Happy Easter!

 

I've been working on an op-ed piece on what I'd like to see in the next Call of Duty game, both in the single player campaign and in multiplayer. It'll be basically a stream of consciousness bullet list of stuff which developers should and shouldn't do in the next game.
    I've been on a quest for the perfect FPS for over 10 years. Though I dabbled with Quake back in the day, I really got heavily into shooters with Half-life and Unreal Tournament. I played Half-life deathmatch a lot, but I became an addict when Team Fortress Classic came out, once playing for 16 hours straight, with only bathroom and coffee breaks.
    What made those shooters so good? Well, Half-life had (and still has) one of the best single player campaigns I've ever played. (It's eclipsed, IMO, only by the single player of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.) The enemy AI is absolutely stunning, even today. The Marine grunts in Half-life have been described as being the Ph.D.s of enemy NPCs. They retreat and cover their withdrawal with grenades; fire and maneuver to flank you. And, frankly, it's a well written game. There are moments in it which are just terrifying. ("The Pit", with the horrible tentacle monster, was incredibly scary.)


    See what I mean? The game was chock full of terrifying monsters. The game kinda lost me with jumping puzzles, since I've never liked those, but it's the best FPS of the 20th Century. 
    Unreal Tournament had the very best run 'n' gun FPS ever. Back when all I had was dial up, I played UT against the bots endlessly. Once Reibo and I set up a 2 PC LAN so we could play against the bots. It was absolutely awesome. Here's a YouTube gameplay vid of the Unreal Tournament GOTY edition on Deck 17. (It's in Spanish, BTW. It's extra cool for me to hear "Suck it!" in Spanish. )

     The bots in Unreal Tournment are uncanny. At the higher skill levels, they'll bitchslap you from one end of the map to the other. But you could adjust the stock UT bots to play a whole range of skill levels. You could adjust their play style to make them super-agressive or campy. You could download custom skins (including R-rated nude and semi-nude skins) to play against a variety of different characters from real life, movies, cartoons and other video games. Weapon UMODs (special modifiers which could change weapon skins and attributes) could be written and plugged in. I played against bots dressed up as porn star Asia Carrera and Star Wars baddie Darth Vader. Even Gordon Freeman and the Half-life grunts made guest appearances in Unreal Tournament matches. 
    The follow-ups to Half-life and Unreal Tournament have their good points. But they don't have the raw, unfiltered energy of the originals.

 

Today's featured vid is a blast from the past, with Pyropuncher rocking a CoD4 Domination match with sniper rifle and USP. He finishes the match with a 21 kill streak that's pretty frackin' awesome to watch. He finished 56-2-5 for the match. The second vid is a rockin FAMAS rampage on MW2 Crash by I8IHawk. Like in CoD4, I still haven't got the hang of those burst fire weapons, so his unerring accuracy is particularly impressive for me. On to the links:

• GameSpot: MW2 Stimulus Package impressions.
• GamesRadar: Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package strategy guide.
• G4TV: The Verdict: Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package maps.
• More MW2 Stimulus Package reviews: GoFanBoy (blog); GameSmith (blog).
• VentureBeat: How a smart marketing campaign turned Modern Warfare 2 into a monster hit.
• Xboxic: Activision Spends £1Million On Marketing MW2 DLC. I guess they could afford that since they gouged everyone for an extra $5 for the DLC.

   
Featured MW2 YouTube Video

• ComicBookMovie: Modern Warfare 2 movie cast by fans.
• Online Social Media: Got an idea on how to add Twitter functionality to the next CoD game? Online Social Media wants your suggestions. They had a great one in the article: Automagically send your killcam screenshot to twitpic!
• MajorNelson: Free night vision goggles (thru Sunday) for your Xbox Live avatar.
• Diehard GameFan: Unbranding the sheep: The Enablers. We should go cold turkey on Activision is the apparent idea.
• Kotaku: F1 Driver Plays Modern Warfare 2 While Riding a Bike. It's a stationary bike, don't worry.

    More Gaming Links:

• Kombo.com: IW's 402 downplays threat of Medal of Honor to Modern Warfare 2.
• Gaming Union: DICE: Medal of Honor multiplayer not a Modern Warfare clone.
• GameTrailers: Sniper: Ghost Warrior exclusive debut gameplay trailer.
• Kotaku game video: Warpgate HD - Epic Space Exploration, iPad Style.
• 1Up: iPad's most interesting launch titles.
• GamesRadar: 19 incredible games you'll never play.
• YouTube: The best "movie trailer" ever made: Team Fortress 2: The Law-abiding Engineer (No, I can't embed everything on here. ;)

 
    Non-Gaming Links:

• Quest: Behind the scenes at Mythbusters. (Thanks to Mythbusters for the link.)
• Engadget: iPass: Alternatives to the iPad.
• iPad Point: BoingBoing: Cory Doctorow: Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either).
• iPad Counter-point: Daring Fireball: The kids are all right.
• Gizmodo: Essential iPad apps.
• PocketGamer: iControlPad developer slams Apple gaming peripheral patent application. Developer Craig Rothwell tweeted that he'll have a YouTube vid up today explaining his position.
• R.I.P. Charlie! John Forsythe passes away.