SWTOR PvP: From awesome to pointless to ‘is it patch day yet?’

Categories:

a. MMORPG

January 13, 2012

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If you’re not already 50, don’t bother PvPing until next week’s patch. There’s no point. In the last two weeks, enough of the playerbase has hit 50 to make the leveler a moot point in warzones. If you catch a 50 alone, you might have a chance. Might. If there are other players around looking for a kill, which there will be, that chance evaporates like last week’s science experiment. Or if they have any of the set-gear, you’re also taking a big piddle toward the wind while they obliterate you.

Believe it or not, I actually think this shows how well Bioware knows their playerbase. The PvP situation has gotten progressively worse every day since launch — a bracket is desperately needed now to keep things balanced — but had it been in at launch, all we’d hear are frustrated powerlevelers with no one to fight. Releasing the bracket with next week’s patch comes at just the right time to prevent the all-too-common ragequit from the less dedicated majority. Once it goes in, we’ll be rosey.

PvP in SWTOR works with a bolstering system similar to that of Warhammer Online and RIFT. When a level 10 enters, they are given a boost to their stats making them roughly equal to a max level character. The level 50 — let’s say a fresh 50 with quest greens — may hit a little harder, but the real benefit comes from the extra skills at their disposal. If they play smart, they can and will beat a low-level in perpetuity. After they’ve been at the cap for a spell, they’d have to be AFK to lose in a 1-on-1.

The bracket is skipping even this slight chance and are relegating 50s to their own warzones. 10-49s will fight alone now, without the “instant win” hardcores that dominate today. And that is fantastic. The bolstering system isn’t perfect but it’s better than anything MMOs have presented so far. When a level 10 faces off against a level 49, sure, the 10 will be at a disadvantage — but it’s only a disadvantage. Play it smart and there are no more guaranteed wins. The level 10 has value beyond being cannon fodder. 10s, 20s, 30s, and 40s are all deadly if played correctly.

For some reason, the PvP in SWTOR has me more enamored than any game in the past (MMO-wise). It is just a hell of a lot of fun to have skill and strategy rule the day and gear be an after thought. That’s why these 50s need to go. Their competition is all about gear, and it turns the PvP paradigm on its head.

So until the bracket goes in, I’m out working on class quests.

How about you, have you had much luck in PvP?

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RIFT Versus SW:TOR – An Observation on With It-ness

Categories:

a. MMORPG

December 31, 2011

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I find it very interesting that RIFT gets mass appeal for being a game that’s adapted to the times, yet SW:TOR has absolutely not. In fact, I’d say the folks at Bioware pretty much stopped learning right around 2008 with WAR’s warfronts. Few people mention this, despite their being back to back releases (figuratively anyways). The only lessons Bioware seem to have applied since are those they’ve taught themselves with single player RPGs.

And for all that, I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun. The voicing, while sometimes an obvious mask for “kill ten rats” advancement quests, really does make leveling more engaging. On the other hand, I also feel like my character has been planned out for me, like a single player RPG. That’s always been there, though,  in games gone by, but I guess it’s easier to ignore when everything isn’t spoken.

I do wish they would implement some of RIFT’s improvements. It needs better tutorials and a more customizable UI. It needs better quest planning — either that or earlier mounts. I love the massive scale of everything but it’s tiresome when you have to run back for the second or third time. And, as small as it is, I really wish the minimized window would flash red when I was being attacked. I’m an alt+tab blogger and that’s a death wish when you stay logged in.

Overall though, there’s still this looming question over fanboy love and jaded bitterness. I’ll say this: SW:TOR is a very polished, very familiar game that harkens back to the 2004 era of MMO scope. It’s picked up some things better left behind and, yeah, I hope they fix them quick. I feel very spoiled by Trion’s quick turn around time, though, so I hope it’s a lesson they learned. While SW:TOR’s first patch was three yards short of underwhelming, and their communication is EA Mythic acceptable, this could be the second life for the WoW quality MMORPG.

