I used to play rifles only on cod2. That's where I cut my teeth on in the cod games.

Prior to that, I played q3a, and a mod for it called "urban terror" which was kind of a cs mod type thing using the q3a engine. It was real guns, nades, etc, as opposed to lasers and railguns and plasma and whatnot.

Anyway, I played mainly cod2 rifles, and spent a fair amount of time on sniper only mods/maps.

When cod4 came out, i started playing hc snd, almost exclusively. I probably didn't play 10 games total, in the regular mode. IMO, hc snd was where it was at. Sound in that game, was simply amazing. You could soundwhore like noboby's biz. And without a minimap, IMO, soundwhoring is a necessity, otherwise, you are basically completely blind. Once you learned the maps and the routes, you knew with about 75% certainty, where enemies were, could be, and would be. Couple that with soundwhoring, and it was like you were using the freaking force. You knew that there were about 2 or 3 places where an enemy could hide, and still have you in their sights. But you could still "run and gun" because you knew that there were ONLY a few places to which you were exposed. And if you got hit from one of those areas, even if it was behind you, you had a pretty good idea EXACTLY where the shots came from (in part from the combination of soundwhoring AND the limited number of places a person could realistically be).

I didn't play 'softcore' in cod4 because it seemed like it favored the spray and pray, as opposed to the methodical type play I was used to in rifles only, and to a slightly lesser extent, the urban terror mod. I would rank the UrT mod closer to hc, than softcore. But, because UrT was q3a based, you could actually strafe jump and you could run and gun in that mod too.

WaW, imo, started the current trend that led from cod4 to where we are now. Some of its maps were a bit more cluttered, had a bit more cover, and pretty much at any given point on a map, there were often times COUNTLESS places with cover that you could be in cover and still have an overwatch of a given area. Unlike in cod4, where there were only (realistically) a couple places you could overwatch a given patch of real estate. Plus, the sound wasn't as precise, imo. WaW was a step away from the imo, pure brililance of cod4 hc, towards what we have now.

Mw2 was a complete abomination. It took the worst of both (imo crap sound, and ridiculous amounts of cover and overwatch spots) and combined them, imo, killing the hc game. The sound in that game, was horrible. To the point that without a minimap, you were completely blind AND if you were going to move, you were more than likely going to be exposed to multiple places where you were visible to extremely well camouflaged and concealed enemies. That makes it impossible to survive without camping long stretches yourself. I found in hc snd in mw2, that I would spend INORDINATE amounts of time just camping, waiting for some other dumb schmuck on my team to find the enemy and die at their hands, just so I could have some semblance of an IDEA of where they were located. I played softcore mw2 (what little I played of it), just because with ALL the cover and the intricate map designs, and the player models and the colors and whatnot, tha hc had become simply too deadly to do much beyond full-on camping. Maybe other people had better luck with the sound or whatever in mw2 and that allowed for greater freedom in mw2, but I still haven't been able to soundwhore like I did in cod4.

And now Blops seems to suffer from the same types of problems that mw2 had with regard to hc. Sound sucks, and the maps are more cluttered/full of cover/concealment than the cod4 or waw or even mw2 maps were. Making hc even more a camper's paradise. Plus, stuff like lockign down the fov, makes things like clays and c4 even more deadly, plus the c4/clays themselves seem to be more difficult to see than in cod4/waw. MW2 clays and whatnot were also harder to detect than in cod4/waw. This stuff, imo, REALLY slows down the pace of the game in hc. It was slow in cod4, but not this slow.

Another thing, the perks/leveling up thing. In cod4, I got the weapons and attachments I wanted, hit level 70, and I had no incentive to expand my horizons. I never got a single gold camo in cod4. I only got full attachments on probably a third of the weapons. The rest, I didn't care to use enough. Once I got to level 70, my focus turned entirely to mastering the game, getting it down to a science. Learning early nade throws, shooting through walls, etc., and treating my snd playing as almost a forumla depending on the map, and how the early part of a round played out. I spent more time perfecting my playing of the "game" than I did of collecting perks and attachments.

