Homefront

I'm really looking forward to playing Homefront. I love playing multi player first person shooters on Xbox Live and this one comes with a twist. It will feature dedicated servers to reduce the lag, host drop out, and hacks that we see in some games like (cough cough Black Ops). The story of Homefront looks pretty cool. It is written by the John Milius who also wrote Red Dawn, Apocalypse Now, and worked on many other films throughout his career. Seeing his past work, this story should be pretty decent. There was a recent hands on that was unveiled to the press and it can be seen here in this video. After watching that the release date won't come soon enough.

Crysis 2 Multiplayer Demo

January 25th will be the day the Xbox Live community will get its hands on the Crysis 2 multi player demo. So far it looks pretty amazing, that being said we will see how it plays. I'm glad they are coming out with a demo, this will help sort out some of the bugs that seem to plague first person shooters without a beta. I'm guessing Crysis 2 will be pushing the 360 to its limits, considering how amazing it looked on PC. Trying to duplicate that look is going to be no easy task. Can they pull it off and still have a game that churns smoothly at 30 fps? Only time will tell and I'm looking forward to trying it out on my own.

A Bad Night

So lastnight myself and a few friends teamed up to play some Black Ops, and it didn't turn out to well. We were getting smashed in just about every game we played. In any glimmer of hope we had to win a match half way through it was bound to be dashed. We ended up going 2 and 9 for the night, it was all bad. But hey this is a new day and I'm ready to change that up. So I'll be testing my fate in Capture The Flag, Domination, and Demolition we shall see how it goes.

Black Ops - First Strike Map Pack

The first map pack for Black Ops is due out February 1st for the Xbox 360 for 1,200 Microsoft points. The 5 new maps are:

• Kowloon - Has the same look and feel of the mission during the single player campaign that takes place in Kowloon City, China. It features a zip line which enables you to traverse the map quickly. If there is a good line of sight on it, my guess is no one will use it. Only time will tell.
• Discovery - Is a Antarctic German research station abandoned after WW2. It features a deep chasm in the middle and a ice bridge that can be destroyed with explosives. It is a play on the actual New Swabia.
• Berlin Wall - This recreates the historical Checkpoint Charlie and the ability to see both East and West Berlin. It is labeled as a "large map" for snipers. That being said I hope that is the case because there are not enough maps in Black Ops for snipers to be used effectively. There is a vacant space in the middle of the map that is covered by sentry guns. If you make it across alive you will on the other side of the map faster then going around it.
• Stadium - Takes place around a hockey stadium, its a nod to the Cold War era '80 Olympic Hockey game USA vs. Russia.
• Ascension - This one is strictly for the Zombie lovers out there, though there were not many details given about it.

Yesterday

Yesterday was a frustrating day of  Black Ops game play. My friends and I played a ton domination and were on the losing end of really close matches. The type of matches where we lead the game two thirds of the time, only to lose it in the last few minutes. My conclusion is we need to play better as a team otherwise we will suffer from a lot more close losses. I also need to play better in the form of not making the same mistakes when I know a enemy is posted up in a position. I did that repeatedly on Havana and it cost me a lot of deaths during the match.

Havana is a map I usually do not do well on in domination game play, so I'm in the process of figuring that out. I really have to breakdown what tactics my teammates use while playing, because I already know my own is running from point to point securing flags. I'm guessing it has to do with whatever set up we use in our custom classes. So we are going to have to figure that one out soon or keep getting spanked, and I'm not down with that.

Black Ops Most Leathal Killstreak Combo

I usually play objective based game types in Black Ops, and after I prestige I jump into Capture The Flag. It can get pretty intense when playing against a team with similar skill. If I'm not rushing across the map to grab the enemy flag I'm defending my own. Prior to the game starting I set my kill streaks to 8,9, and 11 which are:

• 8 - Blackbird
• 9 - Chopper Gunner
• 11 - Attack Dogs

As soon I get the Blackbird I go looking for the enemies that show up on the map. This way I can get my 9th and 11th kill streaks. Once I get 9 and 11 I call them in, and this set up makes for a lethal combination. Reason being is the enemy runs into buildings to get away from the Chopper Gunner and then the Attack Dogs run right into the buildings eating people up. Try it out and see how it works for you.

