Call of Duty and Gaming News, 8 November 2009

Call of Doody: Modern Warfare 2

Northeast GameStops possibly selling Modern Warfare 2 early.

(Well, no. My local GameStop in Poughkeepsie, NY, says they are NOT giving out pre-orders early. The girl who answered the phone scoffed at the idea, saying it's against GameStop corporate policy to break street dates, that there are fines for the franchise owners, and firings for staff caught doing it... )

Had a good gaming night last night on CoD4. Except I accidentally shot a couple of team-mates. Matt64 and I seemingly had team-mate-seeking ammunition. On hardcore TDM, I've pretty much switched over to the SAW. Up close, the rate of fire seems more forgiving, even tho my reflexes suck pretty bad. At distance, if I just tap the trigger, it essentially turns the SAW into a 100-round assault rifle with the RDS on it. We mostly won; of the games we lost, except for 1 or 2 chalked up to our intermittent suckage, most were due to one or two players repeatedly running out in the open to get shot.

People complain about campers. (And in some objective-based games, it's a valid complaint.) But it's not usually the campers who lose the game in hardcore TDM. It's the bucketasses who think they're run 'n' gun gods. Some players are. Some guys/gals have incredible twitch reflexes and superb situational awareness. I don't, so I don't fool myself by thinking I can go toe-to-toe with guys way faster than me who game a lot more than I do. I have the occasional game on FFA where I do quite well, but I can't do it consistently. But I can still contribute to a win in HC TDM by communicating enemy intel, co-operating with my team-mates, and holding down a good choke point against the enemy. Tho my scores are low compared to a lot of players, I generally don't go way negative like some of the dudes playing with us last night did. If you're running and gunning, and you're racking up scores like 2 and 16 consistently, you might want to rethink your tactics a bit.

• The Modern Warfare 2 Dedicated Server Petition is over 187,000 sigs.
• Destructoid: Activision hunts down pirates.
• Stage Select sez Activision has $200 million US budgeted for publicity, promotions, etc., for MW2. Some private eye money is in there, too.
• Times Online review of MW2.
  

More Gaming Links:

• Left 4 Dead 2's pre-orders 4x that of the original.

Non-Gaming Links:

• Gizmodo has a peek at the next Wonderbra.
• Kari Byron has a gun.