Addicted to the Shooter
Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 have been going back and fourth in the competition for the title of “most-played game on Xbox Live” during the past couple weeks. Yeah, I know, a pretty bullshit competition that doesn’t really affect you or other gamers. But hey! It gives me a good intro to talking about the differences between the two games, as I have been playing quite a bit of both recently. You are probably thinking this site, consisting of all Halo-related comics, would be a little biased, and maybe it is.
COD4 is a great game. It is a great shooter and it is worth the price, no question. The single player is fun (albeit somewhat short), but I’m going to stick to the multiplayer for this comparison. After all, people have been playing COD4 multiplayer practically non-stop (at least on my friends list). What makes COD4 multiplayer so addictive? I think it is mostly seeing a little yellow +10 pop up on the screen over and over. Yes, the XP rewards and unlockables provide quite a nice incentive to keep playing the game. I could liken them to crack cocaine, I suppose. But after your 10,000th game of Mercenary Team Deathmatch it hits you: this is getting kinda old. You feel dirty, like a sell out. You used to play for the fun of it, but now you have become an XP-hungry ogre wielding a G36C and Martyrdom.
And Halo 3? Don’t people just play Halo 3 for the little number by their name? Well, yes, many do. But Halo 3 has things like Forge and decent objective-based games that really help to keep things fresh. After returning to Halo 3 from COD4 for some Team Doubles and Ranked Big Team it felt like a brand new game to me. Also, it seems like Bungie is making more of an effort to change up the games and maps in the playlists than Infinity Ward. Hardcore and Classic modes are fun, but … but … YES! +10 XP MUTHAFUCKAZ!
PS. New comic coming really soon. Hopefully we can get weekly comics going…at least that’s the goal.