Modern Warfare 3

I spent the first 3 weeks of November sick. Coughing, phlegm, sinuses, you know the drill. No energy, no desire to really do anything. What a perfect time to get back into video games.

Somehow in the last 5 years or so, I completely stopped playing video games. I've never been someone who plays a lot, and I've never really been good either. Playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live meant me getting killed a billion times followed by every racial slur or bad word the 10 year old kid who just killed me could think of. That combined with living with Hilton and listening to him yell at the TV every night made me flee from video games. I regret that. It was time to come back. And what better time than when all my friends who play video games would all be buying the same game?

As someone who worked 5 black fridays in a row and was a part of every apple product launch for the last 5 years, the idea of waiting in line to get something first became something I never wanted anything to do with. I've never cared about that, but seeing people sit in a line for 8 hours to get an iphone they could have ordered online or bought the next day with no line made me just flat out despise the idea of getting something right when it launches. But unfortunately, the guys I play with are Call of Duty-crazy, and there was no way in hell they weren't going to play Modern Warfare 3 the night it came out.

So, I went to my first and hopefully last video game launch.

We went early to put money down to get a receipt, so, when they re-opened at midnight, we could just be handed the game. This made sense. There was already a line at around 4. Scary.

I went home and set up my newly purchased Xbox Live membership. The name they gave me was almost ridiculous/stupid enough to keep, but I didn't. 

YEA MYTHIC EARTH!??!

We went out at about 10, and ate Wendy's right when they closed. We ate standing outside with our food on the hood of Rich's car. This was probably the most ghetto eating I'd ever done. It was hilarious. Ray drove an hour there just so he had someone to wait in line with. He's extra Call of Duty-crazy. 

When we got to Gamestop, there were 2 hideous Scions parked in front with big screen TVs in their trunks so the lunatics could get more pumped for the game by playing the last game put out. While this was semi awesome, I couldn't get over how hideous and shamefully pimped out these disgusting cars were. 

There was no line. At all. It was just clumps of people standing in random places. As it got closer to 12, it looked like a line was actually forming on the opposite side of the Gamestop from where we were standing. So, we walked past 200 feet of trash that the classy people waiting in line had left. It was pretty sickening actually. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people who sat in front of a video game store for 7 hours didn't put forth the effort to keep the place clean, but still. Way to be giant pieces of crap, guys. 

I have to put a lot of the blame on Gamestop though. This is what the "line" looked like after a half hour or so:

And this is what it looked like when I tried to get in. 

As customers, say what you want about Apple stores. As employees of Apple stores, say what you want about management of said apple stores. But Apple is incredible when it comes to launching a product. Lines are organized from the first person until the moment the store opens. Employees are at the door to guard and greet, employees walk the line all day to make sure nobody is being a piece of crap, and lately, people waiting are even given water and snacks. Trash is taken care of. When the store opens, people are brought in in an orderly fashion, with everything explained to them. It's impressive, and shows that just putting forth some effort can make a big difference.

This, for lack of any other word to describe it, was a clusterfuck. Out of nowhere, they said that people would be brought in by the number on the raffle ticket they were given when they reserved the game. Boy, if I had known this when I reserved the game, I wouldn't have had to wait for an hour and a half. Nobody would have. There was no attempt by any employee to establish any kind of order or line, there were no extra trash barrels. There was no security. I don't think there were more than 3 employees there. It was quite a stupid experience. Add to that, the fact that without order, people will just stand in clumps in front of the door just as much as people will run through the doors after getting the game, holding it in the air and screaming like a moron. This creates even more of a clump, and even more chaos. Good times. 

But we finally got in, and all I could think of was the piles of ipads and iphones we had to attend to at apple on nights just like these. 

The crowd was gathering in front of the door as I left, and I did one of my favorite things to do in a crowd: be a giant asshole. I pushed my shoulders out, put on my best "I hate all of you" face on and walked through everyone, making sure to bump into everyone I could. Their fault. I felt half as badass as when Ray yelled at the obnoxious lady passing out peanuts in the crowd. But that's another story. 

