Digital fodder about our family.
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That double points weekend with the release of the new maps really screwed me up. I leveled up quick the the final couple levels were frustrating, playing at level 50+ with level 20 weapons… pfft.
But the dead is done, now on prestige level 8 and sneaking up on the elusive gold cross.
Though I have half a mind to stop at level 9 and call it done. Starting over it getting kind of old.
Last night I flipped Prestige over again… On my way to that elusive gold cross.
So I am again a level 1 with next to no weapons and the quest to build up the arsenal starts all over again. I am no one over 1/2 way if you count the 55 levels it takes to get to the first one, I have completed the task 6 times. It takes time…
I’m hopeful that when the new maps are released to the PS3, we’ll have a double experience point period, that might help me cap off a prestige in one weekend as opposed to about 2 weeks of play.
Currently at Prestige level 5, I’m going to flip the switch in a few minutes.
OK, it seems there are different opinions on the value of Prestige Mode in Call of Duty 4.
Some folks embrace it, others just whine and call it dumb. The latter folks coincidently are either overly concerned with their stats or often times are the folks less skilled.
So basically it’s like this:
In most other First Person Shooters with online play you have a couple modes:
1) You have nothing or limited weapons. You run around the map and pick them up. Doom/Quake or Unreal tournament style. This is Old School mode in Call of Duty 4.
2) You have all the weapons and abilities that you’re ever going to have when you start the game (from an online perspective). You play, and it gets old.
Call of Duty is different in that you have to earn new weapons, and ‘Perks’ or add on. When you start you’re at Rank 1. You have available to you 3 simple weapons classes with limited weapons.
For example you have an M16 available, and it has the grenade launcher attached. No special sights. Just the standard Iron sights.
As you score points, generally by killing the enemy, you increase your rank. As you score kills with each weapon you unlock add-on for them including a red dot laser sight, to silencers, grips or even ACOG scopes.
Each weapon has milestones to unlock each of it’s add-on. Typically; 25 kills for red-dot sight, then 75 kills for a silencer, then 150 kills for the ACOG Scope. Of course there are different add-on for different weapons. An ACOG scope wouldn’t be useful on a shotgun.
In addition to weapons upgrades you score points by completing some in game challenges. They can be as simple as ‘Vandalism – Blow up x number of cars’ to killing each member of the other team at least once, etc.
As you progress you unlock more challenges.
So here’s the rub, or the fun depending on how you want to look at it.
You work your way from level 1 to level 55. By the time you get to level 55 you should have all of the perks and weapons available. Doesn’t mean you’ve upgraded each and every one though. I have yet to max out a sniper rifle, I’m just not patient enough to sit in the bushes and snipe people all day.
Each of levels brings with it an icon, from a simple Sargent strip up to 55 which is a 5 Star General.
When you get to essentially level 56 you have a choice. That is move into ‘Prestige mode’.
If you take the leap, you basically give everything back and start again from Level 1. The difference is your in game icon is now a Prestige icon for all 55 levels.
There are 10 levels to prestige:
I’m currently a Level 4 working my way up to the gold cross. (each of them is modeled after a high ranking medal of honor in one of the armies represented in the game as explained here)
There’s one more twist… For each of the weapon classes; Assault, Sub Machine Guns, Light Machine Guns, Shot Guns and Sniper Rifles…
If you complete all of the weapons challenges for each class you’re rewarded with a gold version of one of the guns. For the assault class it’s a Gold AK-47.
This in itself kinds of says your bad-ass, because completing these means you’ve scored a really high number of head-shots with each weapon. Some folks work very hard to achieve this, yet when they kick over into prestige they lose those weapons. The gold version doesn’t have any other attributes other than it’s gold.
I liken them to Chad Johnsons Gold Grill he wears when he plays. It’s all about ‘bling’ and nothing else. While it means you’ve accomplishes something, it isn’t all that.
Because it’s painful at first you’ll find a pretty large number of folks who will end up stopping at one level and staying ’55 for life’.
I think that’s kind of weak.
Make no mistake to get to the gold cross it takes a lot of work and more importantly a lot of time.
But that’s what drives the game and keeps it interesting. If you couldn’t dump and start over, the game would get routine rather quickly.
I don’t plan on stopping until I’ve gotten the gold cross.
Yeah I know I’m a little late to the party but last night I finished ‘Portal’.
Portal is this amazing game that’s part of the ‘Orange Box’ from Valve. It’s one of 5 games in the game pack, and in my humble opinion the only game in it worth playing.
It’s a 3D puzzle game that puts you as a test subject at the Aperture Science Institute. “We do what we must because we can.”
The portal concept is difficult for some to get. I’ll try to explain it.
There are two portals, one orange, one blue. If you walk in one you come out the other. In early stages you only get to control one, the blue portal.
Imagine that if you walked out your front door. But instead of walking out onto the porch you ended up coming in the back door of your house. Like wise you could turn around and walk out the back and instantly be in your front foyer, as if there was no ‘outside’. That’s what a portal would be like, only you get to shoot them and place them where you need them in most cases.
There’s a 2D flash version on the net that might help explain this [here].
I won’t spoil the ending for those who haven’t played it.
I played this on the PS3. It’s available for X Box, PS3 and the PC platform. You can buy Portal by itself for $20 from Valve and I’d recommend that if you’re not into the half life series.
On the PS3 the game played fine, though it loaded like a slug.
Santa brought us a copy of Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare. We’ve played previous call of Duty games and they were all pretty good. Everything you’ve read about this game is pretty accurate.
WWII has been done to death, so Infinity Ward brought Tom Clancy style gaming to the multi-player arena.
Only it’s worse than that.
