Someone sounds jelly.Y u no skill, bruh??

I waited in line with my boyfriend in the cold in front of Gamestop for the midnight release. I love him that much to stand in the cold for over an hour. =) I was told, "If ya can't beat him, join him." <3

My boyfriend's been raving about how much better he's been enjoying Black Ops than any previous CODs.  I'm just happy to see him happy.

If positive reinforcement remained the bottom-line, DICE would have had the whole she-bang in the bag with BF:BC2. That thing somehow managed to splice one of the best unlock trees with the most self-congratulatory pin system I've ever seen. I got excited over assists in that game... and got points for looking at people. Damn good shooter, though. Pushes for my personal top-spot near MOH:AA.

More importantly to the CoD franchise, the MW/Black Ops success has been on the speed of the game. You've got relatively small maps, high rate of fire gun lists, and the legitimate sprint function. In all of the shooters, with all of their many ways to keep players playing, CoD is, by far, the fastest in terms of pacing. I play L4D and TF2 much more often than I did with MW2 (and maybe MW1), but I still go back to CoD when I want to move and kill at a superhuman speed. It's not a bad game necessarily, it's just more or less like a racing game in which someone's cut the brakes. (Although, I am on the hate-wagon right now, 'cause Black Ops is still butchered for the PC, even after their attempt at patching over some of the lag problems. Dumbasses.)

Oh, and quick fact-check: Demon's Souls was a pointless game to buy without using the online mode. Take off that competitive or co-op edge, and the game's got about 15 to 20 hours of worthwhile content with some struggling. Invading other people's worlds was decent, but the duels were disappointingly brief. Not Borderlands brief, but, then again, not Jedi Knight long. Less of a fact-check: Although I'd be more inclined to give Okami some credit, I wouldn't call Okami or Demon's Souls masterpieces. Okami was fun, but really did have some severe presentation problems. (Coming from a man who still plays Doom. I like to watch the pixels when the Cacodemons go splat...) Demon's Souls was also fun, but got annoyingly gimmicky in most of the later worlds.

@of_such_a_prodigious_paradox@xanga - Hey, at least Blizzard popped out a decent (minus the whole Zerg nerf thing) sequel to Starcraft, and what should be a decent follow-up to Diablo II. I can't say the same for Sid Meier, who has had me addicted to Civ since #2. Civ 5 was an outright embarrassment that won a heap of laurels for simplifying the Civ 4 system, which I could have worked around handily drunk off my ass and sleep deprived. (The "could have" in that previous sentence is a bit of a misnomer. "Unquestionably and stunningly" is more like it.) Point is: fuck his couch. I'll give Blizzard my $60, but I'm going to hold back on Civ 6 until Sid can prove he cares more about his real player-base than console ports or Facebook gaming.

Call of Duty, plain and simply, has become a Madden series that refurbishes with interest. Its a good game, but a repeat offender.

With that in mind, I don't hate on the game, I hate some of the players with a passion though. With that said...

Yes, this does include 
Halo
Call of Duty
Every sports game by EA
Zelda/Link, Mario, Samus, and other Nintendo mascots
Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy
so many others.

When you get down to it, yes, even these good games are on that list.

Personally, yes, if a game can not be held up by the single-player campaign, it doesn't deserve to be called a official game. Sadly this is the path COD has taken though, they make money from the FUN multi-player experience, for 80% of their focuses goes to making the multi-player experience more fun for anybody. ANYBODY.
Because you make a game more accessible, doesn't mean it has become casual, mediocre or a shun of a game. It is a smart business decision that should make hardcore gamers HAPPY. There are still too many nay-sayers that resent games and wouldn't touch them. Anything that makes more people play and enjoy games is a good thing. Games are no longer a loner-only-club. More people want it and thats what the developers are giving.

...I'm going off topic. I digress.

