Oh the gimmicks

When i first played call of duty i could find no fault in it, the first modern warfare was a masterpiece of gaming. I make no excuses here, i love call of duty, i still have bones to pick with it though, and am definitely not beyond giving it a good telling off every now and then.

The first thing i ever found at fault with Call Of Duty came with Modern Warfare 2, there was a horrible tendency for something extremely unrealistic to happen. When you where killed, if you were doing something, i.e. shooting an enemy, throwing a piece of equipment at an enemy, your bullets had a horrible tendency to just completely disappear into thin air, and any grenade you where throwing will either do the same, or just drop harmlessly at your feet, unless your opponent walks over your body and youve dropped a grenade, although in MW3 its still extremely unlikely to kill the guy.

Modern Warfare 3 does not have the bullet disappearing problem, however the gods of game design at Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer and Treyarch have decided that the animation for throwing knives takes too long to complete if someone is shooting you. I never used throwing knives in Modern warfare 2, i couldn't get the aiming them right, but i started using the black ops equivalent the tomahawk, because it sometimes got me out of sticky situations. Now i am sick of tired, when i go to throw a knife at someone in MW3, because of how long the animation takes, the last thing i see before respawning is my body hitting the floor and my knife clattering harmlessly to the ground next to it. However, whenever i kill someone about to throw a knife, they manage to throw it and the damn thing laser targets to my fucking face. Every. Damn. Time.

My final problem has become the knife, not until MW3 have i found massive fault with it. MW2 had the perk commando, which made your knife lunge/ riot shield melee go that little extra distance to reach the target, but of course you HAD to have the perk if you wanted to lunge 6 feet towards someones face with your blade. Black Ops introduced the Ballistic Knife, but removed the perk commando, though you could now fire the knife cross map, it was extremely hard to hit someone, and the lunge was consistent. You also had to sacrifice having a secondary you could rely on, beyond 4 feet. The normal knife was also extremely consistent, with only occasional ridiculouslness. Now the MW3 knife is the most ridiculous thing about the game. Sometimes you can be right in someones face, you can slice across their throat, and even hear the noise for the knife hitting a player, but he still knifes you. Watching the kill cam is even more infuriating, as you see them walk straight past you, knife the air where you where about half a second ago, and it kills you. The lunge alone is completely insane, people have lunged 6 feet at me, straight through a shotgun shell that was heading for their face. There are actually moments that when you WITHIN a certain difference you know the knife wont hit at all. Ive been knifed in the air between me and the guy behind me, ive been lunged around corners, ive played with friends and we have actually all been unable to knife one guy at all, host advantage to the extreme? 

I would tweet at Robert Bowling to try resolve these issues, but he has way too many things to deal with when it comes to MW3, and im sure my adolescent whining is definitely not very high up his lists, so to any readers this blog might have, i ask you, what are your problems with MW3, especially compared to other CoD games. 

Go To Hell

I recently picked up Dante's Inferno for the xbox, simply because i wanted to play God Of War but i dont have a PS3. Everything i'd heard about this game told me to just stay the fuck away, poor reviews, everyone i know that had played it said it was just a poor God Of War rip off. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the game is in fact quite enjoyable, though extremely frustrating at times.

It is loosely based on the first part of Dante Alighieri's epic poem the Divine Comedy, written in the 14th century, you play the part of Dante, a Templar who has committed many atrocities in the Third Crusade. He must fight his way through the nine circles of hell to save his dead wife's soul, that has been taken by Lucifer because of an oath to her Dante had broken. You must get through all nine levels, guided by the soul of the Roman poet Virgil,  facing each of Dante's sins, which have been inflicted upon his dead friends and relatives. As it turns out you where meant to serve a much higher purpose of freeing Lucifer from his prison in the Ninth circle, before you turn the souls of the damned against him and re trap him.

The actual gameplay is very much like God Of War, and you can take this in two ways; mash any attack button your thumb finds until all the enemies are dead or you've died so many times you cant be arsed with it any more, or you can take time over your attacks, stringing together impressive combos and unleashing the deadly array of powerful moves you can acquire throughout your journey. Learning to do the latter will save you much frustration, and will make your experience with this game much more enjoyable, as i found out.

All in all, it is a very poor adaptation of the poem, however if you are looking for a great hack and slash game with a twist, and some brutal finishing moves, which never get old either, then Dante's Inferno is definitely for you. Unless you have a PS3, then you may as well just get God of War.

All it takes is the will, of a single man

Modern Warfare 3 has to be the most enjoyable, yet at the same time infuriating game i have ever played. After a very shaky start where i lamented why i had paid 90 quid for a game i was playing awfully. Then suddenly, something clicked, after a month of almost never going positive in any game, i was able to actually get decent kills in a game, with much less deaths. I picked up the L118A sniper rifle, and hit some great shots and streaks. But then came the quickscopers, the Striker fags and the type 95 whores. Robert Bowling has stated that the Striker, Type 95 and the FMG9 akimbos have been nerfed, when as soon as you run into a single person using one of them, you get instantly decimated.