Is it as up with the times as RIFT? Not by ten feet of tent pole. Is it still a shining example of how compelling and exciting this genre can be? Yes — and for that, I hope you try it.

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SWTOR: Impressions and _Impressions_

Categories:

a. MMORPG

December 21, 2011

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Like most of the MMO world, I’ve spent the last week knee-deep in The Old Republic. Talk about a good game. Single player? You bet, more than any other MMO I’ve played. Featuring more group content than our other darling child, RIFT? Without a doubt. And isn’t that something? We can have the most exclusive type of single-player questing, the kind that drives the anti-themepark nuts, and yet have more and better reasons to find friends than in recent memory. Bioware, you’ve struck gold.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and step back from the jaded, “I’ve seen at least THREE MMO releases and that means I’m vet” self, and admit that TOR has inspired more awe in me than any MMO since my first. I was skeptical of their very stylized art style right up until I played it in beta – and I’ve been blown away since then. There is a level of detail here we’ve never seen in this genre before. From the spaceships outside the fleet dock, to the arcs of lightning in your first real instance, TOR delivers the periphery better than I ever thought they could. It is, in a word, immersive.

I’ve been playing a Sith Assassin and having a fun time, if a little disappointed in the side quests. The main questlines are fantastic. Sure, you get your fair share of “go here, collect that” but between the lines are some real nuggets of good storytelling. For every kill quest worthy of skipping, there are three well-acted, well-told story quests. I often listen to podcasts as I play, yet I find it almost impossible to do so when entering a cut scene for my class. There a simply too many interesting characters, twists, turns, and lore tidbits to offer half my attention. It’s engaging to be sure.

PvP is an interesting proposition. It doesn’t change from start to end; you have three warzones, no brackets, and skippable cutscenes. The battlegrounds are two-thirds fresh. Huttball is a good time, especially when you can knockback players into walls of fire or acid pits. Voidstar is an MMO take on Battlefield’s Rush mode. Alderaan is Alterac Valley… or Domination or Conquest, take your pick. The Assassin is an incredibly capable class and I’ve managed to top-three every match I’ve played – and this from the self-professed mascot of noob-PvP. Once again, I must remind rogues that you are overpowered and should be loving every minute of it (the assassin is effectively a rogue if specced right). My one issue is that PvP gear is only awarded at levels 20, 40, and 50. Successful PvPers could easily acquire all of the available gear as soon as they ding, leaving little reason to grind the in-between. PvP specific players will very likely have earned the vast majority of commendations needed to buy a full PvP set before they even reach those levels. Or so says an Assassin.

Overall, I’ve been extremely impressed. I’m on Dromund Kaas, almost finished, and if one thing has sunk in, it’s this: it took millions and millions of dollars, but a game has finally matched WoW’s level of polish right out of the gate. We wonder why TOR took so long or cost so much, but the answer is effectively this: they set to match a seven year shined game and succeeded. People said that was impossible and Bioware just did it. Even if you hate themeparks, that deserves a nod.

Thanks for reading,

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EA-Bioware: Intentionally leaving you out

Categories:

a. MMORPG

December 14, 2011

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I’m going to share a thought that may sound like a conspiracy theory but so be it. I think that EA-Bioware is intentionally making the early access process slower than it needs to be. Full disclaimer: No, I’m not in the game yet, but yes, I fully understand and, as a matter of fact, endorse the staggered launch concept; it sounds like people are having a great time with it. I question intent for two simple but related reasons: 1) this is the EA hype-machine we’re talking about; and, 2) the invite process has been prematurely ended each day it’s been live. That opens the door for questions.

I’ve thought about how things are going over the last two days and, internally, things seem to be going nicely. Players aren’t overcrowded, lag isn’t bad, queues are, as of this afternoon, still non-existent. Bravo for that, guys, it’s a nice feather in your cap. Although, then I look at the invite process and it starts to become clearer. People who pre-ordered the game five months ago were lucky to get in yesterday. Not all of them did. Today, it looks like we got up to September in invites, if the forums are to be believed (a big if).

