TL;DR version: WTF.
I've never played a CoD game, let alone one online. My only experience with the series is people calling it stupid, enjoyable arcade fun. I've spent the last few years vigorously bashing the online CoD community thanks to meeting several people who fit the most negative stereotypes possible, but came to realize that this was not productive. I should at least play this game, and hey, I like arcadey shooters, right?
I envisioned something with fast gameplay a la Timesplitters 2 and amazing graphics and gunplay a la Bad Company 2 (which I will likely blog on soon, since it has converted me to the online-gamer masses :D).
Instead, I sank my unsuspecting bare foot into a virtual pile of something still-warm and faintly steaming.
The game looks like crap. Now I love older games - I just got Ghost Recon during the Ubisoft sale and it'll probably be something I'll spend a lot of time on. But BLOPS doesn't look dated, it just looks poorly designed. I cannot understand how people defend this game's visuals over something like MoH or Homefront. In fact, I was so shocked that I had to look up screens online to convince myself that I hadn't screwed up the settings somehow Textures are blurry or visually unappealing, animations look to be copy-pasted from the first Medal of Honor games (Frontline FTW!), and the environments are static and boxy. It looks like Counter-Strike Source rolled around in Vaseline. And don't get me started on the lulz-worthy napalm bomb fire effects. It's painful to look at. So, so ugly. My little brother, who until today was a staunch defender of the series (congrats, Activision, you have the middle-school market cornered), stared at the screen open-mouthed and shouted, "THAT ISN'T COD! THAT LOOKS WORSE THAN MODERN WARFARE 2! THAT LOOKS LIKE CRAP!"
From the mouth of babes. Anyway, back on track...
It sounds like playing airsoft. The guns spit out insipid digital popping noises instead of proper intimidating roars. I'm so spoiled by Bad Company 2, it's not even funny. I took so much in that game for granted until now. Heck, even Ghost Recon's low bit-rate gun samples have that chilly element of realism; that oh man this is a lethal weapon sensation. These are on par with, say, a .22 air pistol with a-half CO2 cartridge.
It runs like a geriatric marathoner with severed Achilles' tendons who is having seizures. I can run much better-looking games with all their settings maxed and experience no hitches. This stutters constantly, even on menu screens! Trying to aim down my M16 was an exercise in lulz as the soldier I sighted on teleported around the area in a fit of lag, and then during Second Chance (a great idea which Borderlands did very well; I loved it in that game) I shot him to death in the knee with my pistol and then got stuck in a wall and lagged out. The ping for all the servers I tried was under 50. I lagged out 7 times in 30 minutes of playing.
The playerbase is atrocious. I wanted to play so I could get rid of all those generalizations I had been spewing. Half the servers I tried were full of kids with whiny voices screaming offensive sexual epithets; the others were occupied by people blasting Justice For All over their headsets.
It isn't fun. Even seeing big points appear on the screen didn't feel rewarding. My naive younger brother's verdict? "MODERN WARFARE 2 HAS LOTS OF BUGS BUT THIS IS EVEN MORE WORSER."
I don't know about MW2, but I want my 47 minutes and 8 gig of internet back :(
Am I doing something stupid? What am I missing? I honestly came into this game wanting to love it; ready to overcome my prejudice against its underage fanbase. Instead, I've had ever one of my most vitriolic forum posts confirmed. Groundless hate no more.
What on earth went wrong? What did I do wrong? I was even playing pretty well; got some great killstreaks going in between all the teleporting and backing around corners and rubber-banding and being threatened with bum rape.
Is this the real, honest-to-goodness Black Ops that everyone is going on about? Again, I only had a prejudice against the players and not against the game going into it. I didn't want to hate it. So why do I loathe it so much? Why am I incredulous that people pay money to play this?
WHAT AM I MISSING HERE?