MW3 is Just Around The Corner, I Can't Take The Pressure.

 Last week the Creative Strategist of Infinity Ward,  Robert Bowling, announced that if you Prestige at least once in the last 4 Call of Duties, you will receive a Prestige token for each game you have prestiged in to be applicable towards Modern Warfare 3, due for release on November 8th.  These tokens can be used at any point in time in the Modern Warfare 3 Prestige Shop.  So it is in your best interest to prestige in all 4 Call of Duty games; Modern Warfare, World at War, Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops.

Kids with too much energy.

I have the great disadvantage of having only Prestiged in Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops.  So I asked around and managed to borrow copies of Modern Warfare and World at War, since I had already sold my copies a few years back.  I then proceeded to enforce nap times, coax my wife to go to bed early or encourage her to work on her scrap-booking so that I may log in a few hours of game play.

Call of Duty: World at War

When I manage to get a couple of hours to play, I sit down and go to work.  I say work because World at War is wrought with douchebag hackers who are invincible.  I watched this one individual run around a room methodically stabbing my whole team to death while I unloaded 2 extended magazine clips from my MP 40, that isn't counting the rounds my teammates were putting into him as well.  I do not know what these individuals get out of cheating aside from ruining the game for everyone else.  After an hour or so of playing this loser filled game, I realize that I need a couple of days off before I can even consider going back, and I am at level 49 and only need to get to level 65 to prestige.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Modern Warfare is a different story.  Hack lobbies occupy Modern Warfare mostly instead of people with super powers. You start a round and everyone has unlimited ammo without the need to reload, launching noob tube after noob tube as though you were firing a .50 cal with explosive rounds.  RPG's rockets strewed the sky as though the end of days was upon us as air strike after air strikes are called in one after another after another.  Then there is the lobby where you are able to go 5 times faster than normal.  It takes some adjustment but this particular lobby leaves no one with a clear advantage.  The speed mod seems to stick with you for a while after you leave the lobby as well.  It gets old once it gets saturated with modded lobbies and quick scoping zzirGrizz wannabes, thus I can only last about 1 to 2 hours of gaming on this version of Call of Duty before I am almost tempted to burn the disk before I remember I borrowed this copy from a friend.

Call of Duty Elite

 The road to prestige is a long one and I am uncertain if I am going to bother.  The frustration of having to deal with prepubescent charlatans can be more tedious that I would have expected.  I would much rather argue with my 3 year old about the fact that kicking her brother is the same thing as hitting him and has the same consequences.  We shall see if I do manage to pull it off or not.  All I know is that I have to get the winter tires on put both of my vehicles, I also have to blow out my underground sprinklers,  put the water barrels away and get ready to put the Christmas lights up.  Winter is coming.

Winter is Coming

C'mon Nap Time. Battle Field 3

Battle Field 3

 The day I received an email informing me that EA Games was having an open beta for Battlefield 3, I knew what had to be done.  I proceeded think of ways to drain my kids of all their energy so that they would actual sleep during their allotted nap time, instead of the usual shenanigans that occur i.e.; demands for water, the occasional bum change or crying due to an owie after a failed attempt to fly across the room as Buzz Lightyear.

Buzz Lightyear from the movie Toy Story 1, 2 & 3

The best way to drain these perpetual motion kids, would be to take them to the park and let loose the little gremlins so that they could do all the work themselves, all the while sitting on the park bench and sipping my coffee.  Lady luck was not on my side that day, it was cold and raining and I seriously doubted my wife would let me take the kids to the park no matter how much I protested.  This meant I would have to rely on my imagination.  So I pretended to be a hungry tiger and chased the kids around the house catching them and eating them up.  A half-hour of munching on bellybuttons and ribs it was time for phase two.  Then for an hour I became a sleeping bear that would not wake up as they clambered all over me.  Then we had lunch, a quick bum change and then I whisked them off to bed for their nap.  By the time I had gotten downstairs and had the video monitor turned on, both angels were snoring away loud and clear.  They get the snoring from their mother in case anyone was wondering.

Sleeping Bear

Now that I had managed to get the kids to sleep, I quickly began to get everything setup for some gaming time.  I grabbed some fresh AAA batteries and installed them in my Turtle Beach head phones, a fresh battery pack for my controller and get everything up and running.  I signed in to Xbox live and initiated the download of the 4-gig beta file.  While the file was downloading I took the opportunity refill my water bottle and check the monitor again ensuring that they were still asleep and not just trying to set me up for bitter disappointment.  Both of them still sleeping and whistling resonantly through their noses, I head back to the couch and wait impatiently for the beta file to finish downloading.