I resent the type 95, so much so that if i have no ammo and the only thing on the floor to pick up is a type 95, i will rather die even if im on a huge streak, and have done many times. I recently decided to start using the M16A4, widely accepted as the worst assault rifle in MW3, just to prove the point, and its actually very underestimated, it just takes skill to use as it doesnt always get one bursts. I also use any other shotgun than the striker, the USAS is my personal favourite.

The other problem with MW3, the spawns. There is a glitch where two enemies that die then spawn in have a chance of spawning literally on each others toes, and this isnt a rare occurrence, it happens all the time. I have actuslly seen someone get killed, spawn basically on his corpse, and dies instantly again, cause the dude hasnt let go of the trigger. There is also the problem of just crap spawns in general.

Other than those things it is an otherwise masterpiece of Multiplayer brilliance, and the campaign is tied together and finished off very well, and survival puts the game in a class of its own, it certainly isnt zombies, but its definitely a good gametype, and a nice addition to a brilliant game. Infinity Ward, Treyarch and Sledgehammer games, i salute you.

Ooh-fuckin-rah

Dubbed by the Fox News channel as the "worst game in the world", this is of course Bulletstorm. The game is almost comical in it's layout and gameplay, with the ability to kick your enemies massive distances. The game introduces you to a band of rouge pirates, bent on seeing their old general killed for the atrocities he made them commit. You play the part of Grayson Hunt, the leader of the AWOL Echo team, as they bring down the Ulysses with their ex general Serrano on board.

They crash onto a deserted planet paradise, that has been overrun by mutant plants, gangs and mutated humanoids called 'Burnouts'. You have to fight your way through them to get the general Serrano and get an evac off world.

The games battle sequences revolve around the skillshot system, which sees you earning points for more and more ludicrous kills. This makes the game much more replay-able as you will be aiming to get 100% for the skillshots. There is also the fact there are five different difficulties, with achievements for each one on normal and above. The gameplay itself is very simple, one review has said its a "brilliant game packaged in a stupid one" which is actually the most accurate way I can think of describing this.

If you want story then your better off going else where because that is one thing this game is severely lacking.

Ooh-fuckin-rah

Dubbed by the Fox News channel as the "worst game in the world", this is of course Bulletstorm. The game is almost comical in it's layout and gameplay, with the ability to kick your enemies massive distances. The game introduces you to a band of rouge pirates, bent on seeing their old general killed for the atrocities he made them commit. You play the part of Grayson Hunt, the leader of the AWOL Echo team, as they bring down the Ulysses with their ex general Serrano on board.

They crash onto a deserted planet paradise, that has been overrun by mutant plants, gangs and mutated humanoids called 'Burnouts'. You have to fight your way through them to get the general Serrano and get an evac off world.

The games battle sequences revolve around the skillshot system, which sees you earning points for more and more ludicrous kills. This makes the game much more replay-able as you will be aiming to get 100% for the skillshots. There is also the fact there are five different difficulties, with achievements for each one on normal and above. The gameplay itself is very simple, one review has said its a "brilliant game packaged in a stupid one" which is actually the most accurate way I can think of describing this.

If you want story then your better off going else where because that is one thing this game is severely lacking.

Ooh-fuckin-rah

Dubbed by the Fox News channel as the "worst game in the world", this is of course Bulletstorm. The game is almost comical in it's layout and gameplay, with the ability to kick your enemies massive distances. The game introduces you to a band of rouge pirates, bent on seeing their old general killed for the atrocities he made them commit. You play the part of Grayson Hunt, the leader of the AWOL Echo team, as they bring down the Ulysses with their ex general Serrano on board.

They crash onto a deserted planet paradise, that has been overrun by mutant plants, gangs and mutated humanoids called 'Burnouts'. You have to fight your way through them to get the general Serrano and get an evac off world.

The games battle sequences revolve around the skillshot system, which sees you earning points for more and more ludicrous kills. This makes the game much more replay-able as you will be aiming to get 100% for the skillshots. There is also the fact there are five different difficulties, with achievements for each one on normal and above. The gameplay itself is very simple, one review has said its a "brilliant game packaged in a stupid one" which is actually the most accurate way I can think of describing this.

If you want story then your better off going else where because that is one thing this game is severely lacking.

Halo 4?!?!?!

Microsoft have announced there will be another game in the Halo franchise, Halo 4. After saying that they weren't gonna continue the story of master chief, bungie have sold the rights for the game to Microsoft, who have created an internal division to oversee the Halo franchise. They called this division 343 Industries and, would you believe it, it has a lot of ex bungie halo staff...

The trailer looks promising, showing the chief waking from cryo stasis aboard the frigate Forward Unto Dawn, the front half of which crashed onto earth with the Arbiter within it. The chief awakes and initiates boss mode, flying through the remains of the ship and grabbing a Magnum pistol. The camera view pans out, to show him standing at the front of the broken ship, looking towards a massive covenant ship, it's docking port wide open waiting for the Dawn.

Early indications from this trailer make the game very promising, if said trailer is showcasing some of the available abilities and gameplay.