Gaming Blogs – Page 33

Quick-Scoping Revisited

A few weeks ago we talked about the concept of quick-scoping and the whole idea behind the ‘great mystery’. Today we have released some videos that cover exactly how to do it and also a bit of feedback on why it isn’t the best strategy to use if you want to win matches in Call of Duty. The first video is a walkthrough of the concepts behind quick-scoping (including aim-assist) in Call of Duty.

The second video is a brief montage (without awesome music). It is followed by an explanation of how and why quick-scoping isn’t effective for much more than making a show. While montages are pretty awesome (we have our own here, and will continue to make them), there is also the goal of ‘winning’ when you play a game and that should supersede any sort of desire to look cool when your KDR is less than 1.00.

Happy Hunting!

Trading Draft Picks In Madden 12 – A Broken System For A Broken Mode In A Broken Game

Now that the regular season is over and my Browns are set to get a Top-5 pick that they will use on Tim Couch, Courtney Brown or William Green it is time to focus on fake, digital, monopolized football gaming from EA Sports. The issue of trade logic has been a contentious one to say the least. While we will be covering more Madden issues in the coming weeks we will start with what kicks off the football season for most NFL fanatics – the NFL Draft.

The Draft is one of the most popular parts of the NFL (minus the Super Bowl). Draft picks are often held at a premium, even more than superstar players… okay, maybe not all teams feel that way (The Oakland Raiders). The issue with Madden’s trade logic is on-going and has been since the game came to PS3/360.

One issue that has been in Madden’s trade system since Madden 2002 is the ability to milk teams for draft picks or players based on faulty logic and a broken system. This is covered in the video below.

There are many issues with this game that seem cosmetic to most people. However, if you pay attention to sports gaming like some of the people of that niche community do (myself included) you will see that EA has put out an inferior product ever since they got the sole license to create NFL videogames. Back in 2004 they had to compete with 2KSports and NFL2K. While I was never a big fan of 2K’s games, they noticeably pushed EA to put out a quality product every year.

Now that that time has passed, we are stuck with Madden and the only growth that comes year after year is cosmetic. While this may ~~seem like~~ is a rant, there is a sincere hope that EA Tiburon makes the needed improvements we will cover in the coming weeks.

On a personal note, I have to say that this iteration of Madden has given me a lot of confidence that they MIGHT be going in the right direction. I am now in my 5th season of Franchise Mode and it is going strong. Here’s hoping that 2012 brings a fresh face to football gaming – and maybe a fix to a pathetically simple exploit in the trading system. (Watch the video) 😉

Action/Adventuring Wins This Holiday Season

While we have been primarily devoted to the First Person Shooter (FPS) genre over the first few months of this site, there is some good news on the horizon for people that prefer something more personal to their gaming.

Skyrim and Metal Gear Solid HD Collection have been out for just over a month and they are becoming very popular. While Skyrim isn’t much of a surprise on the front of ‘popularity’ there is a new face joining the XBox 360 landscape – Metal Gear Solid HD Collection.

The Metal Gear Series has been primarily on the Sony PlayStation over the past 15 years. While the XBox had MGS2: Substance there really hasn’t been much love given to those of us that were early adopters of the XBox 360. While it is obviously cool that MGS has finally graced us with it’s beautiful High Definition face you should probably make haste (hurry up) and buy it if you see it.

It has a retail price of $50 and is currently on sale at Best Buy and Target for $35-40. I believe these sales will end by December 30, 2011 – so get to it if you want/need this. It has been put on back-order for Best Buy Online and you may have to ask someone at Target where they are hiding it (much like I had to).

In the coming days we will be churning out a lot more videos for MW3, Battlefield 3 as well as the games featured in today’s entry and blog updates too. If you have any driving questions, shoot us a comment or message on here, facebook, twitter or via smoke signals from your over-heating holiday gaming console.

Happy Hunting!

New Highlight Vid For Your Enjoyment

Quick-Scoping – So Easy A (Retarded) Caveman Can Do It

It has already gotten to a point with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 that people are starting to get fed up with quick-scoping. Not that they weren’t already pre-pissed off about the idea of one of the most over-hyped and sensationalized playstyles in the Call of Duty world (quick-scoping has been around since the game’s inception).

For those of us that played Call of Duty 2 on the 360 (oh, the good ol’ days before leaderboards) sniping was the only real weapon to use. Why? Simply because it was one shot = one kill… and that was great, to a point.

Now we are experiencing something in Modern Warfare games especially annoying. Quick-Scoping has taken the hearts and minds of silly teenagers all over the YouTube Universe. While I will be the first to admit that I find these videos of people quick-scoping to be kind of entertaining; I must also digress that it isn’t difficult to do (with a little bit of practice and the right ‘perk’ settings).

Just Tell Me How To Do It!

Okay! Fine, you want to know how to quick-scope? You first have to make changes to your Custom Sniper Class. This revolves around your ‘perks’ and will be focused on your weapon quickness rather than your character quickness.