In Blops I do feel a bit more inclined to prestige, because of the ability to unlock more custom slots. I know, in competition it prolly won't matter cuz it will be unranked, but I pub a lot, and would like to have the full complement of custom slots, to set up as many different kits as possible, to provide for the many different gametypes/scenarios i may encounter. I think this "oh, you can't have something as useful as another custom slot, until you do X more levels/presitge" attitude the game gives you, is worse than the "oh, you can't have attachment x for weapon y until you reach level z," because achieving level z wasn't really hard, OR time consuming. And, i didn't care about half the guns or their attachments in cod4/waw anyway.

Reaching prestige level x, is a MUCH longer grind. So, you spend more time focusing on that, than, imo, you do playing/perfecting your skills/gameplay.

I dunno, maybe that's all bs. Feel free to call me on it. But it seems like the stuff that made hc the game to play in cod4 (for me, at least) are gone, and it's not the same game as it was because of the sound and the map designs.

u can change ur FOV to 80 thats better then MW2 also the maps i think are alot better then MW2 the sound needs work though

I played with a fov of like 90 or maybe even more in cod4.

Even at 80, it feels like i'm looking through a peephole. Sure, 80 is better than MW2. But so are root canals.

Plus I didn't have a gun and my arm and hand taking up half my screen in cod4.

I swear to Allah that the FOV settings in Blops is not the same as previous FOV settings, as 80 in Blops is like 60 in MW1 or MW2. In BC2 you can do 200, although it looks distorted. 120 FOV in BC2 is beautiful, although that's about the nicest ting I can say about that game.

+1

I think your points regarding the sound i.e. use of/lack of is pretty much spot on for me. I too was one of those in COD4 testing out angles/nades/potential approaches. Try Barebones in BlOps. Not HC but the sound is much better (no ninja perks). I find using the command /snd_restart works for me. In pubs it removes quite a lot of the background noise like the insect sounds in Hanoi etc. Makes it easier to hear enemies but with ninja running at you it's down to a good guess where he's coming from.

What makes BlOps S&D so hard is that you really have to be in visible range of the bombs or constantly pop out to check as you cannot hear the plant/defuse. Here the difference between Core and HC really makes itself felt. In core you still have time to react if you see someone approach or fire at you. In HC you're dead. 2 different styles of play. I prefer HC but Core is cool too but with totally different class setups and gamestyle.

Agreed on the lack of plant/defuse sounds in Blops. I forgot that one.

I honestly don't play much snd in blops, so I forgot about the plant/defuse sounds (or more precisely, the lack thereof). But the couple of times I have played it, I was REALLY frustrated you basically have to be physically sitting ON the ammo crates to defend the bomb you just planted.

Again, it seemed like playing snd in cod4 was almost down to a science. Now, with the cluttered maps, and bad sound, it's just more chaotic, which, imo, was by design. It allows the noob to actually have a shot at being the best player. You can just hide in 1 of 50 places, and by pure luck, might just get that game winning kill. It's all part of the 'dumbing down' of the fps, imo.

And didn't I remember the guys from trey actually saying something like "soundwhoring is not an enjoyable gaming experiene" or something like that? It was in response to someone complaining about the sound being so bad, and trey's response was like "well, we don't consider being able to accurately detect sound very important to having fun" or something like that. Being a soundwhore like I was in cod4, I actually was kind of insulted at that comment when I read it.

Were was that I didn't c that if so I think that was a stupid response the sound is bad

This was the quote I saw. It came from twitter, iirc, and someone reposted it in the cod forums. I don't follow twitter, and I'm not going to start, just to hear what jd has to say, that's for sure.........

JD_2020- Uhhh... We didn't say we'd "fix" it to your standards. We said we'd tweak it - a compromise. It may not be stompingly loud through solid walls like you're used to, but who says "sound whoring" is the way games were meant to be played?

softcore: hitzones matter, ability to keep aim on target matters, reactions matter
hardcore: reactions matter a bit more, ability to keep aim on target does not matter, hitzones do not matter

I pick "softcore", hardcore is just way too easy imo.

hardcore is ridiculous in my opinion

softcore is much better ...