Then we look at how invites have been distributed. Yesterday, if you didn’t get your invite by 3PM EST, you didn’t get one. Today, if you didn’t get yours by 1:30 EST, you weren’t getting one. Um, what the fuck? Okay, we’re staggering. Sure, right on, maybe they invited 100,000 people in the four hours the doors were open. It’s doubtful to the point of wishful thinking, but hey, maybe 100,000 people pre-ordered in the first few months.

But something doesn’t add up there. This is the biggest video game project ever. In the history of video games, this is the pinnacle. You mean to tell me Bioware is on a 9-to-5 schedule when they’re finally ready to show it to the world? No wait, you also mean to tell me that keeping servers on low-to-mid load at peak hours is necessary to keep things running “smooth”? Please don’t buy into that. It’s a lie. Anyone who has ever played through a launch should be able to tell. A server can function fine when the population is “high.” As a matter of fact, a server can function fine when the population is “full.” If you don’t believe me, please explain what the purpose of a queue is if not to ensure “things run smooth.” But there is no queue, because waiting in line with the promise of playing that day is worse than waiting in line not knowing if you’ll play at all.

Now if they did invite 100,000 people this morning, maybe we could see how they’d need the afternoon to keep things in line. Except, yeah… no. Not unless EA-Bioware is totally and completely inept should that be believed. Trion let everyone in and regulated through queue limits. So did Blizzard when Cataclysm came out. So did Aion. So did LotRO. You get the picture. I refuse to believe that things are so tough as to prematurely cease invites unless there’s a second motivation.

Hype. What’s happening this week? The launch of TOR. What’s a good way to keep it a #1 Google search? Keep a lot of people in anticipation. Everyone NOT in the game, rapidly writing blog posts (like this one), tweets, and forum rants ensures the game stay on the forefront of MMO player’s minds. It keeps us chomping at the bit until we can join our friends in the fun. You can be sure that EA wants this to be as big a deal as possible. This type of marketing is nothing short of viral… except insidious is probably a better word.

And it’s worked. People are going bat-shit crazy that they’re not playing yet and gamer’s everywhere are turning to take notice. Win for EA – and a great way to be a douche on the first day your product is out. EA being EA. Bioware being influenced by their main corporate backer… not unexpected.

That’s all okay, though, because they told us this would happen. You remember, back when they pressured everyone into buying a game they were still being tight lipped about. It was the Faith Pre-Order and be wary ye’ of little faith. Everyone playing the game right now fell easily into the “give us money now” camp for whatever reason and are being rewarded for it. That’s good for them but, again, it’s a pretty lousy thing to do as a company.

For what it’s worth, I didn’t expect to get in. My “official” pre-order went through Sunday, so I’d have been crazy to. That said, the true story is, they stole $5 from me, messed up my order, and precluded me from early access because I wasn’t going to sign up for them to do it again. Origin, taking $5 pre-orders, holding $65 for the next week, and then forgetting the whole thing happened. That’s why I’m not in – I figured, hey, they kept my $5, they must charge when the game actually releases. Nope. Friday evening, I opted to ask for it for Christmas and be done with it. (What, you can be 25 and still get Christmas presents from Mom and Dad!).

Anyways, I am a little bitter that their system messed up, but whatever. This isn’t a post to say that they’re some evil company, out to get us, and laughing as they count their bills. I just think you have some clever marketers who think we’re sheep and too dull to see what they’re doing. Sheep who will pay for a product on “it’s the next big thing!” alone. That kind of makes them marketers. Then again, meh. We’ve waited this long, another few days won’t kill us!

