If by “it” I meant co-op, there would be no point in your reading this as you would already know, and if you didn’t know that, there would again be no point in you reading this, as you would be in the car on your way to pick up a copy.

However, by “it” I mean difficulty, so to spell it out for you, Left 4 dead is the only game to ever do the difficulty right.

Whenever I boot up a game and it asks me to select the difficulty, I crank it, almost without question, to the hardest. I do this not for achievements, but because one, I like a challenge, and two, I tend to get much more time out of the game, even if it is by doing the same section over and over again. This of course forces me to often master the game, and often use my brain to find the best way to go about doing things. By doing so, I often find I have the most fun on the hardest difficulty. COD2 and 4 for example, ten or so hour games I believe, but I likely spent twice that, I think I got pretty good at the game, and working though some of the harder parts was pretty darn fun. Some parts did get a bit annoying, like of course the Ferris wheel, but I tell you getting into that chopper was so damn satisfying. The downside of this though is that playing game like COD on veteran sure as hell sucks the life out of you, and you’ll never want to do it again.

Then you get games like COD5, which just suck on the hardest difficulty (or any difficulty for that case), you get grenades spawning up your ass and you never have any fun. It was apparent that the game would suck on Veteran about 2 levels in, but for me it became a matter of pride, I was going to make that game my bitch no matter how long it took. I can say COD5 is now my bitch, but I can also say I've never given a game away so fast. The problem is, most games resort to becoming stupid cheap to make the game appear hard, and they resort to tactics such as the aforementioned grenade-in-ass spawning, or AI gets perfect aim with perfectly accurate one hit kill guns, and a health bars that triples, and bullets that turn to peas when you pick them up, Halo 2 being another example.

This is of course where Left 4 Dead comes in. My goodness I’ve never had more fun on the hardest difficulty. It has its own tactic of becoming hard, it doesn’t just send one hit kill zombies at you or make use of other cheap tactics, it pushes your back up against the wall and keeps you there. One wrong move and you’ll fall, but start to move forwards and you will quickly be slammed back against that wall. At one point I was doing so well with some friends, we were half way through the level, tank already defeated, I even pulled up the menu to check the difficulty make sure it was still maxed, and it was. I turn the corner and I see nothing other then tank number two, that left us in a very bad way, and sadly we didn’t make it. I trust I don’t need to say what that kind of suspense that adds to a game.

I don’t know my playtime, but I am 7,000 kills into the game, and I’ve still yet to beat the first campaign. Don’t say I suck just yet, here are some excuses: One, I’m on xbox so you know what kind of teammates I get, being the case, I only ever play with one other friend, leaving us with two AI. Two, I’ve been playing locally with other friends, so I’ve gone from the first to last level several times, and its fun enough for me to do so. No equation on this, but 7,000 kills, I’m betting I’ve played for at least seven hours, and I’m still not even a fourth of the way through, that is damn impressive, not to mention I’m still having fun with the same four levels.

I don’t need to praise the game on all other areas because I’ve sure it’s already been done, but I’m so impressed with what the AI Director does for the game, not to say its something that can work with other games, but seeing a new approach to difficulty is very welcome, and I would love to see this at least tried in other games. Of all the bars raised by Left 4 Dead, how to make a game hard is one of them, and I just hope other developers try to reach that bar, we’d all benefit.

So instead of making a list of my problems with modern games, or more specially shooters, I’ll just go on about one of my major gripes, the story. I’m not going to say the story is the most important part of a game, but a good one never hurts, and sometimes, for me at least, it can be a major selling point. Nevermind that video game stories are generally bad all around, its just everyone seems to has this idea that more epic equals more better, and that’s about as well written as most videogame stories. Same goes for movies, think about it, 28 Days Later was so much better then 28 Weeks Later, and that’s not exactly to say 28 Weeks Later was horrible, its just that they tried to make it about the whole damn world, where as 28 Weeks Later was about people, simple, focused and deep, nevermind that it is one of the best "zombie" movies ever.

