So as part of this blog now I'm going to start including a few things about my adventures in the video gaming world in a blog that I'm calling "Confessions of a "Noob" to see what I can learn from getting owned - or pwned as they say.
I’d be terrible at war, especially if it was just like
Call Of Duty Black Ops II. Unless it
involved shrieking uncontrollably at the screen about how unfair it was:
“There’s no way that he could have shot me first.” “That bastard must be
cheating.” “What?! He can’t have knifed me from that angle.” And numerous other
expletives that can’t be mentioned in an article like this involving hurling
the sticks across the room in a bind rage usually associated with the news of a
parking ticket or the idea that Disney are going to make new
Star Wars (What? They are?)
One new laptop and a full therapy later I’m ready to
continue. I don’t know what it is about pretend war that gets us all so riled
up. The Call of Duty franchise is a
worldwide phenomenon and a title that any self-respecting gamer has mastered, I
am however terrible at it. My friends, all self-confessed addicts, are crazy
good at playing solider and tie me in knots when we fire up a multiplayer game
but with good grace we usually turn it into an excuse to drink before nights
out allowing me to get sufficiently inebriated before heading to whatever dive
we are frequenting that night. In the same room as them it turns to an evening
of good natured ribbing that I just must be terrible at anything from love
making, social skills and everything between based on my performance twiddling
my thumbs, pad raised at a lopsided angle, tongue clenched in my mouth like an
unfortunate child who kept his face that way when the wind changed.
However, it’s online that the real problems start for me.
Having never played the game properly and being thrown into a world where no
one has time for “The Noob” I find myself more lost than the cast of TOWIE at a
Menser meeting. Everyone from the housewife in New Jersey to the fourteen year
old in Cairns Australia decides after shooting me dead for the seventh time that
they need to put the boot in ringing insults in my ears ranging from the size
of my manhood to unspeakable acts that they are going to do with my
(non-existent) sister. Even when I eventually decide to mute them so I am only
left with the sounds of my own demise I can faintly hear them as if a whisper
in the wind tearing me a new one as their expertly customised avatar teabags me
after another headshot. I just wish that
there was a button that allowed me with my dying breath to bite down hard on
their pixelated nutsack; I may have a tiny penis but you’d don’t have one at
all now!
The problem I think I have it that I treat playing the game
too much like I’m in a real war. I hide (cower) behind everything, snaking my
way between objects that I think would be able to stop a bullet only for some
little shit to come up behind me and faintly chortle as they blast me in the
back with a sniper rifle on the way to picking up another perk. When I decide
that this is no longer an option and fearlessly plough into the enemy guns
blazing allowing my weapon to do the work hoping that something might make
contact with anything I realize that I attract attention from the only guy at
the back who is using my previous tactic to great effect as the game treats me
to a slow motion replay of him picking me off from the other side of the map.
Finally I give up and decide to follow someone who looks like they know what
they’re doing like a creepy stalker in a club at 01:50 thinking that this is a
dead certain pull which looks to be going well. However, now I have attracted
the “praise” of even my fellow team mates who are more than happy to allude to
proportionality of my manhood in relation to my ability to shoot pretend
people.
As a simple noob I don’t expect anyone to take my advice on
the subject of COD but from what little I have played I can deduce the
following things:
Chuck a grenade whenever you can
Pretty sure this is self-explanatory; whenever you can
simply lob up one of the buggers whenever you can. You never know you might get
lucky. It’s similar to talking to a stranger on the train, probably they’ll
ignore you, most likely they’ll be a freak but once every so often you might
get a date out of it.
Use that map in the corner
It took me a while to work out how to focus on two things at
once, I’m still not awfully good with it, but apparently once you crack when to
be looking at the carnage on the screen and when to be looking at the orange
blips replicating it you’re on to a winner.
Lay and pray
Whenever you come face to face with an adversary hit the
deck. Other players tend to aim at the chest, and if they’re good at the head,
if you’re down by their feet you might get lucky and get the first shot off –
but that’s all I can give you.
Jump around
On one of my following mission during a game I noticed that
this guy was jumping around (a lot) this made most of the bullets miss him and
hit the, non-jumping, me. It obviously made him a much less desirable target,
though I can’t imagine that it made aiming all that easy.
Don’t be shit
If you’re serious about COD then practice, just like
anything unless you train you’re going to be shit and if there’s anything that
I’ve learnt from being shit, don’t be.
Or… Find people who are shitter than you.
Work in a nursery (kindergarten), old people’s home, ICU
bring your console in and start whopping ass. Just don’t let them play it too
much – they might end up getting better than you and then you’re back to square
one.
