Titanfall: Doing It Right

I have always enjoyed games from the Call of Duty series.  I think they are a fun, brainless way to pass time, laugh with friends, or vent frustrations.  With the last couple releases, the Call of Duty online experience has become so intense that there is little value for the casual player.  Having releases every year causes the learning curve to approach so fast and so steep that it can be impossible to keep up.

Titanfall provides the action and fun of the online multiplayer experience, without all the baggage.  Of course, there are some players that magically become pros the instant the game loads up.  But for the most part, everyone is wading through these foreign waters together.  

There has always been a presence on the Internet that would like multiplayer and solo campaign games to be separate.  In the case of CoD, even the zombie levels should probably consist of their own title.  Instead of cramming all this into one, Titanfall poured all their attention into the multiplayer game.  With no focus being given to a single player story, the end result of Titanfall is near perfection.

The only decision I don't quite understand about Titanfall is why there is a multiplayer campaign.  The story is almost non-existent.  I played through and I don't remember any part of it; I was too busy messing with my loadouts.  The campaign consists of lobbies that play exactly like the regular, multiplayer game.  Developers really could have just left the game as Red Team vs Blue Team; we don't need a backstory.

While I have never enjoyed achievements that are based on online play, I think the goals they set are manageable.  For those of you who were raised in the Call of Duty era, give Titanfall a try for something a bit more fresh.

Back In The Saddle

Achievos has long been a sounding board for about all things Call of Duty both positive and negative.  While I was initially a fan of Modern Warfare 3, I have spent almost no time playing it.  Previous titles pulled upwards of forty hours of my free time every week.  Since its release, MW3 has been on the shelf for almost two months straight. 

This title's absence from my disc tray is in no way a reflection of the game itself.  If nothing else, there have been so many amazing single player games that keeping up with those and jumping in for online matches has been impossible.  Now that some of the games in my que are wrapped up and I have a little more time, I popped in MW3 expecting the worst.

With online games as massive as Call of Duty, there will always be large numbers of people who play obsessively.  If you want any chance of keeping up, its best to play as often as possible right out the gate.  Since I set the game aside in December and hadn't picked it up since, I braced myself when I joined my first lobby of 2012.

Much to my surprise, I did great !  Actually, I did mediocre.  My first two matches had my KDR breaking even but rose to slightly positive for the third match !  In the past, I have obsessed over ranking up weapons, prestiging, and monitoring my KDR and other stats.  When playing this time, I was way more relaxed and not caring about the score or my performance.

To keep myself from falling back into the old patterns of caring too much about wins, loses, and KDR, I will probably not play MW3 more than once a week.  I still have plenty of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to keep me busy until SSX and ME3 begin ruining my life at the end of the month.  But it is nice to know that I can walk away and still have a little bit of skill when I return.  Its even more reassuring that stressful games can still be fun if you give yourself a chance to relax.

Growing Older and Hopefully Wiser

When I was a little kid, I disliked many foods.  I hated cheese until I was 10 years old.  I didn't understand how people could possibly think it tasted good.  The thought of putting a slice of American on my sandwich sent me into tantrums.  I also used to hate mushrooms, but I now order them on everything I possibly can.  I don't know how it happened.  From burgers to omelets, cheese and mushrooms have become my new favorites.  Like this inexplicable change in physical taste, I have completely evolved in my gaming.

I am not a person who plays for the sake of nostalgia.  Just because I loved a game when I was a little kid, doesn't mean I have unrelenting loyalty to the franchise for the decades that followed.  While some series have taken dramatic nose dives in terms of quality, the ones that remain consistent seem to bore me. 

As a small child, I played the few games that were available like Zelda, Mario, and Sonic.  Through the years, I began leaving those behind and playing more sports games.  NBA Street, SSX, and even a little hockey filled my college years.  As the latest generation of consoles came out, I was inundated with new games.  While my preferences before may have come from lack of choices due to the young age of the industry, my adult gaming experiences were saturated in shooters.  I have spent years pouring myself in Call of Duty.  I joined a clan, played competitively, and obsessed over my statistics.