You know what I so vainly hoped? That Bioware would keep up it’s reputation of respecting their players. If there is any truth to my theory, they’ve thrown that out the window. That lack of respect for our intelligence, expectations, and our money, is what leads MMO companies to make major mistakes. It’s what leads Blizzard to cockiness at one Blizzcon and apologetic fan service at the next. It’s what leads to suits who know little if anything about video games directing business strategy. Tell me, does that sound too unlike the EA you know?

 

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RIFT blew its first shot, will it blow its second?

Categories:

a. MMORPG

December 13, 2011

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I made a silly mistake today and renewed RIFT. I’ve been playing it a lot lately and having fun leveling my rogue through PvP. (Admit it Assassins, we’re overpowered). When I got the email reminding me that until I paid up my characters would be sold into slavery, I didn’t even consider that TOR comes out this week. Not a second thought was cast, I renewed that subscription and logged in just to be sure I could. Then it hit me, as much fun as I’ve had in RIFT lately, will I even bother to login again after TOR is out?

That I’m asking this question, that’s it just seems like  a question the majority of RIFT players must be also be pondering, doesn’t bode well for the game’s immediate future. Like a lot of people, I hit the game pretty hard in the beginning and then eased back into a relaxed play style. More relaxed than most people I know, even, only logging in for an hour here or there (until the last two weeks). It wasn’t that I’d gotten bored, it was that I’d experienced everything I was able to and gotten comfortable with the systems. I feel like I know RIFT pretty intricately, so I feel confident in saying, RIFT offers very, very little that TOR does not, and what it does (rifts) have been played out. Once you’ve leveled one zone, you’ve leveled them all. Once you’ve done one rift, you’ve done them all. The one competitive factor RIFT has is its class system. You can mix and match souls, but let’s be frank here, you were pretty much one soul with stat boosts from the others. The only benefit is that you can change that class on a whim.

The main counter-point to all that is in the potential of the dynamic event system. Unfortunately, it’s too late. RIFT blew it’s first shot to stem the tide to TOR. If they were going to do something exciting with it all, given us a taste of what’s to come if we stick around, they should have done it over the last two months. Instead, they delivered rehashed concept after rehashed concept (speaking to the rift/dynamic content system here) that just works to drive players to something they haven’t experienced yet. TOR is that thing.

Now, I’m not saying RIFT is doomed. I don’t think so at all, but losing a big chunk of your players to a game that’s arguably just as “sticky” isn’t a good thing. Rather, I think they’ll experience a drop in subscriptions, players will shout about servers being empty and the game dying out, and then in three months they’ll see some of those lost players come back.

RIFT had better have something big planned to lure players back once the 90-day realization sets in (this game isn’t perfect!). If they blow their second chance, RIFT’s time in the limelight may have already passed. I hear there’s an empty seat by LotRO.

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A status update

Categories:

d. Everything Else

December 12, 2011

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Hey Blog, long time no see!

I haven’t written anything in almost a month and I wanted to give you a little update. As many of you know, I’m in my first semester of graduate school. Or I was until today when I hit that “submit” button on my final assignment. This semester has been, hands down, the most busy I can ever recall having. Between coursework and actual work, I had to make a decision between writing about games and actually playing them. Since I still podcast and write for Vagary I opted to say informed.

I’m done now, which means I’ll be writing more, but I’d still recommend subscribing in your favorite RSS reader. You can also find my professional writing at the link above, if you’re looking for a quick fix.

Anyways, stay tuned. I’m hoping for a TOR invite tomorrow, so I’ll definitely have more to talk about once I’m in.

Thanks for stopping by. It’s good to be back.

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How Skyrim made MMOs better for me

Categories:

a. MMORPG

November 24, 2011

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I’ve been playing RIFT for the last hour and had to pull myself out to share this with you. I have been having an incredible time. Like, fresh, first-days-of-MMOs type time. I know that sounds strange and, believe me, I didn’t expect to have such an immersive experience when I logged in. What I did is going to seem obvious, but I hope you try it, just to see.

