The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments. - Friedrich Nietzsche
He who strikes the first blow admits he’s lost the argument.
- Chinese Proverb
The reason I talk to myself is that I’m the only one whose answers I accept.
- George Carlin
It is one thing to try to convince me of something that is tenuous at best. But it is something else entirely to tell me that my own eyes and ears are lying to me.
So I find it a little distressing to have gaming portal 1up.com tell me that my own senses cannot be trusted. Perhaps they assume my eyesight and hearing are so poor that I am physically incapable of watching, let alone understanding, footage of two men talking clearly and coherently into microphones while being recorded on video.
A wonderful surprise awaits Xbox 360 owners today, as the long-awaited multiplayer demo for Battlefield Bad Company 2 has finally arrived.
Bad Company 2 represents the biggest challenger to Modern Warfare 2’s supremacy. Though it is unlikely Bad Company 2 will remove Modern Warfare from its perch, it will hopefully make a large dent in its popularity. My dislike of Modern Warfare 2 is well-documented. I consider it nothing more than Halo in disguise with dopey gameplay, poor balance, sloppy design and worst of all, completely broken multiplayer (on every platform!).
Modern Warfare 2 was a major disappointment.
Bad Company 2 looks like a completely different beast. Grit, carnage, tactics, teamplay, vehicles, aircraft, objectives….and a completely destructible environment. In my humble opinion, Battlefield Bad Company 2 will mop the floor with Modern Warfare 2, offering far more gameplay and variety, graphics every bit as good (if not better, considering the environmental destruction), and best of all: dedicated servers, so multiplayer will actually be smooth for everyone, not some illusion of balance that Modern Warfare 2 foolishly believes is acceptable.
Back when Modern Warfare 2 was released for the PC, all hell broke loose because Infinity Ward had abandoned a long-standing tradition of dedicated server support for PC-based games. In short, PC games of old allowed anyone to setup and host a multiplayer server, a great convenience that allowed for custom maps and mods.
Infinity Ward suffered a PR nightmare from which they refused to budge. In turn, sales of Modern Warfare 2 were not in line with expectations. Seeing an opening, DICE, developers of Battlefield and the forthcoming Bad Company 2, issued forth press-releases in the hopes of taking advantage of the ill-will.
An example:
A lot of buzz has been floating around the internet lately about dedicated servers and we wanted to make sure our all our players have the best understanding of how Battlefield will be played on the PC. Since Battlefield 1942 DICE has used dedicated servers for all platforms. This formula has worked well, and still works well, for us and for the gaming community. We have stayed true to this practice and will continue this tradition into the upcoming title Battlefield Bad Company 2.
The folks over at InfoAddict have a bit of a reputation for not being shy when it comes to sharing their opinion and they have taken a lot of heat for it in the past. It seems they didn’t learn their lessons though and they have gone after another much-loved property – the recent Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 release, and they definitely aren’t pulling their punches.
Here’s just a snippet…
Here’s the deal: I’d say a good 60-70% of the time I am picked as a host in Modern Warfare 2. I can tell immediately that I am the host as the game behaves slightly different. Sound-effects of an automatic gun become more compressed and, worst of all, it takes nearly twice as many bullets to fell an opponent than when I am NOT hosting. My average score in a typical, non-hosted game is about 20-8. If I am hosting, this reverses to 8-20. Every…time.
This huge discrepancy ruins the game and reveals the overall illusion that stinks up Modern Warfare 2. It tells me that when I think I’m doing well, it’s probably because other players are lagging and when I’m doing bad, it’s not because I suck. In short, multiplayer is fundamentally flawed in Modern Warfare 2. Those of you with crappy connections will probably never be selected as host so you go on your merry way thinking you’re better than you probably are.
Once again Modern Warfare 2 is making the news and not for a good reason. Unlike last week, which found players exploiting a bug that allowed an individual to explode, this time around we have something more nefarious: a bug that spreads like a virus, infecting all players who come into contact with the carrier.
According to reports, players get “infected” by unwittingly joining a private match hosted by a carrier. They then get hit by the same issue — unlimited ammo and no reloads — and can pass it on if the end up hosting any games themselves. Allegedly, it’s “spreading like an STD.”
This unique issue started out as a mod on the PC version of the game, which we spoke about yesterday. It has been transported to the Xbox 360 and put to more sinister work. Infinity Ward is apparently “working” on the issue, and it appears that Microsoft is wielding its banhammer for anybody caught employing it.
Obviously, Infinity Ward has fucked up once again. Worse, they are threatening bans (once again) for anyone found exploiting their crappy code. How about we ban Infinity Ward for not open beta-testing their product like they did with the original Modern Warfare?
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