COD Elite & My View

COD: Elite for more information on the premium-tiered service Activision have formally announced.  Here for the official website.

There’s been a lot of discussion, anger, annoyance, debating and criticism of the brand new COD: Elite service which will launch coinciding with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.  Anger and criticism because of how Activision have handled the announcement and discussion and annoyance towards the details; ranging from stat tracking, map guides, weapon guides, new maps and a very lively community.  All of this launching in November and a beta apparently coming out very soon.  But what is the issue you ask?

The issue lies here: premium subscription.  So many people, and to a certain extent me as well, think that Activision have went a little too far in the milking of Call of Duty.  People consider that by this point they’ve sucked up every last drop from the old and withered cash cow of Call of Duty.

Activision have handled the announcement pretty poorly.  They appear to have no interest in what our, the gamers, feedback is towards this and it seems like they’ve just hurriedly ousted it and ran away like dropping a chemical bomb and running for the hills.  There’s been very vague and very non-specific information regarding the service and what is free and what isn’t.  People have rushed, which is well justified, to the conclusion that it’s yet another money making ‘scam’.  And I’m not disagreeing with them.

Although specific details, such as what is premium-based and what is free, but what is clear is that Activision – once again – want your money and they do not care how they’ll get it.  It all comes down to what other companies and services already provide, for free.

It also comes down to the fact that Activision make hundreds of millions of sales from Call of Duty, even billions!  Then they release a couple of map packs/DLC for some overpriced figure (£11 for 5 maps, eh what?) and amass even more $$$.  The issue here, for me, is that Treyarch and Infinity Ward need to fix their games first before coming out with the downloadable content.  And even then should they be offering map packs for half the price.  No one should pay so much money for some maps where the unbalanced and shitty gameplay is exactly the same but in a different situation and environment.  Infinity Ward ousted 2 map packs with 2 (from each) ‘old school’ maps from COD4 – which should be free or at the very most, inexpensive!

Does it come down to greed or does it come down to Activision exploiting the gullible fools who buy the overpriced and sometimes broken content?  How about the Call of Duty saying: “No matter how shitty it is, people will buy it in their hundreds of thousands”.

I reflect back on the good old days of COD4 where everything was just so easy and unforgettable – none of this crazy money bullshit.  I actually feel pretty sad for Activision because they may have actually caused a rift in the community as so many people have had enough or are fed up of the max-money grabbing and low-consumer support/low-loyalty towards fans.

“IT’S A TRAP”; Red Dead Redemption Shenanigans

Back to the Wild West we go!

Having been playing Red Dead Redemption recently, I’ve been loving it.  Just loving it.

Because Call of Duty, Portal 2 and Burnout Paradise cannot keep my entertained forever, I decided (and after a lot of coerce from Steven Sloss) to buy Red Dead Redemption, but just the Undead Nightmare ‘expansion pack’ for now.  Having played the full game on the XBOX 360 and thoroughly enjoying it there, the DLC is a welcome addition to my expansive PS3 collection.

Rockstar Games are the true Kings of the open-world, expansive free roam games – much like that Codemasters are the Kings of racing games and Valve the ultimate Masters of unique, innovative and mind-boggling games – and Red Dead is a credible, superb and unique addition; a stark change to Grand Theft Auto despite people calling Red Dead a “GTA game in the Wild West” .. it’s not!

Undead Nightmare’s story happens in parallel to Red Dead’s story and is non-canon.  By that I mean that the story could be thought as a ‘dream’ or a ‘what if this happened’ when compared to the main game’s storyline.  Undead Nightmare does follow immediately in-time with the main plot, and even the end refers back to the main game.  To avoid spoilers and not to be confused, I’d strongly advise playing and completing Red Dead Redemption’s story before playing Undead Nightmare’s.

The story itself is pretty short, but here we follow the old saying of “short but sweet” and “quality over quantity”.  Seeing the whole of Red Dead’s landscape and playable world indiscreetly ‘zombie-fied’ is such an interesting and exciting change.  People aren’t just zombies, you get zombie wolfs; zombie horses; zombie cougars; and zombie bears (no, really!), the game itself has been changed to be compatible to the new zombie-ification with new random events and the whole game environment feels very eerie and spooky.