It’s simple: zoom in. Like most of you, I’ve been playing a lot of Skyrim, so I thought I’d see what it was like to play RIFT in the first person. It’s iffy, and because it’s iffy, I zoomed out just a tad, to something like this…

It’s similar to how Darkfall limits the camera angle but it still seemed a little awkward. I wouldn’t want to PvP with it, but for questing? What the hell. I ran towards my nearest quest indicator and along the way started to see things in a whole new light. This limited field of view forced me to focus on a much smaller window of greater detail — and the game stood up fantastically! I started to appreciate how the light filters down through the leaves and how good some of the textures are. (Mostly). I actually spent time to appreciate monster models beyond that cursory look before killing them dead. There are some really great models that I’d never really “seen” because I’d been zoomed out of the world. At times I felt out of my comfort zone, but I stuck with it. Telara drew me in like it never has before.

What’s more, I started to see my character like I hadn’t since making him. I always felt that player characters in RIFT were lacking, that they were little more than an avatar for destruction. When I panned the camera around, I took a minute to look my character in the face.

Who is this guy? Why does he frown? What kind of past would a person who looked like that have? These are questions I don’t think I’ve asked of any of my characters in RIFT. It took me being forced to spend some time a salt’s throw from his shoulder to make me do it.

Of course, there are times when you’ll need to zoom out. I was surprised to see that a close third-person perspective simply doesn’t work while mounted; the camera seemingly raises. Still, this was a good enough substitute that kept me in touch with the world.

It really comes down to being able to see the fine detail of things.

I share this post because doing this little thing made me feel something I haven’t felt in a very long time. I blamed MMOs for lacking a sense of world. I still think they do, but this little change allows me to at least meet them halfway.

I know a lot of you will think this is silly and maybe it is. If you usually play zoomed out, though, I hope you’ll challenge yourself and zoom in for half an hour. It will probably feel foreign, but who knows, you might just feel like you’re seeing things for the first time. It took me literally being forced to look at the game as a world but I’m very glad I had that experience tonight. Would I play like this all the time? No, I probably wouldn’t. Still, it’s good to get a new perspective now and then.

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So are those tourists equal yet?

Categories:

a. MMORPG

November 16, 2011

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Here’s a thought I had this morning. No one really argued that WoW Tourists existed. Now that they’ve been “touring” for a handful of years, are they still tourists? Have they made the leap from WoW player to MMO player or are they still the stereotype we thrust upon them when WoW was at its peak?

For my part, I think the fact this question even needs to be asked highlights how flawed the original thought was. As WoW continues decline, it becomes more and more apparent that these “tourists” were really just fledgling PC gamers now comfortable with the platform. Playing new stuff is scary when you feel unprepared. After all, some of them must have made the jump to support the masses of titles out there right now. Maybe all those pit stops over the years were really just the baby steps of a new generation.

Just a thought.

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Submersing in Skyrim

Categories:

b. Console, c. PC Gaming

November 14, 2011

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This post originally appeared on Vagary.TV. We work awful hard over there, so if you like it, please consider adding us to your blogroll. I decided to write this because — *gasp* — friend and co-host, Adam “Ferrel” Trzonkowski has decided to wait on buying the game. Here I hope to capture a little bit of what has me so entranced with The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Enjoy!

I never made it past the first couple hours of Oblivion. I got as far as the first major city before petering out. I killed things, this being a video game and all, but the omnipotence of the guards vexed me. I would sneak through the hillsides, take out a bandit (or travelling salesman) only to find a stand of guards over the next rise, somehow having seen my dark deed and demanding that I surrender or die. The world, full of collectibles and hidden treasure as it was, couldn’t overcome the immersion breaking logic that dictated the AI. I wasn’t much of an Elder Scrolls guy.

Until now.