BF3 Campaign

12 minutes later I start the game and head straight to the online portion.  I then stare at the loading screen for 8 minutes before I decide to dashboard and try it again, third times a charm and I am in the game.  I manage to do pretty well and get a damn nice kill death ration.  I just kept going for the objectives and kill people left and right winning most of my engagements.  On my third round of total game play the servers crash and gaming time was over. 

Battle Field 3

A few days later I manage to drain the little munchkins again and get online and see if the BF3 serves are up and running again.  I only had to wait 3 minutes to get into a game this time.  Then began the loathsome task of playing this sniper-infested game.  This is the first version of Battlefield where you can lay prone, which in turn allows someone to lie down in a bush 900 feet away with an unobstructed view of most of the map and pick you off till the cows come home.  Then I also had to endure the tedious ramblings of two 11 year old kids arguing about who is more awesome at this game, all the while someone else has their crappy music blaring into their microphone and no options on how to mute these maroons.  Needless to say I ended my Battlefield 3 experience there.

More BF3 game play

The graphics are little rough and the game play is a little choppy, you sometimes clip right thru the bottom of the map and they didn't even have any vehicles to drive around.  But this a beta, or is it?  I played the beta for BF2 last year and when I purchased the actual game it was an exact copy of what the beta was.  I personally believe this was a demo, making it the worst marketing ploy I have seen this year.    The game is being released October 25th, how much can they change in 1 month and will they bother?

Joy

I am happy I took the time to download and play the beta, it afforded me the opportunity to try out a game I most definitely will not be purchasing.  For those who are loyal to the Battlefield genre I am sure you will get it and enjoy every minute you play.  For me this game is not my cup of tea.  I am sure if I had the time to invest in learning the massive maps, figure out how to effectively operate the vehicles and had a bunch of friends who would actually play this game, I might consider picking this game up and giving it a chance.  But right now Austin is tossing the contents of his crib onto the floor while giggling to himself.  Erika is shouting at the top of her voice; "DADDY I'M READY!".  Game time is over and now begins playtime.

Happiness

Winter is almost here. Yay! MW3

Where Pumpkin Pies come from

 Trees are shedding their lush green locks.  The geese, smarter than the rest of us, are already heading south to avoid the foreboding polar front.  And Ghouls and Goblin's are looming in the background waiting for Hallows Eve so that they may gallivant out in the open among us without fear of persecution.  This can only mean one thing.  Autumn has officially arrived, and winter is just around the corner. 

Winter can be tough.

Most people prefer the summer months so that they can cook themselves in the scorching heat, doing various activities that always include copious amounts of unnecessary sweat.    It gets so hot that you don't have time to get all sweaty because it evaporates off of you before it gets a chance to accumulate.  In those horrendous times of heat exposure, you can only remove so many layers before you start to offend the people around you.  I, on the other hand prefer the onset of the winter months.  If I get too cold I can always add another layer of clothing.  I also get to use my snow blower.

CoD: Modern Warfare 3

The only thing more exciting than the up coming global warming event we have every year around wintertime is the soon to be released Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3 which is officially out November 8th.  Therefore this November 8th is the second coming of Christmas for me.  Infity Ward and  Sledgehammer Games are the producers this year.  There are rumors out there fore telling many new options and possibilities in the 8th release of the Call of Duty series.  They promise this to be the most diverse version of this award winning series yet.  I have heard that there is going to be 30 or more perks to chose from, including perks for your weapons.  They have revamped the kill streak system and they have also supposedly fixed the panic knifing, much to my brothers dismay I am sure.  The kill streaks will be adjustable in each class.  Meaning that you can have different kill streaks in each class set up, making it even more important than ever to prestige as many times as you can to open up those class slots.  Special ops are going to be back as well, allowing you to play co-op online or in split screen.

Scene from MW3

They will be release a Hardened Edition this year no prestige.  In it's place to connect with your friends, create Private Clans for a personalized multiplayer experience where you can share, stream and stack up your Call of Duty Elite conquests online.   The free version allows you to track your career and to create and edit your in-game class from your computer.  There are several other options available but those are the two main ones that would interest me.  Now the bonus to paying 49.99$ a year and becoming a Premium member is that you get all the DLC (DownLoadable Content) for free.  That includes all map packs and the up coming guns and camos.  If you are planning on playing online a lot it might be in your best interest to get the Hardened Edition.  Because the regular version is 59.99$ and the Hardened Edition is 89.99$, but it comes with a year subscription to Call of Duty Elite a whole lot more features. The Free DLC alone pays for itself.  If you buy the 4 map packs separately at 15$ each not including all other content that they will be coming through the year.

MW3 Hardened Edition comes with 1 year of CoD Elite

Overall I am very excited with the up coming release.  It is looking, as though my family will be missing me in November.  I am sure I will find the time to miss them as well.  I hope.