Now, even after spending the last four years dedicated to one genre, I find myself moving on again.  I can't get enough RPGs in my life.  I have always played RPGs here and there.  Growing up, Final Fantasy was a staple in my household.  But now more than ever, I want to set off on a great adventure.  I get the urge to explore caves and save the world.  My days of finding release from blasting people with an AK have morphed in my desire to loot treasure chests.  I would much rather do a dungeon run in search of a secret amulet than play Search and Destroy.

Everyone has changes in likes and dislikes as they grow older.  I like to think of my change as a sign of maturity.  Not necessarily that an adventure game or an RPG is more mature than a shooter, but that I'm mature enough to try something different.  I'm glad that I have been able to break away from the self-created pigeon hole and find something new within my hobby.  I encourage everyone else to try something new too.

Reach for It

I have recently been playing Halo: Reach.  Yes, I took a step away from the little kid games and mindless arcade games and am playing a real, "grown-up" FPS again,

It's good to be back with the team.

And, if you can believe it, even though Reach released in September 2010, this is the first time I've played it.  Me.  Lover of all things Halo.  I'm not going to hassle you with a full on review, because obviously at this point in the game most everyone has played this game and knows that it is a great addition to the franchise.  I have to say that it is crazy to me that I haven't played a Halo game in years and it is like riding a bike.  The controls are a little different, and I still find myself hitting B to melee instead of being able to wrap my mind around the RB.  Old habits die hard.  I also can't seem to understand the armor bonuses, except that the hologram thing is really super fun.

So two things have come out of me rejoining the Halo world.  1) It is crazy to me how much I really do love these games and their story.  It is such a good, enriching, fully developed world.. And I still skip cut scenes.  Isn't that awful!?  I tell myself that I'll go back and watch them in the video room, or when I play the campaign alone and have more time... But honestly I'll probably never get around to it.  I'm notoriously bad about being patient through cut scenes.  So then I'm missing out on the story line and I'm not 100% sure where Reach fits in to the canon...and that makes my nerd-self sad.

2) I am completely torn on going back to multi-player online.  I am playing the campaign multi-player with my hubby and brother-in-law, but what I'm really talking about here is getting on, joining a lobby full of strangers, and becoming their target.  I have a longing to rejoin that community.  I used to love it so much.  Goodness knows there's nothing like pwning n00bs late into the night... but the problem now is that I am the n00b.  I can not even remember the last time I played Halo 3 online.  I can't even imagine trying to wrap my brain around learning new maps on Reach and being any kind of competition yet.

That's the problem with these FPS.  There is a learning curve, and you miss it quick.  I always  think Debbie is just a little crazy when she talks about playing new CoD iterations for the first week so that she's not behind, but it is so true.  Imagine my dismay at wanting to join a game a year after its release.  Siiiigh.  I guess I'll just have to take the leap eventually.  You know I want those achievements.  ;-)

To Prestige or Not To Prestige ....

Every time a new Call of Duty game comes out, I play chicken with myself over prestiging.  I look over my weapons and think about how much I have grown to love them.  Do I really want to let go of my favorite gun?  Will I even enjoy the game without access to Dead Silence ?  And I promise you that my maniacal giggle will be absent without C4.

The only installment from the entire franchise that I have maxed out my prestige on was Call of Duty: World at War.  I tried to do the same with Modern Warfare 2, but I only cycled around four times before the next game came out.  By the time I was ready to prestige in Black Ops, they were announcing the next Call of Duty.  With that in mind, I never rolled over once.

Each time a new Call of Duty game comes out, the max level increases.  It started with level 55 in Call of Duty 4, and has increased all the way up to 80.  With progressive leveling up to such a high number, it feels like it will take forever for me to reach the top.  Sure, there are challenges and double XP to soften the blow, but I can't imagine wanting to make that super long journey again.  On a side note, I really hate this idea of getting double XP codes from stuff like Mt. Dew and Doritos.  Why does it have to be attached to the junkiest food on the planet ?  Activision makes more than enough money on sales alone, so can we please let go of this cross-marketing thing ?  It's annoying, expensive, and majorly unhealthy.