Skyrim is, hands down, the best RPG I’ve ever played. It’s better than the Final Fantasy’s of my teendom and the Dragon Age’s of my twenties. Its open world makes linear stories like Mass Effect 2 seem almost cinematic in their rigidity. Character development is meaningful and based only on skills used in context; gone is sneaking for sneak’s sake or magic missiling to the empty sky. Replacing these are bigger, less frequent gains and much quicker levels.

The beauty of Skyrim is in making you the stranger in a strange land. In one fell swoop Skyrim has accomplished what MMOs have sought for over 10 years: Tamriel is a living, breathing world that begs to be explored. It invites you to daydream about its darkest depths and hidden treasures. It invites you seek what’s just beyond. What stands out most, however, is the utter appropriateness. Snowstorms will assault you in the mountains and obscure your vision. Elk run in herds and frighten away tiny mountain goats. Dragons will circle you, and taunt you, but you might just be able to hide. If she sees you, be sure to keep your distance because one good bite will make you a meal. Should you win the day, however, you’ll witness a fire sear the flesh from its bones and leave behind a skeletal carcass to mark your triumph. The score underlining it all is written to an epic tee, perfectly cued and wonderfully orchestrated.

Skyrim, in at least one way, introduces a new contradiction. The story is engaging, at times visceral, and the player often feels the impending hammer-fall above their heads; the dragons have returned and they aim to destroy… unless you, the Dragonborn, stop it. There’s a certain amount of pressure in such a quest. At the same time, the game-world invites me to craft a character from my avatar. I am a ranger, a woodsman with a flair for magic and a love of dual swords, and if I can save the world then it is my duty to do so. But every quest sends you trekking across large swathes of land, tempts you with each dungeon diversion and necromancer’s haunt. It is woefully and delightfully tempting to forget questing entirely and just explore. The game asks for a cognitive dissonance. Its dialogue is resonant, imploring; its world a place worth saving, a place worth getting lost in. At times, it’s as if your travels exist in a vacuum where the dragons are always in mid-flight and their mystery remains in wait.

I play on the PC but I use a controller. The UI feels built to suit the scheme. Some players hate that but I’m not one of them. Skyrim handles fine on a keyboard, even if it doesn’t let you rebind certain keys – but then, this isn’t an MMO, so who ever said it had to be? There’s a duality present here. The game, quite obviously, has been built to take advantage of modern PC hardware – the graphics lack nothing on seminal powerhouses like The Witcher 2, though indeed they differ in style. Blurry texture-work is non-existent on Ultra — if you can run it. Yet, for that, it still feels made to suit a gamepad. Pay attention, PC players, because this is what next-generation console games will be aiming for and you have it now. Congratulations.

Skyrim is a work like no other. It is an amalgam of fantasy tropes blended and presented with audacity, a keen eye for the keen observer, and a seriousness more at home in Winterfell than Tamriel. Perhaps a bug comes forward – a townsman walking between you and a lazy Jarl, a wolf floating hundreds of feet in the air – but even these are only slight reminders of the imperfection of video gaming; they are smile and nod moments on the way to greater deeds. I don’t know yet if there is a damsel in distress or a mountainous dragon lair filled with gold, but I wouldn’t doubt it. Skyrim is a pool of familiar water found fresh with submersion. It is, in the world of open-world RPGs, revolutionary.

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A Modern Warfare Twice Played [and How I Survived the Midnight Pickup]

Categories:

b. Console, c. PC Gaming

November 8, 2011

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I’ve been a big fan of the Call of Duty games since Modern Warfare 2. I didn’t have a console before then (I’d been holding out with a pS2) and summarily died, over and over again, when I tried playing with friends. When I bought my first 360, though, I knew I needed to find out what everyone loved so much. The game grew on me and I played it for the better part of that year as my “only have 20 minutes” entertainment of choice. Black Ops came out the year after with some brave new ideas but the same, aging engine and gun play that often felt more like a whimper than the concussive blast of high caliber rounds. I played CoDBLOPs for about six months before growing tired of the looseness in the controls. It missed something vital and hard to discern but in a game like Call of Duty, the guns need to feel good — Black Ops’, well, didn’t. So it was with some hesitancy that I stopped by GameStop last night to follow through on my pre-order.