I honestly don't see too much of a problem with winning through dying. It may be positive reinforcement, but I really want to know how many people would be negatively reinforced when dying online in the game, and go "THIS SUCKS, I DON'T WANT TO PLAY ANYMORE!". Really? Agree though, people maybe turned off from a game because it isn't instantly gratifying...though I think thats more of the adults who are just growing into games that can't lose weight, than children.

All in all, you can put it under the category of "FPS games aren't worth $60 since theres only an online experience". =D

@Icecold4u@xanga -  I don't play any Activison games, so I don't really care for them. I just know that their boss doesn't have a good reputation with the gamers. That's all I know. I think I heard he's not such a nice person...

@Icecold4u@xanga - ....because it's not business smarts, it's exploiting gamers. Kotick raised the prices for the map packs beyond the industry standard of 10 dollars just because he knew the CoD games had enough of a following that he could. He also thinks it'd be dandy to abuse Blizzard's stellar reputation by charging 30 dollars just for the cut scenes out of their next game. That's thirty dollars on top of the sixty you've already paid just for the cutscenes that tell the story of the game.

Anyone that would do that is a moneyhungry asshole, and until Activision gets rid of Kotick and puts someone sane in his place, I don't think gamers ought to be supporting him, because they're only shooting themselves in the foot.

You can make money while still catering to your customers. Kotick has no respect for the people who are throwing their money at him. It's all well and good for him that's he's making shitloads of money, but you as a fellow gamer should have more concern for other gamers out there.

Not only that but he has no respect for fellow game developers. That is not to say he should be BFFLZ!!! with competitors, but he has no right to bash other companies like he did EA, for example. You don't have to treat them like your friends, but you can respect them. It's also terribly unprofessional to bash another company like that. ALSO, he has no respect, again, for the people that made him successful. Jason West and Vince Zampella, who actually kick starting the CoD AND infinity ward franchises, were completely discredited by this dick, who said these two men would never be "productive or successful" ever again.

And here is a great quote for you:

"At the shareholders meeting earlier in the year," said Buscaglia. "Bobby Kotick said to his shareholders in public, and I know a lot of people heard this, 'We're going to take the fun out of making games. These people don't take this shit seriously. We're going to make sure that they're serious about making games.'

from Escapist Magazine.

He claims it was said in jest, and I'll admit, it could be true, but I wouldn't trust a man who does the things he does and then says something like this "as a joke". That is not the kind of man a gamer should support. Activision and all of its games, including Call of Duty, would be great without a moron at the helm.

I'll cave on one thing: I read somewhere that he gave $500k to independant developers, which I certainly can't criticize him for. I think he's mostly lost sight of what's important to gamers. because he is so removed from the game development process.

@thatsnotarealword@xanga - zerg got 4 range roaches now.

@x__RainOnHerParade@xanga - Exploiting Gamers? I think thats the first time I've heard anybody say that CODheads, Halowhores or Madden-freaks who fend away from other games are gamers and not the local D-bag who does nothing but play online and scream at people for being a noob, but I digress.

Exploiting gamers by raising the prices of DLC that isn't necessary? Really? Is the game that much fun that the day-to-day laborer will buy the DLC but be pissed off that he spent the extra $5 for map packs? I know CODheads are out there but thats just an addiction. As for Starcraft II, even SquareEnix is picking up on charging for cutscenes. Not to say it isn't a D-bag move.

@BaLob@xanga - i enjoy the battlefield series more as well. so much more fun online

@Icecold4u@xanga - But if it was the case then they wouldn't try to be different..if they merely was using the namesake to sell then they wouldn't try to be different in the spin offs and just make a crappy game stamping the name on the disc. But instead they don't. I think it would unfair to say that they are truly milking for what it is worth. Yes, it's expected to good if it is that particular franchise but I think at times they go over what is expected. I think that's the difference between truly milking a franchise to really re-inventing it. I think they re-invent it. And which I think is a much better word in my mind.

Because killing Nazi Zombies is so damn fun!