Modern Warfare 2 Thoughts

They were right about Modern Warfare being 5 hours, it took me five hours and eleven minutes to beat the campaign. Like Yahtzee said, most of that time was hiding in a corner waiting for the blood to fall out of my eyes.

TVTropes likes to talk about the separation between cutscene powers and powers in game. MW2 gives a great example. In a session, you can be shot by any gun several times and just shrug it off. When the custscene starts, you're shot by a single pistol once, and you die.

Apparently the player just isn't a good jumper in this game, you're always needing to be caught by your allies in a dramatic moment.

Remarkably, this game goes back to the idea of explosive barrels. Haven't we evolved beyond that? It adds nothing to the game.

Have you seen The Rock? Apparently the designers of the game have too.

You may know that this is a hyper-jingoistic paranoid fantasy of American patriotism. Many of the cutscenes -disguised as gameplay by letting you turn your head- can be performed one handed, if you're feeling particularly patriotic.

This is just a minor quibble, but there's no reason for the team in Russia to have a live communication feed with the team in Afghanistan. That is, there's no reason until the Dan Brown-esque betrayal by the authority figure you trusted.

Speaking of the betrayal, it's hard for me to feel less betrayed. I've played Modern Warfare 1 and 2, and I couldn't tell you a single detail about a single character in either game other than their accents. If you want us to care about your characters, maybe you should give them some character.

L4D2 Thoughts

I've been enjoying L4D2; I still maintain that we were deceived and betrayed, but that doesn't make it a bad game.

Apparently there's an system of selection for the production of zombies:

"Regular folk" -the average humans of normal weight and height in boring clothing- become regular zombies.

Fat people that wear sweatpants become Boomers.

Skanky ladies become Spitters; I don't know what their skankiness has to do with having Acid Reflux, though. (Insert joke here)

Douchebags that wear hoodies become Hunters. (It seems like Hunters do more damage once they have you pinned. I think it's probably a buff to keep up with the other zombie classes.)

Really tiny people become jockeys (It doesn't seem possible that they're children, there aren't nearly enough. Presumably, Valve decided to remove children from the games to avoid frightening/concerning people with having to mow down waves of toddlers. This results in even worse thoughts afterward: if they're not around now, they must have been eaten. There's no way they could have escorted every single human child out of the infected area.)

Smokers become Smokers. (It's a good thing I'm here to explain these things to you people)

El_Dawg, from the El_Blawg, proposed the idea that people who abuse steroids/Human Growth Hormone become Tanks. Stay away from Baseball stadiums when the zombie apocalypse comes.

Emo girls become Witches. I wonder why so many emo people were hanging around a sugar mill for the Hard Rain campaign of L4D2? (By the way, Hard Rain is the best level Valve has ever produced, in any game. Some of the best atmosphere I've seen in any media.)

Tom Robinson becomes the Charger. I'm not sure where the rest of them come from.

Space Logic

L4D is out, theoretically, so I've been thinking about Star Trek while waiting for the game to let me play. There are some silly clichès in the show, especially the 2-D nature of space. Only in Wrath Of Khan does someone note that all the ships are essentially on the same plane, and maybe they should take advantage of that fact?

Anyway, everyone knows that our galaxy is a disc, and that you get more matter the closer you get to the center of the disc. Naturally, there is also more matter on the center plane of the disc as well. If spaceships used free floating particles in space for fuel, (which canon says is not the case), it would be most advantageous to stay as close as possible to that center level. Of course, it's not significant enough to put people as close as they are in the show, but it's an interesting idea, at least.

This pulling fuel from space would also mean that ships couldn't battle in one area without exhausting it of particles; battles around fixed locations would favour those with better resource management. Moving battles would favour those being pursued, since they would get first access to the particles.

In case you think using space as fuel is silly, it has been proposed by those cleverer than me. Current scientific thought says that there isn't enough matter in space to make it worthwhile, but we are always discovering new things. In Science Fiction, particularly Star Trek, increasing the amount of Hydrogen floating in Deep Space would probably be the least far-fetched thing in the show.

All this is never going to be used, so I'll settle for asking for a new Star Trek TV show that keeps somewhat loyal to its roots. The last thing we need is 24 in space, however appealing that may be to middle management.