Perk 1 = Sleight Of Hand – Reload faster + Faster weapon swapping

Perk 2 = Quickdraw – Faster aim down sights + Faster animation of using equipment and throwing grenade

Perk 3 = Marksman – ID target from range + Longer hold breath on scoped weapons

Perk 3 = Steady Aim – Increased hip fire accuracy + Faster aim down sight while sprinting

The Action of Quick Scoping

If you are looking this up and reading the article, chances a re good that you have seen the basic fundamentals in action. The real ‘trick’ to this silly strategy is using the AIM ASSIST. MW3, by default has aim-assist turned on. This means that if an enemy goes past your cross-hair it will automatically move (very slightly) towards that enemy. This is where these ‘pro’ snipers get their not so impressive help.

3 Simple Steps

1 – See and ‘center’ the enemy on your screen

2 – Pull the left trigger quickly to get more zoomed in and trigger aim assist

3 – Shoot your weapon with the right trigger quickly BEFORE you have completely zoomed in. (This is the most important step, because it actually gives you that ability to catch the cross hairs directly on the enemy as aim-assist is also trying to help you.)

In The Future

Our next few videos are going to have a focus on some of the things that happen in Modern Warfare 3 and how to do them or avoid them at your own risk or peril. For you noobs out there, this site and YouTube Channel have been dedicated to you from day one. If you have questions, please comment on our entries here shoot us a tweet! Always here to help and we know you are reading! So, please do the manly thing and ask for some gaming direction.

Noob Patrol – Battlefield or Call of Duty?

In the annual iteration of holiday shooter games, this year we have two main competitors.

If you are trying to decide which game to get this holiday season this is going to be a quick run-down of how you can break down which game is more to your taste.

Single Player/Story –

Both games revolve around the current struggle against terror networks. That said, both are very linear (not much adventuring around other than going exactly where they want you to go). The difference comes in the actual ‘length of the game’ –

Call of Duty (on Veteran Difficulty) took me 8+ hours of gameplay to beat. Probably closer to 12 if you include the multiple times I turned off the system without properly using the ‘Save and Exit’ option in the Pause menu.

Battlefield (on Hard) is quite a bit shorter and doesn’t leave a lot of room for the player to do anything than go to a new waypoint.

– Story Winner = Call of Duty

Multi-Player (Online) – (Please note, Battlefield 3 (if bought used) needs a $10 online pass for multi-player/online play. If bought new, it should come with a code to be entered without further charge)

This is the dividing factor amongst ‘hardcore’ gamers. Each game is so drastically different in it’s given modes that they really can’t be compared fairly in that manner. The best way to describe the differences is by using an automobile analogy.

Call of Duty MW3 – is a flashy, high-end sports car that takes corners as fast as possible in hopes of getting every ounce of juice out of the engine. That said, it is simply FASTER than Battlefield. If you don’t like having to make snap decisions (in which I really mean reflex responses) you won’t like CoD multiplayer – simple as that.

Modern Warfare 3 has multiple game modes that offer you all sorts of different objectives. While most of these modes devolve into glorified ‘Deathmatches’ you can usually finish a couple rounds in less than 10 minutes.

Battlefield 3 is a luxury car that is meant to be driven methodically and with care. Everything about this game (minus the vehicles) is slower than Modern Warfare 3. It starts with game modes. There are many fewer modes to choose from in BF3 than MW3. However, where they lack in modes they make up for in depth and scale… these maps are HUGE. This means you have a lot of options of how to approach each match, but you better be ready to invest 25-30 minutes for each match. Depending on who you are playing with/against it could take even longer to get a match finished.

BF3 doesn’t depend as much on reflexes as it does on well planned strategies and mastery of your favorite weapons/vehicles. If you noticed in the MW3 write up, there aren’t any vehicles for you to get into and do with what you will. There are kill streak rewards that can last upwards of 30 seconds, but BF3 has something much more intriguing, vehicles from the start. You can drive a tank, fly a helicopter or even take an off-road trip around the map running enemies over. In the words of the movie Scarface, “The World Is Yours”.

Handling

Battlefield 3 – While it might sound strange, these games actually ‘handle’ differently. When aiming a weapon in Battlefield, it feels like you are actually lifting a weapon that has some sort of weight. It is slower and actually incorporates what I call ‘momentum aiming’. It doesn’t take a long time to get used to this style of aiming, but it will feel show to those that are more accustomed to Call of Duty games.

Battlefield also incorporates a form of animation that adds realism but takes away from overall speed when playing the game. You tend to get stuck on corners and walls in close quarters in BF3. You also hurdle and climb things more slowly, albeit more ‘realistically’.

Modern Warfare 3 – Guns aim where you move them to and if you use high sensitivity controls you will be able to move and aim so quickly it might make you go into some sort of epileptic seizure, or just throw up from motion sickness. However, the guns don’t seem to have as much weight as BF3. You can aim and shoot a .50 calibur sniper rifle as quickly as a sub-machine gun.