Having initially thought the expansion pack would just be single player and 2 or 3 multiplayer game modes I was very surprised to see that the whole online multiplayer dealio from Red Dead Redemption has also been provided in this game as well, from the co-op missions specific to Red Dead to Free Roam.

My comrade and brother-in-arms – Mr. Steven Sloss – decided we should ‘posse up’ (a party system online) and kill those motherf**kers on some Undead Overrun (the classic zombie waves game), Co-Ops missions and tear up some Free Roam.  However, we had to give our posse a name.  Mr. Sloss and I experimented and threw ideas down but he eventually came up with a belter: Forth North Resistance.

We hit up some multiplayer and we were absolutely beasting Undead Overrun and the co-op missions (well, most of the time).  We had some very good banter going once Steven got his microphone/headset and then began the Free Roaming where it just got beyond hilarious.  Quotes were being yelled out and one in particular, which was very appropriate and relevant, had me in stitches.  One of the Free Roam ‘Gang Hideouts’ had us to “Investigate a house” in the middle of nowhere, and so we did.  We got to the house and then suddenly, the AI Rival Gang pounced out and started shooting; Steven and I shouted down the microphones: “IT’S A TRAP!“.

I do hope to buy Red Dead Redemption (a.k.a. the main story) on the PS3 very soon because I’ve kind of got this 4 month break to fill up!  We also need to get Mr. Lewis Bunning in on the multiplayer banter as well!

FORTH NORTH RESISTANCE!

SNP Historic Victory; Scotland turns Yellow – Analysis & Tidbits

Sorry for the lack of posts and I realise I’m a few weeks late, but with University taking up majority of my time I’ve had to leave blogging for when I’m less busy.

As you may or may not know, the Scottish National Party (SNP) gained their best and most historic result in the recent Scottish Parliamentary Elections (details here), gaining 69 seats out of the 129 seated Scottish Parliament – a huge surge from 2007′s elections of 46.  They managed – out of complete surprise and disbelieve of every political broadcaster and analyser – a majority in the Scottish Parliament, something which was thought to be completely impossible; when Labour created the system they dubbed it the “will never allow the SNP gain a majority” system.  Look at what they just did this year!

The SNP did the unthinkable: they broke into Labour’s stronghold of Glasgow and urban, industrial parts of Scotland and ripped them to shreds. Where they didn’t gain the seat, they gained a huge swing from Labour to their party and were dangerously close to achieving even more seats. The big story of the night was the Glasgow gain (having gained 5 out of 9 seats) but the SNP also managed to achieve big results in Central Scotland, managing to get both Falkirk seats; and Western Scotland, managing to steal Labour key seats like Paisley and Renfrewshire North & West.  North Eastern Scotland was a clean sweep for SNP: 9 out of 9 constituency seats went to the ‘Nats’ and to rub salt in the Liberal and Labour wound, another 1 seat in the regional seat category (yes, 10 out of 10 seats!).

My personal anecdote here is that it someone has got a huge map of Scotland, filled in the boundaries and constituencies and then dumped Yellow paint all over it, filling in tiny Red and Blue pockets as you go.  ”Oh blast!” as you suddenly remember: you forgot to get orange paint for the Liberal Orkney and Shetland seats.

The Scottish Labour Party, having thought they would increase their vote share of Liberal voters due to the collapse of the Liberal Democrats & their coalition with the Conservatives in Westminster and thinking their SNP scaremongering tactic would allow them to comfortably win, had a disastrous night.  They only managed to gain 2 seats from the Conservatives but lose a number of seats to the SNP – all constituencies they contested in had huge swings from their party to the SNP.

They managed to reduce their seats from 44 to 37 and lost many key members – one prime example would be Andy Kerr, who was poised to be the next Leader of the party after Iain Gray steps down in the Autumn.  Speaking of Mr. Gray, he managed to just squeeze on to his East Lothian seat, with the SNP counter-part breathing down his neck in second place.  151 votes were all that stood between Mr. Gray losing his seat; he would have been absolutely shocked that he almost came a cropper due to the SNP tidal wave.  I made the good point of: “Leaders normally retain high or gain votes, not have a majority by the skin of his teeth!”.

