Zombies and Coca-Cola Health Potions

I’m older and jaded than I used to be, but I still love the holidays; and since I’m a fat kid, nothing puts me in the holiday spirit like food.  Turkey, stuffing, cranberry chutney, coffee, tea, hot cocoa, pumpkin pie, and Coca-Cola.  Yes, Coca-Cola puts in the mood for the holidays.  Ever since I was a kid and I saw those polar bear commercials and the commericals with the trucks and the little kids chanting “Santa packs are coming,” I associated Coca-Cola with the holidays.  The fact that Coca-Cola puts out the best Christmas-themed bottles helps; a recent design is the ornament-shaped bottles.  I love these bottles because they get me in the holiday spirit (well, they help) and they remind me of health potions from every RPG ever.  Seriously: skinny neck, short and fat body–if you’ve played any RPG on any console or rig and used a health potion, you know of what I speak.

Of course, RPGs will have to take a break for a moment: Left 4 Dead dropped today, and after playing the demo, there was no way I could wait until next year to play it.  I just finished “No Mercy” with a great group of guys (one whom I swear was stoned), and it was some of the best fun I’ve had rolling multiplayer ever.  If Horde mode is incredibly awesome, then Left 4 Dead–in any shape, form or fashion–is incredibly awesome cooked in a spoon.  Definitely multiplayer game of the year.

Everybody on X-Box 360 Live is a Dirty, Cheating Dingleberry

At least that’s the way it feels.  I did a few rounds of Call of Duty: World at War (the multiplayer beta is on XBL Marketplace, if you’re interested) this morning, and I did not enjoy it.  Not because it wasn’t a good game.  It really does have much in common with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (which was a great game, but hampered by a few broken game play segments) as far as interface and presentation go, and I for one will never tire of the war-torn Europe setting of World War II games, but I really felt like I was just there to serve as fodder for the more experienced, better-skilled players–and it felt like thye had to be using some kind of secret-hidden video game equivalent of steroids to make me die.

Seriously: I would pump a guy full of lead and he wouldn’t drop, but he would pop off one round and I’m down on the ground.  I would see a guy up ahead, his back to me, and I would raise my gun up for the killing shot–and out of freakin’ nowhere some guy would ninja-strike me dead.  I mean, like, materialize out of nowhere.  From the shadows.

I blame, in part, the XP system of Call of Duty.  For those unfamiliar with it, it works just like an RPG.  You get XP for a kill, and get bonus XP depending on your performance in battle.  When you earn enough XP, you can make new character classes, tricking them out with better weapons, upgrades, and special abilities.  Of course, this means that gamers who spend hours playing multiplayer will have a distinct advantage, because–win or lose–if you grind away enough time you’ll get access to the high-level perks (this might explain those wonder-kills that my opponents could pull off).

It also means that, if you’re late to the party, you will be dog food until you do reach those high levels.  You won’t get to actually play and improve your skills mind you; you’re just there to learn level layouts and generate easy points for the hardcore competitors.  Every once in a while, you’ll luck up on a kill and earn a measly 5 XP, chipping away at your leveling while you get bitch-pwnd left and right.

Of course, skill goes a long, long way in rectifying this unfairness.  If you can lay down some hurt, then you can stand on equal ground with a player carrying the most advanced weapons and power-ups; and this would all be well and good if the matchmaking wasn’t so very bad.

I’ll admit: I’m not that great at multiplayer FPS games.  I’m not bad, but I play in the “Recreation” zone for a reason.  I got addicted to multiplayer FPS with Goldeneye (which I was actually pretty good at; I once boasted an undefeated streak of..well, I don’t know the numbers, but it was known amongst my friends that I didn’t lose at Goldeneye).  I went a long time without playing against others (in fact, Halo 2 was the next time I played multiplayer FPS with any sizable number of people, and Halo 3 the first time I played online since Jedi Knight for the PC) and I’m not as good as I used to be–and it shows.  It seems, however, that I always end up being thrown in a match with a bunch of uber-elite-inhumanly-fast-BOOM!-HEADSHOT-gaming jocks when I play Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4.  I never got any better because I never could get enough play time to get any better.  It’s the reason I traded Call of Duty 4 and the reason I don’t play Halo 3 much anymore (I won’t trade it in because it was the last game I played with my Uncle Tim before his passing).

I’m not saying I want to be let to win, and I’m not saying that I think the really good gamers should purposely go easy on the newbs.  I’m not saying that there should be auto-handicapping or some kind of other behind-the-scenes game twiddling going on to make it where everybody gets to win.  I’m saying I want more tracking of in-game performance to rate my skill level and I want to play against people of comparable ability until I get so good I’ll be griefing every match.  I want to be able to say “I don’t want to play with him.  He’s too good and I’ll just spent the next five minutes dying.”

I’m saying to the programmers in charge of matchmaking for multiplayer FPS titles: I suck and I want to play with other players that suck so that I’ll have a chance for my skills to improve so that, one day, I can start playing with gamers that don’t suck.

With that being said, I’m off of work this Friday, so I plan on doing some multiplayer on Gears of War 2 (Horde mode has me excited, plus the co-op campaign, and the duck-and-cover system might make for better competitive play; I never played the first one online).  I’m level250geek, so feel free to look me up.