure as I just today finished Assassin’s Creed 2, which had a really good ending. Looking forward to the 3rd game for sure.
Upcoming releases and backlog of games
So I just realised today that I’ve got too many games to play. Too many, is that even possible!? Well, yes. Especially with some good games upcoming that I’m looking forward to.
So let’s see what games I’m currently playing or want to play in the future which I already own. On the PS3 there is: Assassin’s Creed 2, Darksiders, GTA4: Episodes, Resonance of Fate, Ratchet & Clank Future (the 2nd PSN and 3rd full game), Infamous and several PSN games.
On the PC I continue to play DiRT 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, The Longest Journey, Mount & Blade: Warband, Monkey Island 2: Special Edition, Napoleon Total War, Warhammer 40k – Dawn of War 2 + expansion, Dwarf Fortress and APB. Among those I’m leaving out some other decent titles as Necrovision: Lost Company, King’s Bounty and others.
So what about the future then?
26th Aug – Worms: Reloaded
27th Aug – Mafia II
8th Sep – Amnesia
24th Sep – Civilization 5
?? Sep – R.U.S.E
15th Oct – Medal of Honor
3rd Nov – Gran Turismo 5
8th Mar ’11 – Dragon Age II
To me it looks like many months of great gaming ahead, but I fear I might just not have time to play through all of these games as much as I’d like to.
So are there any other games I’m forgetting about to further strain my gaming time?
Thoughts on the Medal of Honor beta
As you may have read in the previous post I have pre-ordered Medal of Honor, with that came access to the beta. Now I, myself had been wondering what to do with this game, it’s made by 2 studios, each focussing on a different aspect and even using a different engine for it. Now I’m a fan of Battlefield Bad Company 2, which is made by DICE, who also are making the multiplayer for Medal of Honor.
So what does the beta offer? It has 2 maps and 2 modes, 1 map per mode. There are 2 teams, US Forces and the Taliban as it’s set in Afghanistan. Furthermore there are 3 classes which have different focusses. There’s the rifleman who is a straight up fighter with assault rifles and 40mm grenades(which aren’t as powerful as in BC2 or ‘noobtubes’ in MW2), the engineer class with a lighter submachine gun and a rocket launcher and finally a sniper, who’s focus should be pretty self-explanatory.
When you kill another player you’ll get points(standard 10), with bonuses for knife kills, defensive kills etcetera. At 40points, you’ll get access to a killstreak, the interesting thing is that there’s 2 kinds: Offensive and Defensive killstreaks, these seem to be given randomly as an offensive is mostly a kind of airstrike of which I’ve seen Mortar Strike, Mobile Rocket Strikes and even Missile Strikes. The defensive ones are much more interesting as they will offer your entire team a bonus, for example a UAV to show enemy locations, ammunition resupplies, flak jackets etcetera. This way you don’t know what you will get and you’ll have to consider the options given the current situation.
I’ll give a brief example of how these killstreaks can work out, I was on the taliban team and the goal was to defend an AA-station which was getting assaulted by an M3 Bradley APC and about to get overrun as someone had activated the UAV so I could see the amount of enemies rushing forward. I popped up from cover and quickly sniped 2 guys down with 4 shots, which gave me enough points for a killstreak, I got a missile Strike which I immediately pointed at the APC as we didn’t have anybody to take it out. It managed to destroy it and in the process take down 1 or 2 soldiers standing around it, this gave me enough points for another killstreak which was a mobile rocket strike, which does less damage but over a bigger area(or so I believe) so I threw it down around a big rock that’s part of the assaulting team’s cover and managed to kill 4 guys, giving me another killstreak by which time I got another killstreak and my team had taken positions again so I got a nice Flak Jackets for my team to make them survive longer and I ran forward to get into a better position where I got great cover from my team and managed to snipe down another 6 players who were running towards the goal. It’s moments like that which make you love a game, such perfect storms are rare but mindblowing.
About the modes, there’s a direct team deathmatch in which it’s just all about score. The other mode resembles Rush from Bad Company 2 where one team is rushing for objectives, be it blowing up a barricade, disabling Anti-Aircraft stations or holding a village. I’ve played roughly 2hours of each so I think I have a decent idea by now. I’m quite curious what else they could be adding to the game, I’m expecting a Conquest mode(Holding territory to gain points) and a Capture the Flag-type of mode.
What’s my impression then? As others have previously reported it’s quite a mix between Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2, but to me it’s mostly the engine as it’s the same as Bad Company 2. It doesn’t have the swiftness of MW2, but it feels like it’s doing it’s own thing, which is positive. Now what can I say about the visuals? It looks really good, believe me. it’s also not as demanding as Bad Company 2, while looking better. But the most important aspect, how does it feel to play? It feels really good, much to my surprise. The action is a ton of fun and the AK-47/74 and M4/16 are really precise, which makes it awesome for ranged kills, you can literally just sit down, aim and throw out 3 short bursts and the person’d be dead.
That brings me to the next point, don’t expect to survive much in this game. If someone spots you in the open – you’re pretty much dead. Weapons are really accurate as I said and you don’t take much punishment at all. What this causes is really quick action where you both have to be alert and careful. The only thing that can bring this game down is bad support, lack of maps, weapons and unlocks in general. Another little part that I don’t like is the look of the red dot sight, the acog sight is quite alright. But it’s probably something I have yet to get used to.