Call Of Duty Black Ops: FFA

Tonight I jumped into the Free For All game type on Black Ops for the the first time. Not sure why I never ventured into FFA at the get go because I usually play alone, but it is what is. I played 4 games and the first one I wasn't sure which of my 6 custom classes I should use for a FFA match, for my kill streaks I switched out Napalm Air Strike with Attack Chopper. While sitting in the lobby and the time ticking down I was scrambling to figure it out what class to use, then just told myself figure it out after the match. Right then the game starts, the map Radiation, my class Recon, the goal kill EVERYONE! I was running what I call my Recon class which is the following:

-Weapons

• AK47
• Attachment - Suppressor
• Secondary - Strela 3

-Equipment

• Semtex
• Nova Gas
• Tactical Insertion

-Perks

• Ghost
• Hardened
• Hacker

-Kill Streaks

• Spy Plane
• Counter Spy Plane
• Attack Chopper

I played pretty cautious the first half of the match. Leary of anyone popping up around me, and I kept my head on a swivel with my cat like reflexes. You know what happened? It didn't do me a damn bit of good because I was 0 kills and 4 deaths early on and it wasn't looking good for me in last place. Once I hit 1 kill and 6 deaths, I figured what the hell time for some run and gun around the map. Started picking up a few kills here and there, then went on a nice streak where I was able to get 7 kills in a row. Which threw me into 2nd place, then called in my Attack Chopper which by the way killed absolutely no one for me. Then I struggled to find anyone in my general vicinity and the match was over. Finishing the match in 2nd place with 21 kills and 11 deaths, not bad for my first run at FFA.

Preparing myself for the next match I created a new class which I called FFA. I switched out the following:

• Hardened perk to Warlord
• AK47 Suppressed to M16 Suppressed and ACOG
• Tactical Insertion to Motion Sensor

In the fray of doing all of that the game started right when I was messing with my frig'n Kill Streaks. So I was only rocking 2 of them during the entire match, Spy Plane and Attack Chopper. The map was Jungle where I had my ass handed to me, I went 7 kills and 8 deaths. What sucked even more was the halfway through the match a majority of people left. So there was only 3 people left at the end of the match, but HEY at least I finished in 3rd place.

The next match I sorted out my Kill streaks and ran what I originally started with Spy plane, Counter Spy Plane, and Attack Chopper. This was a pretty fun match because it was really close the whole time. It ended with me being tied at 18 kills, but with only 4 deaths as opposed to 20 for the 2nd place finisher. Now I moved onto the 4th match on Nuketown. I ended this match in 1st place with 30 kills and 8 deaths, nothing really to brag about. Mainly because out of the 8 people in the match only two of them including myself had prestige, experience played a big factor there. All that being said I need to get some chow in me, I might jump on later to try and finish off the Tactical Mask challenges. Till next time take it sleazy.

Black Ops: An Average Day

So today was an average day on Black Ops, I won some and lost some. With a total of 13 games played of various types (Demolition and Headquarters) I walked away with 7 defeats and 6 wins. Yet still had moments of WTF being yelled from the comfort of my chair. Not being host in the majority of the games meant I wouldn't have the cards stacked to my advantage, so I realized I would have to play pretty smart. For some reason I forgot that part and end up stunning myself in the process of trying to stun the enemy with concussion grenades and making a few all together bone head moves.

The class I'm using now is what I call my Demo, and I obviously use it for playing Demolition games also for Headquarters. The class it consists of the following:

• Flak Jacket Pro
• Warlord Pro
• Tactical Mask

The reason I'm using this set up is because I'm going for the Tactical Mask Pro perk. When playing defense it is really good because with Warlord Pro you get one extra lethal and tactical grenade. So positioning yourself in a choke point where the enemy has to come through works wonders. Tonight I completed the Flak Jacket challenges and after that game I called it quits. The pro version of Flack Jacket makes you nearly immune to Flame thrower weapon attachments and Napalm air strikes, you won't die from them but they will slightly injure you. Hope that helps you folks in the future when trying to get those tactical mask challenges.

Here we go

It is a new year and I'm going to chronicle my thoughts and tips on the games that I play, and plain ol life in general through out the year. This should be fun...well I'm hoping that is the case. That being said I don't know how many times I have wanted to punch my own teeth in while playing games on Xbox Live, the main culprit being Call of Duty: Black Ops. Never in all my years of gaming have ever been so fumed as I have been with this game. I have this love hate relationship with it.

There are days where the stars are aligned, I see guys before they see me, UAVs are flying high, grenades have perfect arches when thrown, bullets hit their mark every time, teammates are paying attention, and I just hose through dudes in the multi player. Then there are other times where the complete opposite happens where I can't get a UAV up in the air to save my own life, I'll throw a grenade and upon it leaving my hand a teammate just so happens to appear out the side of my screen sticking/bouncing off him only to kill me, bullets dance around the enemy mocking my trigger pull, and halfway through the game half of my teammates leave in half of the games I play that day. Thus bringing me to the point of hammer throwing my 360 controller into another dimension, yet I don't only for the fact it is the only one I have.

It is weird almost like an adventure waiting to unfold when I start the game up, an adventure of how pissed off or ego boosted I can feel at the end of a 10 win/loss streak. Yet I still come back for more, mainly because I'm trying to get to 15th prestige. So far I have been able to prestige every week/week and a half, depending on the amount I play during said week and have made it to 7th prestige. That so far has been my emotional roller coaster with Call of Duty: Black Ops. So join me next time as I cover some other juicy topics revolving around this game.