This year has been huge for single player games.  With my life dedicated to other titles, I just don't see myself having time to play nearly as much Call of Duty as I used to.  I know prestiging isn't a requirement, and I find the game totally fun without it.  But it would be nice to have something else to go for once I've reached the max level.  Maybe I will just obsess over stats and golden guns.

Modern Warfare Military Guns Shooter Team Kill GO GO GO

Are you ready for another military shooter ?  Of course you are.  Not only is this far from the first Call of Duty, its also isn't the first Modern Warfare.  This franchise doesn't mess around, and even with Sledgehammer at the helm, we know what to expect.  The graphics are great, the upgrades are extensive, and players are jerks.  Lets talk about whats new.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare brought in kill steaks.  Modern Warfare 2 kicked it up with 15 kill streak options including the Tactical Nuke.  Modern Warfare 3 still has 15 options, minus the nuke, and players are allowed to choose three; it's now called the Assault Strike.  But this title blew the whole thing apart by adding the Support Strike packages.  The support streak acts exactly like a kill streak. There are 15 options and each player chooses three.  But players don't have to stay alive in order to get the rewards; they tally up throughout the match.  There is now also the Specialist Strike package that allows players to unlock extra perks to stack on top of their existing selections.  

Initially, these new additions really irritated me.  It seemed like there was just so much stuff to pick and chose and worry about.  My concerns were that I wouldn't be able to compete when the top players had all these amazing extras.  The more I play, the more I realize that these extras benefit my rookie friends even more.  Jumping into a franchise like Call of Duty can be intimidating.  Even players that are familiar with the series but not that skilled will be happy to get the occasional reward of their own.  It really cut down on how quickly they became frustrated.

There are more guns, especially sniper rifles.  The upgrades, attachments, and weapon perks outnumber the previous titles.  The maps are really reminiscent of MW2 in that there is a lot of multilevel action.  But unlike the first two games in the MW series, there are no maps that are super conducive to sniping.  That makes me very happy, but makes others very sad.

One of the other numerous changes that I would like to touch upon is the addition of a game type called Kill Confirmed.  The basis if the gameplay is team deathmatch, but every time a player dies they drop a set of dog tags.  Players must retrieve the enemy dog tags in order for the kill to count towards the overall team score.  Players can also recover their own tags and those of teammates to prevent the opposition from getting the points for the kill.  It is tough to win this game with someone hiding up in a corner with a sniper rifle camping it out, or players that spam grenades and launchers across the map.  I am not usually a fan of TD, but Kill Confirmed has a very fast pace and encourages an aggressive close quarters combat technique, and I love that.

I could actually go on and on and on about this game.  I was really skeptical of it in the beginning, but it's starting to grow on me like all the Call of Duty games do.  I think Modern Warfare 3 is fun and I recommend it for old fans and beginners.

Secret Footage Revealed

We here at Achievos are all about your entertainment...so we snuck behind the scenes and got this secret footage of Debbie dominating at CoD MW3.  She will destroy you.

Warning: Explicit Language Abounds

[Insert Call of Duty Pun Here]

I don't need to give an introductory statement about the Call of Duty franchise.  We don't need any witty comments or stupid little jokes where I pretend to have never heard of this monster series.  It's not clever or worth our time.  So jumping into it, Modern Warfare 3 is amazing and you need to own it.  While your temptation might be to stop there and rush out to purchase this game thanks solely to the last sentence, I encourage you to read on.  Right now, I'm going to just talk about the single player campaign. 

There have been some pretty memorable moments in past CoD games.  Players remember the first time they had a shoot out under a Ferris wheel, tore through an airport full of civilians, or realized that the main character is not quite what he seems.  But Modern Warfare 3 brings a whole new level of amazement with several scenes that will certainly find themselves solidly rooted in videogame history. 

MW3 takes us all around the world; New York, London, Sierra Leone, Berlin, Somalia, Paris, India, in the air and under water.  Each of these cities seems to have their own major event that took my breath away.  I can't describe most of the scenes since they would be huge spoilers, but I can say this without giving anything away; there was something wonderfully cathartic about shooting up Wall Street. 