I was home, and I had my first video game in 5 years. 

Stanley wasn't cool with it though.

We played some multiplayer, and I was shocked that it worked as smoothly as it did. Well done, Xbox live. 

So, it's been 3 weeks or so since this was launched, and not surprisingly, I have a love/hate relationship with the game. Jumping into a game like this after not playing anything for 5 years is pretty insane. The multiplayer is fun, but just as frustrating as I thought it would be. I miss the days of Halo, where things were much more simple, maps had specific games that worked perfectly in them, everyone had the same games, I could drive vehicles, and I didn't die from 1 bullet. I feel like you die WAY too easily in this game- most of my time is spent this way: run around looking for bad guys, get shot in the back, die. Respawn, run around looking for bad guys, get shot in the back, die. Respawn, run around looking for bad guys, see one, shoot him 4 times, watch him turn around and shoot me once, die, repeat. It seems to favor finding a hiding spot and camping rather than playing hectic with everyone around you. And sadly, even though I've already had this argument a few times, I feel very strongly that the game is designed to have the people who are good at it get better, faster. The better you are, the faster you level up, the more guns you get, the better options on the guns you get, the better perks, etc. The better you are and the more you have, you get more kills and call in planes to drop bombs on the sucky players, and get more kills. The more kills you get, the more games you win, the more you want to play, and you get better. The cycle continues.

For those of us who suck, it's really hard to get any kills when the guys with better guns, more options, more perks and more skill are dropping bombs on us every minute. It becomes increasingly less fun to play, and I don't get as many benefits. I can't seem to go anywhere. The good get better, and I stay just as sucky. I am the 99%.

But maybe it's just me. I fully believe there is such a thing as a "video game brain," and scientists need to start performing experiments to finally prove this. Many of the people I play with will play a map twice and know where everything is. I still don't know what I'm doing or where I'm running 75% of the time, and I've played multiplayer for like 12 hours already. My brain just doesn't get it.

But it's been fun at the same time. Just being able to sit in my room and play games with 10 friends from different states is fun. It's a nice fake hang out.

But the campaign? Amazing. I've already beat it (on normal of course), and it was 7 hours and 40 minutes of joy and amazement. I've never seen a video game that looked half as good as this. I can shoot and affect nearly everything in the game. If I hit a random bottle, it moves. If I shoot a computer screen, it explodes. SPOILER ALERT: I'm fighting through blown up buildings, in the middle of insane chaotic crossfire, bombing entire buildings, gunning down hundreds of people, shooting entire rooms of people in slow motion before one of the bad guys can get one shot off, shooting inception-style while upside down in a cut-in-half plane, falling to the ground. SPOILER ALERT OVER.

It's super violent, bloody, chaotic as hell, and detailed beyond belief. It's incredible and totally worth 60 bucks. If this was real life, I'd be dead in 10 seconds. While the other soldiers were doing their job, I'd be standing there with my mouth opening and watering, muttering gibberish and amazed at the world around me.

SPOILER ALERT PICTURE: (just the first level)

How ironic that the first level takes place on Wall Street, which is half destroyed. 

And how awesome it is to play a game this nice on a 46 inch HD TV 4 feet away from me. 

It's been awesome to find out how many people play this too. I had no idea some of the people ever played video games at all. Apparently my brother has played a lot of video games over the last however many years. I had no idea. It was also amazing to hear that the launch of this game was the biggest launch of any product, ever. It beat the records of, well, everything. 400 million dollars were made in 24 hours. INSANE.

To people who read this blog who don't like video games and may argue that someone who promoted "a life more awesome" as something involving physical activity, creativity, being outside, and doing epic and awesome stuff shouldn't be excited about playing video games for 24 hours (Dustin), I simply say this: 6 months ago, I would be working and unhappy. And while everyone I know is working, I'm blowing up shit on a huge TV in the comfort of my home. How is that anything but awesome? 

All Call of Duty and Halo titles of the last 5 years, here I come. 

currently listening to: Balance And Composure- "Separation"