So I just finished playing Prototype for Xbox 360: a game in which you Chuck Norris a blackhawk helicopter. I have no qualms with this game, save for the AI. You play as a walking, talking virus who can run up the side of the Empire State building and do a back-flip off the top and punch through a tank as you land. Yet, the “highly-trained” marines charged with the sole duty of taking you down don’t find this suspicious in the slightest. They will simply stare at you as you do this. Occasionally they’ll chatter on about reporting you to command, but then they do nothing. Even if you steal a tank right off of their bases, they’ll hardly glance at you. The only way they notice is if you turn your hand into a fifty-foot whip to cut a group of people in half. Then they’ll sort-of fire at you until you climb over a building. Their patience for chasing you is usually only one city block.
Halo 3, on the other hand, is all kinds of pissing me off. I started playing again this week for the opportunity to win special armour. However, to get this, I’d have to magically find myself in a match with Bungie employees. There’s about fifty of them and 300,000 people trying to play against them, and they’re going up against only five people at a time in matches that last about ten minutes. You do the math. Obviously, I never got the opportunity. The problem is: the other geniuses playing had the bright idea of quitting during regular matches to “increase” their odds of finding a Bungie opponent. Which meant I’d frequently find myself alone after four other teammates abandoned me, and would be pitted against five other opponents and having to steal their team’s flag. Good times. Of course if I chose to quit as well, I’d be penalized.
I was honestly hoping to find just one Bungie employee, not because I want the armour so much as I want to shoot them in the face again and again. The little dropout problem I just described is just one of the many faults the game has. If a player drops, another should be able to join in to replace them. Fucking World at War lets you do that, and without disrupting the game. I love it when I’m about to pistol-whip someone in the back of the head only to be taken to a “Migrating Host” screen, and have to wait up to two whole minutes to return somewhere unexpected, and the little prick I was about to cap manages to shoot me through the eyes.
Also: if a game is best out of five, the game should end when one team has scored three points. It shouldn’t go on for another two fucking rounds. What’s the point of that? Are we expected to a make a mathematically impossible comeback? There’s literally no point. None. You’re wasting an extra ten to twenty-minutes of my life.
When you Veto a round of Capture the Flag, and there’s other options available in the playlist, the room should not in any circumstances bounce you over to another round of Capture the Flag, but with a different map. The maps don’t matter. In other online shooters like World at War, Capture the Flag is one of the least popular games in the playlist. Oh! AND THEY HAVE MORE THAN FOUR OPTIONS.
Plus: jumping and shooting should never be combined outside of Super Mario. People should not be able to magically leap over me as I’m trying to shoot them. It’s not realistic. It’s not a fucking skill. It’s just you pressing the “A” button. It shouldn’t be so fucking effective.
Anyway: I was playing again today in another glorious round of Capture the Flag, and one guy is just mouthing off about how everyone else on the team sucks, which starts about two seconds after the game begins, and hence no one can distribute any displays of skill. Later, in the game, he’s got the flag, and I drive up next to him, ready to take him back to base in style. There’s an enemy on him, and I run the red fucker over. He tells me I suck, and doesn’t get on. …WTF? Seriously, I just saved your life, and set us up for a win, which you turn down, and I suck. Sorry!
I always notice how my Rep goes down, but only after playing Halo 3. It’s all for “Unsportsmanlike” conduct, but I don’t know how that is. I don’t team-kill, meaning I don’t bash fellow teammates in the back of their heads and steal the flag they’re carrying when they’re about to score a win. I got “Unsportsmanlike” once while playing World at War, but I believe that’s because I like to take grenade guns and just repeatedly bomb the shit out of whatever hidey-hole the enemy is in, which is being kind of a douche.
No comments:
Post a Comment