The graphics are amazing, as per usual, and the game play and controls are pretty standard.  Sledgehammer didn't really break the mold with MW3, but they certainly brought some Jerry Bruckheimer entertainment to Xbox.  I am confident in my statement that this solo campaign is far better than the last three titles.  And for that I say, Thank You.

This game has some serious blood and touchy topics.  If you are a sensitive soul, you should probably walk away.

We're Back With Guns Blazing

After an unplanned absence, we have returned with more gaming knowledge to cram in your face.  First up, lets take a look at Battlefield 3 (BF3).  Even though BF3 is a sequel to the 2005 game, Battlefield 2, I am going to be throwing out a lot of comparisons to 2010's Battlefield: Bad Company 2.  There's a couple reasons for this; first, I never played Battlefield 2, and second, it doesn't seem fair to compare a game to it's six year-old predecessor. 

The solo campaign in Battlefield 3 takes place in the Middle East, and features a military rush on extremist rebels.  Following the token recipe for first-person shooters, BF3 is played almost exclusively in tight, urban backdrops with the occasional open area to romp around with armored vehicles.  One of the big differences between Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 is the super visceral feel.  Shooting weapons, jumping over items, and shifting weight while reloading are all expressed really intensely.  The graphics also give a very realistic feel with dramatic detail and impressive, natural lighting.  While all those features were great in Bad Company, they are that much more impressive in the newest title. 

I can't decide if it's harder or easier for me to review the multiplayer.  I have played the last two Bad Company games and spent several hours playing Battlefield 3.  With that amount of game play under my belt, I am far from an expert on this particular franchise, so this review will simply be some of my rookie observations.  As with the solo campaign, the multiplayer has great graphics; it looks great on the Xbox 360 and downright amazing on the PC.

Matches run a little bit longer than I care for, but that is probably due to my short attention span and Call of Duty preferences.  I noticed a lot of people camping, but that tends to happen more when a game is new and people are less familiar with the maps.  There is only so much hiding that can be done when players are allowed to control tanks, helicopter, and fight jets.  One of my big pet peeves with this game is that you can't back out of the lobby in between games.  Players have to wait until the game starts before they can go into menus to drop out; the only other option being to kick all the way to the dashboard.  It's a minor inconvenience but its a pesky thing I wish they would've changed. 

When the vehicles are not in play, Battlefield 3 seems to be more for the hardcore shooter fan.  It doesn't really break the mold of the genre, but it still makes for a great addition to your gaming library.



I was happy to see I could now go fully prone, until I spot guys doing this.

3D Gaming First Hand

My uncle owns a high end A/V store complete with a full living room display containing a massive 3D TV. After lots of begging and negotiating, yours truly was allowed to do a little gaming. I played Black Ops on Xbox for three hours in Stereoscopic 3D. No more speculation. No more assumptions. Here is what's up.  

Ready ? Its f**king difficult. Like, really f**king difficult. I was playing the solo campaign on normal and having some legit trouble. The first noticeable problem was where to sit. The whole idea of 3D is to make the experience more engaging; to really engross the viewer in what is going on. But you have to sit uncomfortably close to get that sensation. With a video game where enemies are coming out of all corners of the screen, sitting four feet from a 60" TV is not comfortable.

After about five minutes of sitting up close, I backed up to 7 or 8 feet away. It still took me around ten minutes to get used to the additional dimension and find my groove. Even then, I had problems. It was hard to find and keep my eye on the targets, the crosshairs, the HUD, everything. I did a little research and found the root of my problem. The eyes, and more importantly the brain, take three times longer to recognize an object in 3D than in 2D when its on a screen.  When the images are forced out of alignment (that's how they create 3D), your brain has to fight to put the images back together. When the brain is done auto-correcting, you have a picture in all its 3D glory.

Your brain hates this.

This whole process takes an absolutely miniscule amount of time. But the increase in brain activity and work that must be done is still three times what it should normally be. So for the entire three hours of gaming, I struggled. My brain was not used to seeing 3D. And since it was my first time playing, I didn't know what would be different. Would the background be extra deep ? Would text and subtitle reach out ? Guns, bullets, HUDS, cut scenes, all of it unpredictable.