Allow me a brief aside to explain the process of buying the game. It wasn’t typical.

Imagine my surprise when I arrive at 11:45 to see a line of hundreds stretching down the sidewalk. This might not seem noteworthy if you live next to a big store… but this wasn’t a big store; it was a very, very small store next to many other, larger ones in the city. As I made my way to the end, I passed a crowd that would have devoured a young woman — had there been any. The one woman I saw in line was a very disturbed looking mother with two small children (nine and ten years old small… at 11:45 at night… to buy a murder simulator). The only other woman was an excited teenager who leaned out her car window holding her copy of the game, shouting, “woo! Modern Warfare 3!” to which a man in sweatpants and gold plated teeth replied, “What’s that, you want to suck my [expletive deleted]? You want to suck all our [expletive deleted]?” The energy drink holding 18-30 somethings surrounding him — fellow customers, not friends — laughed and nodded their agreement. A man in front of me discussed with his friend the best way to get a girl to put out. Empty cans were left on the sidewalk, cigarette smoke floated through the air, and all around me was echoed the words “fuck” and “fucking.” When I finally got to the front of the line only 30 minutes later, I was told that I’d need to get a wrist band and return to the end of the line. Even though I was already at the counter, already paid, already holding a receipt, and looking directly at a stack of PS3 copies. The teller was having a rough night (I wonder why) so I let it go and got back in the rapidly decreasing line.

The game is a disappointment. It’s fun, sure, and worth the money if you’re a fan of the series. The multiplayer, however, feels like one big map pack for Modern Warfare 2. The art assets look exactly the same, movement and control feel exactly the same. Activision could easily have passed off MW3’s multiplayer component as an expansion and called it a day but I suspect they wouldn’t have seen such extraordinary sales if they had. The only noticeable differences are that firing rate and recoil have been adjusted making each weapon feel just slightly different than how you remember it.  Kill streaks are now broken into playstyle-specific groups (Assault, Support, and Specialist) which helps spread out the killstreak rewards to the less killstreak-y. For all intents and purposes, however, if you got your fill of Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward has given you very little reason to buy this game.

No, I haven’t tried co-op yet, but I’d like to. PSN ID: GameByNight.

I’m tempted to announce now that Battlefield 3 has finally won the battle of the first-person shooters, except the sales won’t bear it out. Honestly, that’s disappointing. Where Battlefield 3 feels truly like a next-generation shooter, Modern Warfare 3 feels distinctly last generation. The blurry, washed out textures that impressed us two years ago now look, well, blurry and washed out. Modern Warfare 3 launched 14 hours ago and it already feels old. Congratulations, DICE. I hope next time around sales match the quality of the end product.

But that’s exactly it, Modern Warfare 2 WAS a quality product and so is Modern Warfare 3. The core gameplay is still tight and fun in all the ways it’s ever been. Infinity Ward has improved on many of the issues players had with the previous game and MW3 is the best in the series because of it. If you like Call of Duty, this game is a must buy simply to keep up with all of your friends who will be playing it. Purchasing this game was a forgone conclusion for many of us. That’s a testament to how rock solid playing online is.

If you’re not already indoctrinated, though, or if you played MW2 and were tired of the extra-fraggy, air support laden match structure, you’d just as well save some money and buy another game. If you’ve never played a Call of Duty, again, save the money and get MW2 first. As an expansion, MW3 is wonderful. As a sequel… let me put it like this: Modern Warfare 3 is to Modern Warfare 2, what Fallout: New Vegas is to Fallout 3. Take that for what it’s worth.

Oh, and I learned what the message “T for D” means when sent over Xbox Live. For shame, teenagers. For shame.

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