If you take into account the motion and movement as well, MW3 tends to have much less, if any vertical movement when running. As far as jumping over walls or barriers, it is more like you simply ascend them with no hurdling animation – this makes movement much faster. If you include the ‘Perk’ system, it adds a much more arcade feel to this game where your character is more powerful in certain ways. This includes running faster, aiming faster and being more accurate.

OVERALL

These games are so different for being about the same type of modern combat but if you know three things about your gaming preference, you can make a decision before you even play a single second of either game.

Do you prefer fast (MW3) or slow (BF3) gameplay?
Do you prefer long, objective-based(BF3) or short, deathmatch (MW3) matches?
Are you more invested in single-player (Call of Duty) or multiplayer/online (this is really a toss-up because MW3’s online community is so vast)?

Happy Holiday Hunting!

Sports Games – The Most Complicated Controls In Console Gaming

To effectively run the ball in Madden or NCAA Football you have to move the left stick in the direction you want to run, cover the ball with the RB shoulder button. Then you have to make sure you get through the hole formed in the correct gap and press the sprint button (Right Trigger/RT). However, you don’t want to press it too soon because the defense is programmed to move faster once you press the sprint button (RT). Once you have broken away you might have to juke with the Right Stick or Stiff Arm with the ‘A’ button, maybe follow that up with a spin move (‘B’ button) and then jump a defender (‘Y’ button).

[sarcasm]That isn’t complicated at all! [/sarcasm]

In the coming days we will be covering the basics (which are inherently advanced) controls in Madden and NCAA football. The problem with this being that as simple as one video would be there is the problem that each game has different control schemes and handles differently. However, it must also be said that these controls are necessary for these games to continue growing in the way they have. Is that a good thing? No… but that is a different discussion and it can be had right here in our forums.

If you haven’t noticed, sports games are rather disposable at this point. New versions have a new year plastered on them and that is usually about all you need to worry about (at least in Madden and NCAA Football) from the control perspective. The developer, EA Tiburon tried (and failed) to effectively simplify their games with “One Button Mode”. Sorry, but that just rings of short-bus controls for what Robin Williams would refer to as ‘damaged people’.

We will be making a concerted effort to show you how these controls work on the most basic level and work up to the more complicated parts of these games. You truly have to learn to walk before you can run in gaming (sports games especially) and we are here to walk you through the process.

Have Leaderboards Destroyed Gaming?

Remember when you played a game for a high score? Remember playing a game for the sake of having fun?

It feels like years since people have talked and/or bragged about their single-player accomplishments in video games.

Now we are stuck in some sort of bastardized version of gaming that has been essentially raped by money driven tournaments that have caused some to become obsessed with ‘going pro’. Is this the NBA? Sorry, but it is far from the NBA and anyone that wants to be a ‘pro’ gamer is far from an athlete.

MW3 Leaderboard — Does This Mean Anything?

It has become an obsession for people to achieve some sort of status on these leaderboards. I have been hoping for years that there would be some sort of way to enjoy game without having someone in my match screaming about their KDR (Kill Death Ratio) or their Win/Loss Record.

Again, I will be the first to admit that I hate losing and get frustrated when I have someone on my team that doesn’t know what they are doing. However, it is a different thing entirely for someone to put so much stock into their leaderboard rank that it supersedes everything else in life.

I have heard stories about marriages ending because of obsessions with Madden, World of Warcraft, Halo and Call of Duty. I don’t think leaderboards are the only thing to blame for something to this extent but you can’t tell me that it isn’t there at all.

While youtube and facebook have brought in a new era of non-privacy, leaderboards have brought a certain competitive stupidity to gaming that I think might do more harm than good.

What do you think?

‘Tis The Season… For Gaming Frustration

It is commonly known as the season of giving (or receiving if you are selfish). Either way it goes, gaming is one of those hobbies (lifestyles) that also ends up driving many gamers to punching their couch or throwing their controller during the gift season.

You know who you are. You got Call of Duty, Madden, Battlefield, Assassins Creed, NBA 2K, Halo, the list goes on and on… and you are terribad. You aren’t just terrible. You aren’t just bad. You are terribad.

Why?

(You: Because the game cheats!!!….

Me: No! It is because you don’t know how to do certain things… or, you are playing Madden on All-Madden difficulty and it is in fact cheating…. or you are just BAD.)

In case you haven’t noticed there are no more manuals in games.

An extreme comparison is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition manual has 45 pages compared to the likes of Gears of War 3, Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, Madden 12 and NCAA Football 12 which have a collective 15 pages!

Here at NoobTubeTV our goal is to help you do those little things that game developers have decided they’d rather skip out on in paper format.

While games now typically have ‘manuals’ digitally in the game, it is not the type of thing we support for people that don’t know that from the start.

‘Tis the season to kick developers in the digital face and learn how to play your new games.