The biggest question I had about 3D gaming was answered. Will this give me eye strain or headaches ? Yes. After three hours, I felt mentally exhausted. I didn't want to look at another screen all day. Three hours may seem like a lot for some. After all, warnings encourage us to take frequent breaks while gaming. But I like to spend eight or more hours a day during the weekends playing video games. My game sessions would look like this: ten minutes getting used to 3D; 50 more minutes playing; take a 10-15 minute break; come back and spend another ten minutes getting my eyes and brain to readjust; game for 50 minutes; etc. Not practical.

So, lets disregard the fact that 3D is completely over-priced. Lets pretend those dorky-ass glasses are actually comfortable and don't look hella dumb. And we will suspend knowledge that many people can't even see 3D (Lindsey). Forgetting all those other factors, I did not like Black Ops in 3D. It looked kinda cool, like a neat trick. But for those of us that are a little more hardcore and spend some serious time playing these games, 3D just isn't going to work... Yet.

You will never look as good as her at 3am in your sweatpants and 3D glasses

Escalation Map Pack, Yeah, I Can Handle That

Ever since the Escalation Map Pack for Black Ops was released, people keep asking me questions. They weren't your standard questions about relationships, politics, or deep thoughts (for that hilarity, submit your questions here). But I've been getting asked things like "How do you like the new map pack? What's your favorite map? Have you played the new zombies yet?" So here are some of my thoughts on the latest addition to Black Ops. First, on the regular multiplayer maps, I like them. I actually really like them. The maps feel like there was more time spent testing their playability than just making them look cool or gimmicky. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of gimmicky crap like elevators and raised tracks. But they are more practically executed throughout the maps than in the past.

I say they have better playability because they are really well balanced compared to other maps. The Call of Duty series has a strong history of super unbalanced maps, especially for objective games. Compared to the layouts of Quarry, Carnival, Trailer Park, and more from Modern Warfare 2, the Black Ops original and add-on maps are much improved.

The new zombie map, Call of the Dead, is also a huge improvement for multiple reasons. First is the obviously awesome addition of some pretty amazing actors from horror and scifi. The map itself features a zombified, electrified George Romero. While that in and of itself might be cool enough for some people, his presence makes the game significantly more difficult. I have spent many hours with friends sitting in the same spot of the map, bottle-necking zombies just to mow them down repetitively. Romero walking around forces the players to keep moving and prevents teams from just barricading in a corner and easily reaching ridiculous levels.

So for those who haven't purchased it yet, I definitely recommend the Escalation Map Pack. It may be $15, but for the first time in a long time, the maps are worth the price. Does that answer your question ?

Black Ops, You are Breakin' My Heart.

Last month saw the release of the newest edition to the Call of Duty line up. Black Ops broke sales records on every platform and has made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits so far. Its just a shame the game sucks.

Okay, that was shock value. The game does not completely blow, only marginally. When looking back at the history of amazing first person shooters, CoD has definitely earned the right to join the ranks. Call of Duty 3 and 4 were both amazing games that were extremely well rounded. Even World at War brought some new ideas to the table. But Black Ops in no way compares to any of these games.

The more I play Black Ops, the more I realize how it is like a refurbished version of Modern Warfare 2. Its no secret that MW2 was shit. Both the lack of a sufficient Beta and an excess of poorly designed weapons contributed to the games failure for its first six months. Black Ops seems to have taken MW2 and simply changed the maps and fixed the glitches.

The look and feel of the game is incredibly similar to its immediate predecessor. I was really wanting something new. It seems like the only new attributes to the game are gimicky weapons like exploding crossbows and an exploding rc-car.

But there are some good changes. Thankfully, the designers made adjustments like removing the ability to play using nothing more than grenade launchers. They also added some new game types including wager matches and specialty rounds like One In The Chamber. There is now so much more customization. Of course some players are dicks that make reticule and emblems that look like ... well... dicks. But some of them are surprisingly cool and original.