Labour’s scaremongering, negative pre-election campaign probably did more harm than help.  The Scottish people and the Scottish voters can be incredibly smart, tactical and vengeful when it comes down to elections.  With their broken promises over the decade lying somewhere in a London gutter, the Scottish voters decided that Labour can no longer stand up as a voice of Scotland – gone are the days of Glasgow and Urbanized Labour strongholds.

The Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party (or shortened to the Scottish Conservatives) admitted in the pre-election run-up that their party wouldn’t be the next ruling party; Ms. Annabel Goldie admitting “one of these men [Salmond and Gray] will be the next First Minister of Scotland,” saying “she does not deny that fact”.  Despite this, they were confident that they would gain a few seats and a slight momentum so they could “viciously challenge the next leading party”.

They sadly did not.  The Tories – still pretty toxic north of the Bonnie border – failed to gain ground and lost 5 seats; down from a reasonable 20, to a weakening 15.  Comparing Holyrood and Westminster seats together: they have a grand total of 16 seats (15 in Holyrood, 1 in Westminster).

What was pretty shocking, for me anyway, was the loss of the Edinburgh Pentlands seat to the ‘Nats’.  When I was watching the election results Live, I was literally gob smacked when it came up with “Edinburgh Pentlands .. SNP GAIN”.  They have no constituency seats north of the South of Scotland.

Annabel Goldie failed to gain her constituency seat but this wasn’t surprising at all – she did manage to get re-elected in the proportional regional-list vote.  Despite this, and she did discuss this pre-election as well, she has announced she’ll be stepping down as Leader in the Autumn.  The “Holyrood Mumsy” or “Aunt” was a very up-front, fierce and realistic Opposition MSP – she challenged anything and anyone and was far from the clichéd Politician.  She will remain as an MSP but I doubt she’ll be as ‘scary’ when she goes to the backbenches.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats knew they faced an unfair, unbeatable and unimaginable battle to achieve what little respect they could scavenge.  The challenge of retaining their 17 seats was seen as an impossible task as the Scottish voters dug the party a grave because of their partnership in Westminster with the Tories.  No matter how well they tried, they knew they had failed.

Remember my little tidbit about Scottish voters being vengeful?  Yes, this is exactly what happened here.  The Lib Dems were a strong force in Scotland, winning voters around rural, city and farmland areas.  There was no doubt 17 seats was a pretty healthy number but who knew they would return to Parliament with just only five seats?  I did, and I’m surprised they didn’t get less.

Edinburgh seats, Fife seats, Aberdeenshire seats, Highland & Island seats .. all went to SNP.  The only constituency seats left are the Orkney and Shetland seats – the other three being picked up across Scotland by the regional votes.  The fact that the Lib Dems have no constituency seats on the Mainland is something of a record in itself.

The party suffered a disastrous night and it was clear that the Scottish voters have absolutely no interest with them any more.  It also points toward, again, the toxic levels with the Conservatives.  Associate yourself with them and don’t ever come back.

The Scottish Green Party, the only other party to actually increase their vote share, had a reasonably good night but failed to gain any seats.

Despite polls showing they would achieve a seat from every region (they only contest in the regional votes), giving them 8 seats, they unfortunately only held on to their 2 seats from before.

Margo MacDonald – an Independent politician in the Lothian region – also returned to Parliament.  No other parties, or Independent politicians, gained a seat – with the likes of the BNP, UKIP, George Galloway, the Scottish Christian Party and the Scottish Socialist Party; all contesting but failing to gain votes.

The result night, which I watched (well, the majority of it anyway) live, was such a buzz.  The atmosphere felt so fresh, exciting and democratic.  It will be a long time until we have another election (2015 for Westminster, providing it isn’t called early; 2016 for the next Scottish election) and that unique ‘buzz’ and excitement probably won’t be beaten.  The night, as a whole, was a historic one and will probably be unrepeatable.

Now it’s time to cut a slice from the Independence cake.