Monday, November 30, 2009

WAIP: November 30, 2009 - Too Sick To Play Much Edition

I accidentally showed up to work early today thinking that I had to be in much sooner than I had originally anticipated. This will result in the first blog post from work - from the store computer no less - and will most likely, as usual, be derivative in nature.

Early on in the week I was only dedicating myself to playing Modern Warfare 2. I managed to - over the the span of a few days - gain about 10 levels to reach level 35 and I accomplished a significant portion of that in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving (from about 000 to 0400 hours). After the Thanksgiving escapade I managed to get myself sick and therefore did not manage to play any games at all throughout the rest of the week other than a short burst of MW2 yesterday afternoon.

Somewhere in there I managed to get my hands on the MAG beta for the PS3 and I did get one half hour long match in. From the get go - and this is forgivable in a game that allows 256 players to be in one match at one time - you notice that the graphics are not as sharp as you might hope for. I have to say that they do look fairly decent (better than PS2 graphics) for what the game is accomplishing so far. The only qualms I really have with the graphics is that, on the level I played, the gray stone steps, doorways, passages, et cetera all blend together to the point that unless happen to discover these object up close, you will not be able to notice them from afar (like say a sniper position).

I did not immediately notice how grandiose everything is and you probably will not either but trust me it is all there. The levels are large and though I was on the losing team there are a lot of players on both teams filling up the map. The map I played on seemed like a giant symetrical box with various vantage points constructed for both teams.

In terms of actual gameplay the mode, that I do not remember the name of, that I played was objective based and my team was on the attacking end of things. We were not working together at all even though one guy on our team was trying to rally us and I'll admit that I was taking it a little too Call of Duty at first. Even after I wised up and actually tried different tactics (flanking around, trying a different spawn point) I still only managed to touch the objectives two or three times. By the end of the match I understood  better what I was supposed to do but that does not mean I was any better at executing it. I would say that the learning curve is around about two or three full matches before you will grasp the full concept of what you should and should not be doing (learning the controls falls in there somewhere).

Now I am sure the first thing that you were wondering about is if a game with that many people in it lags. I could not honestly tell you the answer to that and be 100 percent certain. The game is playable and when you shoot someone they die the way that would expect. I experienced no deaths that I could attribute to lag but in the end the game is either lagging very minorly or the framerate is not great. You will notice, at least in this beta, that the game runs a little choppy but if this game is your cup of tea then it is nothing that you could not get used to.

I am sure that the final product will be at least a little bit better in all aspects when it ships at the end of this coming January.

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