I think for me, this is all just too little too late. I feel like I've been playing the same mediocre game that I was playing for the previous year. I'm waiting for it to become new and exciting but it really just doesn't strike me as amazing. It certainly didn't live up all the expectations I had. So maybe in the end it's my fault. I was ready to be blown away but maybe my hopes and dreams were just too big.

The single player is really good. I can't hate that. Its far more difficult than the last few and the changing of scenery through time travel is appreciated. But who plays Call of Duty for the single player ?

Black Ops has finally provided me with that proverbial straw that broke the camels back. I'm over the Call of Duty series. There are so many other games I could be playing and I would rather dedicate my time to them instead. Now I do realize that a lot of people disagree with me. They play the new game and swear its the best thing ever. And there are literally millions of gamers that log onto the Black Ops servers on a regular basis so I'm sure they all would have an argument or two. But for me, as much as I don't want to walk away from a series that I used to love; I have grown as a gamer and it is time for me to move on. Goodbye Call of Duty, you will be missed.

Idiot's Guide to First Person Shooters

Playing a First Person Shooter (FPS) video game can be intimidating. When I first started gaming, I played almost exclusively RPGs and Strategy. But now that I'm all grown up, I have strapped on my big girl guns and taken on the world of Call of Duty. I've played with a lot a people from numerous countries and here are some of the tips and tricks that I picked up over the years. Had I known them in the beginning, I would probably be a much better player now. They are simple but obvious. Hopefully they help your game as much as they help mine.

1) Know your maps. Does it ever seem like people are just jumping out of nowhere and shooting you down ? It's because they know their surroundings. Take five minutes in a private lobby to run around the maps. Find stairwells, alleys, windows, sniping locations, and just the general feel of the map. You will know where to go take the defense or where they might be coming to prevent their offense. Even if you have something as simple as a random spawn point, it will be that much easier to find where you are at and get moving again.

2) If you can't find a safe spot, make your own. Getting spawn killed ? Drop a smoke grenade as soon as you respawn. You may die throwing it down, but at least the teammates behind you will have some cover to get out and find the player keeping you pinned down. Need to reload or deploy a time-consuming weapon ? Find a nice, covering bush or tall grass and go prone. Crouching in an obvious corner might be, well, obvious. They know you are hiding to control that AC-130 gunship, they are going to come and find you.

3) Reload, Reload, Reload. I cannot stress this one enough. So many times I have been spectating someone going in for an easy kill, but they forget to reload first. They go to shoot them in the back but only have three bullets left in the clip which isn't enough to kill the enemy. Problem is, while they reload, the enemy now knows where they are and are going to turn around and get the kill. Reload as often as you safely can. Safely. If you are in the middle of gunfire and your clip empties, do a quick drop to prone to finish loading your gun, pop back up and keep on gunnin'.

4) To aim or not to aim. Taking the time to pull up your gun and shoot down the sights will definitely increase your accuracy. Some maps are big and will allow you tons of time to get a shot off. But some maps have much tighter spaces and this is where your Close Quarters Combat (CQC) or "run 'n' gun" come in handy. Shooting without aiming can have its pros and cons. Shooting from the hip is much faster. You are far more likely to shoot first if you don't take the time to look down your sights. However, your accuracy is going to plummet. It's the spray and pray method. But overtime you can become more accurate with hip fire and greatly improve your game.

5) Know your weapons. If the map you are playing on is the size of three football fields, dont bring a shotgun. And it probably wont help to bring a sniper rifle into a tiny warehouse. If its a big map, carry a weapon that will succeed with some distance. If you can carry two guns, make one a ranged weapon and the second a pistol or something for up close. If it is a very small map, maybe an automatic weapon that has a high damage rating or even break out a shotty. And no matter what, dont forget to knife ! Sure it may be funny to shoot someone in the back of the skull, but once you take the shot you have given away your position to other players. Knives also come in handy when you are out of bullets or your running around in circles with them.

So those were just a few tips. They can be applied to almost an FPS game. I may do a section later with even more ridiculously obvious tips. But for now, this should be enough to get any player started on their road to FPS glory.