Holiday Gaming, Part 1... Maybe...

Okay, so I touched on this a bit earlier in another post.  But all I can see this holiday season is another top-notch, fanboy competition to see who can be the most realistic (I’m using the term loosely here) first person shooter game of 2013.  The three contenders? Call of Duty: Ghosts, Battlefield 4, and ARMA 3.

Let me start off by saying that there is also a console war that will probably overshadow this until parents have to make a decision as to which game to buy twelve-year-old Tommy so he can be happy swearing at the television with all of his other friends online.  But anywho, on to other, better, and maybe interesting things.

Game producer Activision is continuing its Call of Duty franchise with Call of Duty: Ghosts.  Developer Infinity Ward, famed for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and its sequel Modern Warfare 2, is stepping back into the “modern shooter.”  The last time I considered Call of Duty to be modern by any standards was with Call of Duty 4.  But anywho.  The Call of Duty franchise has always been placed into the realm of “realistic” shooters. Blasphemy.  My most recent memory of playing CoD: Black Ops 2 (installment of 2012) involved being destroyed by submachine guns at long range by an enemy who is jumping, hip-firing, and spitting obscenities in his pre-pubescent wails of vengeance.  This is all occurring while I was staring down the sights of my assault rifle (with its superior range, damage, and accuracy) trying to hit the damn bugger.  Did I mention that there was some CONNETION ISSUES?  Black Ops 2 came with a movie mode, so you can look back on your recent games from any perspective, record your most desirable moments, and upload them directly to YouTube.  Good concept, but there was no way to compensate for the amount lag each player has when each of their games is recording the games from every imaginable perspective.  To illustrate, there are twelve players in each match (six per team) all playing in the same limited environment.  This means that there are twelve recorders simultaneously recording the exact same perspective of the match.  Try stacking the same video cameras on top of one another, hooking it up to a dog in your living room, and record the same two feeds onto one DVD.  Whoops.  Plus there is this crummy thing called “lag compensation”.  What it does is change every player’s connection speeds to mimic the weakest signal received from another player.  So even if you’re plugged directly into the Internet hotspot and have the most amazing connection on Planet Earth, the game has to appease the ten-year-old in Wyoming.  Did I state that there is no realism in the game?  Do I need to lead an enemy soldier to kill him as he runs across the street?  Nope.  Does only my weapon’s fire rate determine whether I win a firefight? Yes.

So now that that is all off my chest, I am hoping that this new game either is changes everything again, like its grandfather Call of Duty 4 did.  And I don’t mean different weapons, a new way to equip my character, or “prettier” graphics.

Now I already have reviewed Battlefield 4 earlier, I based my reactions on just the cinematic single player preview.  There has been no hint as to what the multiplayer has in store, not until E3 at least.  But what I want to see, as do many players of the game, is a reconstructed class system.  Battlefield 3 has four classes to play as in-game, each with its own specializations and weapons.  The Medic carries an assault rifle, medical packs to heal teammates, and defibrillators to revive downed teammates.  There is a Support class, whose job is to lug around an inaccurate light machine gun, C4 explosives, and an ammunition pack to throw free ammunition at teammates.  Engineers have carbines, rocket launchers, and a repair tool, so they are primarily for vehicle-based combat.  And the Recon class has a sniper, a laser designator, and a spawn beacon.  Each class has its own role, but things just fall apart quickly.  Light machine guns despite their huge damage output, are so inaccurate that it couldn’t hit three barns in a row.  Recons have great long range capabilities, but use their spawn beacons to return to their sniping positions.  Engineers can hold their own, but many players just use their rockets to blow a hole in a wall instead of attacking a tank rolling down the damn street.  The Medic class is the only “balanced” class.  Its assault rifles shoot an virtually any range, with a very precise accuracy model.  And with the medical packs, they can be virtually invincible.  But I will say it provides a more realistic combat experience than Call of Duty.  Weapons are distinct, bullets are affected by gravity, and submachine guns get crappy after fifty meters.  Plus the added bonus of hopping in a tank, jet, helicopter, or numerous other vehicles makes the experience memorable, unlike the kill-box that makes up CoD.  However, the console versions of Battlefield 3 fell slightly short of its true making.  Graphics were dumbed down, the amount of players and map sized decreased to support the aging Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.  On PC, the game was superb, having massive 32-vs-32 engagements online at once.  “If only,” I sighed, gazing at my Xbox 360.

Finally, from deep in the realm of PC gaming, comes ARMA 3.  Most gamers look at me strangely when I talk about this to them.  “ARMA?” they ask, fingers twitching because I tore them away from Call of Duty.  Yes, ARMA, you idiot.  The most realistic war game one can make without going to a military base and strapping on loads of laser sensors to play war games with the real guys.  ARMA 2, released in 2009, showed me how real someone can get with a few lines of code.  All weapons are just like the real ones, vehicles are limited by the number of rounds they can pump out and gasoline, and the maps are to scale.  My final statement is illustrated by this: if you want to get to the next town where the fighting is going on, don’t expect a loading screen or a just a few steps down a road.  Instead, find a jeep, tank, or hitch a ride with a guy in a chopper, cause five miles is five freaking miles.  Also, getting hit by a bullet takes you down.  Your character may be knocked out for a few seconds until a corpsman comes over to patch you up, but you are completely incapacitated.  There is no “red screen” like in Battlefield or Call of Duty, where your body automatically heals until you are combat fit.  You’re down and out.  What else is amazing is the sheer scale of engagements.  The number of players that can be on at once is staggering.  Fifty, sixty players can be on at once, fighting each other or another fifty or sixty computer controlled enemies.

So this begs the question: who cares?  Well, frankly, a lot of people.  With the advent of the new console generation from Sony and Microsoft, the gaming platforms will change to become the most advanced and technologically sound machines we have seen.  However, only Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 are marked to be released on these systems, as well as a PC version.  ARMA 3, due to the raw power it necessitates to manage graphics, players, and a slew of other features, is to only be released on PC.  All of these titles will be released around the holiday season, in case you are interested.

Sometime in the near future I am going to take a glance at the upcoming Xbox and its comparison to the PlayStation 4, and then how both of these are nothing compared to the power of PC.  Please comment and review so I can fill the time with something else.

Until next time.