With Friends Like These...

When I was young and had not evolved to PC games, I'd waste my days playing Goldeneye at my friends house.

There was no Counter Strike or Team Fortress 2 to make believe I was social since my computer at the time had the computing power of a soggy cheerio. It was three other friends and myself crouched next to each other swearing, punching and throwing each other while squinting at the tiny boxes that comprised our deathmatch.

Now though I'm older and have a job to afford the big boy toys like expensive hardware and hookers. I play online mutliplayer games like all the rest and enjoy them greatly, but alas something is missing; the people element. Yes you can use Vent, Teamspeak, in game VOIP or whatever to talk with your fellow players; but nothing is quite like sitting next your enemy and allies with a couple of Dr. Peppers.

So I've been yearning to regain that feeling without the hoaky online feeling. Most games today aren't well suited for the 4 person LAN party and are better off being played online with 20 or more people. What I'm looking for is an in depth and agressive cooperative play. There should be a PC game that lets me reach out and punch my dumbass teammate or bitchy enemy.

Not multiplayer deathmatch teams or that; the story campaign of say Half Life with another person fighting along side you. Solid Co-op games are rare these games for the PC market. There of course was Rainbow Six Vegas which was astounding, and Gears of War (if you can find anyone who can get the dammned thing working). I like yelling at my friends just a few feet away as we attempt to complete a mission or a campaign together. Online multiplayer is all abou the skirmish, deathmatch, battle royal which is fine; but that's over too quickly. I like to long engrossing multiplayer cooperative play of yesteryear.

Imagine if games like Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Supreme Commander and Crysis allowed for Co-op play during the single player campaign. Online Co-op play would be great, but I would greatly appreciate having a couple of high quality games that I could bring to a LAN party and NOT have to play a lame deathmatch but a long winding mutliplayer experience that you can't finish in one sitting. I would like to see the length and breadth of a single player game expanded for two-four of my closest geek friends.

The ultimate experience would be a game soley devoted to the Co-op experience which has been for sometime a lost art. We may be nerds, but we all have at least a few friends to share in the nerdom and do occasionally like the human interaction of meeting face to face. Cooperative play to me changes the way we play the game and increases the replayability. For once (and don't kill me) I envy those console gamers who play Halo Co-op; the poor lucky saps......sigh.

Review- Call of Duty 4

I will start of this review by saying I have not played the multiplayer for this game and if you whine about it then buy the damn game yourself; in short I heard good things about the online stuff.

But this is MY review and not some older wiser geek’s so I will run the show my way. For those of us social shutdowns who don’t enjoy online multiplayer games and don’t mind some time alone (insert masturbation joke) with a good single player campaign play COD4 only if you have about 5 hours available to play through the games immensely long single player campaign (/end sarcasm).

COD4 pits you as several different forgettable characters for the British and US Military. I shouldn’t say characters, but more like superheroes. You the player are the target of every bullet between you and the far side of the world it seems; and then manage to hit you…A LOT. But after suffering from some bullet to skull fuck trauma you are new man cause of some magical health regenerating powers all soldiers have and are good to go kill the evil extremists who seem to be out of every patriotic movie made in the 90’s.

While I played the game on normal, harder has this health regenerating feature as well but only much shorter ergo increasing the difficulty which is good; but I will gripe because its fucking there and not making me believe I’m really at war. For pete’s sake everything else in the game was spot on realistic from the guns, to the stereotypical Middle Eastern extremists to the fracking (is pg-13 for fucking) explosions had me shaking in my Captain Underpants (see wikipedia) jammies. But in the spirit of all things whiny and well the suck, EA included this to make the game more accessible and harder to put down. It’s like this if your father slapped you around as a child you wouldn’t show up every day on your father’s doorstep wanting to “give the old man another shot” because you'd probably take a hint and leave. If the game were more realistic it would be quite a reality shock for all 99% of us nerds who’s only combat action is slamming the desk when we lose a game (see the cycle?). I would have felt more at home with a damn health pack or something, not some sort of infinite health well that I continually shove my cock into fucking the gameplay over. I would’ve had a feature for the button M called “call medic” and while you’re incapacitated a medic rushes over to you while you defending your pity excuse for a solider to save you’re bloody life and restores you to a functioning condition; not bloody perfect you twit.

Aside from that one aspect that pisses me off to no end (see Cloverfield), COD4 manages to do what no other FPS has ever done before; make me feel like I’m in a movie which is surprisingly still not as good as a blowjay. The cinematics tie in perfectly with the gameplay and keep the action tight. My heart was kept humming at a solid 154 beats per second when something would blow up or crash, it was better than that one time E for Christ’s sake.

But like most movies the story was kind of dull and it was over far too soon. The single player campaign is well constructed and played out but it’s shorter than my grandma who is shrinking into oblivion. I was very bummed when I reached a point in my head and felt immensely sad this amazing time had to end, it went something like this,

“Oh wow we just infiltrated an enemy missile silo where the baddie is and this will probably be over in 20 minutes flat. Oh fiddlefucks”

And I was right, the game ended and I was left sitting alone in my underwear in front of my computer like a girl getting stood up on the morning after prom; naked (almost), alone and pretty much fucked cause I don’t play multiplayer games that have a single player game. If you make a game have multiplayer, make it a fucking multiplayer game and if you make it a single player game keep it faithful. Release two fucking games with the same name, I don’t care. As long the developer puts forth an equal effort into both gamers will be pleased enough to buy both doubling you’re profits. There I win and go play COD4.