The graphics are astounding, and the game play is really, really good. I’ve not been a huge fan of platform FPS games mostly because I’ve been platform controller challenged. I’ve just always felt like the controllers were the weak link. I mean come on. Compared to a mouse and keyboard how could you compete? Thank heavens this game isn’t cross-platform multi-player or I’m sure the PC folks would simply crush the platformers.
That being said, this game is addictive enough and the multi-player good enough that it’s pushed me over the edge. I’ve embraced my controller limitations and overcome most of them.
So what’s so addicting? The action. For the most part the games are balanced although you will find yourself in a lopsided battle now and again. If you’re on the winning side it isn’t so bad.
You start out with decent weapons but earn better weapons and mods as you progress through skill challenges. You get a plain Jane MP5 to start, but after a number of kills can add a red-dot sight or silencer. All good things in the scheme of modern warfare.
It’s this apparent never ending quest to have better equipment than the next guy that keeps you going.
There are no vehicles, and I’m OK with that. Get 3 kills in a row without dying and you get to call in or active a UAV, or radar plane that shows your enemies on the map. This is a good thing. Make it to 5 kills and you get to call in an air strike. Done properly, this will kill a few more bad guys and get you to 7 kills and the ability to call in a helicopter for support. Using air strikes and helicopters will get the frags piling up like the pay off of a loose slot machine.
Believe me when I say it’s addictive and I don’t take that lightly. As someone who lost almost 2 years of their off-time playing organized team FPS games, this one could easily put you back in that sored time waste of online gaming.
I admit I’ve probably gone a bit over board in the recent weeks but it’s all in good fun, and it’s a good thing the weather has been completely miserable or I’d really feel bad about the time spent.
It’s just a darn good thing not much else is happening around here.
Tags: addiction, Call_Of_Duty, COD4, game, online_play, PC, PS3
At the same time that we purchased Ratchet & Clank for PS3 we also bought EA Skate.
As skating games go this one is pretty good. The reviews of this game coming in around a high 7 to low 8 are pretty spot on.
What differentiates this game from other skating games is the ‘flick-it’ controls. Rather than push a button to start a trick, you ‘flick’ the right analog stick to perform Ollie and Nollie tricks. The tutorials throughout your career are pretty good and get you down the right path. It’ s all about timing and that takes some time to learn.
Throughout the career, I’ve had two times when pulling the appropriate trick was nearly impossible. In some challenges you’ll have to do a Nollie 360 and grind on something. It has to be a “Nollie 360″, not a “Nollie 360 Pop Shuvit”, or anything else that’s very similar. The differences between the two on the Analog stick are very hard to discern and do with consistency, at least for me. Of the two PS3 controllers that we have, one seems easier than the other. Perhaps it’s not as worn out?
What sucks about these types of challenges is that you must do the called for trick in the called for order. It would help if you could do a couple different types of tricks to satisfy the requirement.
The other bad part of this game is there is no walking. You ride everywhere. You have to Ollie up every little curb and step, which can sometimes make getting lined up for a run somewhat tricky. If you could stop, pickup your board, walk to where you want to be, set it down this game would be much more user friendly. I fully expect that will be implemented in the next installment of this game.
The game can get somewhat redundant at times, but forging forward to get the X-Games unlocked brings all kinds of fun.
I currently ‘Own’ my 16 year old son on X-Games Big Air 
He’s getting frustrated and there are still tricks that neither of us can pull with consistency.
Poking around the web you’ll find a number of ‘cheat sheets’ for the tricks. There aren’t any ‘cheats’ that I know of other than unlocking some clothes that you don’t want anyway.
This game takes time to master and certainly isn’t as much fun as saving the day and blowing stuff up, but as a sport game it is quite fun.
I highly recommend it. For me it was a lot more ‘realistic’ and fun than say a Tony Hawk game where you can pull any trick, any time, anywhere, w/o consequences.
I give it two thumbs up.
Tags: EA_Games, EA_Skate, flick-it, fun, PS3, Skate, skateboard, tricks
_self
Call Of Duty 4 Prestige Rank Update
April 29, 2008 in Commentary, Gadgets, PS3 by MAD | No comments
Currently:
Level 40-something. I flipped over this weekend during the Double Experience Point Extravaganza that was part of the new map releases.
While double experience points helps you level up faster, it kinda screws with you. I’m somewhere in the 40′s but my weapons have only been upgraded to about where they’d be if I was in the 20′s. So this kind of puts you a little behind the 8-ball if you will.
You just don’t have the tools you’re used to having at this level (perks aside).
I was half thinking about stopping at this level but will need to do at least one more to round out my weapon differential.
The new maps are great, they claimed (4) new maps but only 3 are really playable. Kill-House is pretty useless.
COD 4 remains one of the better games I’ve played, but it’s wearing thin. There are things they really need to fix. (these probably won’t make sense if you don’t play the game).
* Party or Lobby Migration is good, but host migration during a game needs to take place, even if it only moves to the user with the best overall connection. That won’t help when that person leaves, but it would help game performance.
* It needs a messaging system that pops up to let you know you’ve received an invite. Similar to the way the PS 3 notifies you that friends are logged on/off. In game is when you need this. When I push the start button it’s to switch weapons, not to see (and dismiss) a bunch of useless invites received 5 minutes prior.
* When someone performs an invite, they should be forced to wait for those to expire before moving on. It would help with those impatient folks who invite people then go join another room, only to screw up the folks that they invited.
* Tone down the noob tube.
* Tone down Jaugernaut.
* Fix the sniping with the ACOG, for real this time.
* Show the blast radius of what killed you in the kill cam. I die from stuff (claymores usually) that I’m no where near.
* mute in the Lobby, please…
* Oh and fix the hard core team killing… Allow users to vote a player out.