I just saw a trailer for a shooter called (well I just went to check, GT just removed it for some reason) anyway, something with an 8 in it. Well guess what it was? A sci-fi shooter in all likely hood about the war of the worlds, and I’m sure you play as humanities last hope, original, right? Speaking of that, I’d love to at least see a sci-fi shooter with a story on a much smaller scale.

Max Payne and Max Payne II for example, it was about figuring out who was responsible and taking revenge for the murder of your family. Not to sum to the story up that easily, but it was very small scale and very deep [I do mean in comparison to other games], and dark which is always bonus for me.

Now I’m not exactly saying if the whole world is involved it’s instantly too epic and over used. Freedom Fighters for example, yes it was about the Soviets invading the USA, but you weren’t trying to save the world, you were a small group of people trying to do what they could, with no real hope of actually accomplishing your goal. It was not about saving the world; it was about saving what you could.

I’m not saying these games don’t exist, I know a few, and I’m sure there are some I don’t know of, but the over whelming majority of games these days are about saving the world, and I’m sick of it.

Yes, I’m a bit late to this, I got this game nearly when it came out, but I’m giving it a second look.

I was looking forward to this before it came out, (I loved both Hitman and Freedom Fighters) that is, until it got insulted by all the reviews out there. However, once I got my hands on the demo, it didn’t seem all that bad to me. One of the selling points, for me at least, was the story, and I will say it was going pretty well, there was even a pretty emotional cut scene, well, for a game anyways. Sadly after that, I think the writers stopped caring, and both the endings felt so uninspired it was almost as sad as the aforementioned cut scene.

The graphics are pretty varied in this game, some of the character models look pretty darn good, and then some stuff like the explosions almost look like they are from the N64 days. None of that matters though because this is one area the game really shine, and that area is art direction. Just look at the box art and you can tell the artist have some good ideas. It’s the little details that really make it, like the guys having magazines duct taped to their clothes, or Kane’s bald spot, and the window cleaner suites you have for one of the missions just look damn cool. Same for the levels, there is one mission at a nightclub during a rave, and its one of the cooler missions I’ve played in a game. If you’ve even seen the movie Heat (if not, go see it) and said I want to play that, in terms of looks, this game is what your looking for.

Unfortunately, there are some problems with the gameplay, as it all feels rather clunky. However this clukieness does slow down the gameplay, so its not too fast, your wont be running around getting head shots, which I think works well for the game. Still, it just doesn’t feel all that comfortable.

I’m sure its no surprise by now that half way through the game, the setting suddenly switches from the city to Cuba or something. At that point the game really loses its charm, and leaves you with clunky gameplay and not so interesting art direction. You can play the entire game with one screen co-op which was another selling point, and while your still in the city, its certainly bearable to play, nothing new for co-op though, but it works just fine, even though it still has all the games other problems.

There is multiplayer for online, and its actually a really cool idea. You start as a team doing missions like robbing banks or jewelry stores, but at ay point you can betray your team and take their money, and they of course can kill you. I dint play enough to find out what the point of money was, just for sake of winning I’d assume, if you could buy guns or something it’d be cool, but I cant confirm if you can or can not do that. Of course there is a problem with this, did you catch what it is? There is somewhat of an honor system to work together, and asking xbox live users to follow that is a big ask. Most every match I’d be shot in the back by a teammate as soon as the game started. The few times it worked, it was pretty fun, and can be truly intense deciding when you want to betray your team, or worrying about being betrayed your self. The gameplay and controls are still the same, the gun fights with other players aren’t all that great, but gun fights usually amount to being shot in the back, so its not a major problem. I’d imagine playing with some friends would be quite fun.

There is, in addition to the art direction, some brilliance in the game, the cover system though a bit of a problem child, is great when it works. You basically just put your self behind cover and the game will adjust your character for you. For example if you crouch behind a table and your head is still stick up, your character will lower his head out of harms way. Then when you fire, your character will automatically blind fire, unless of course you manually aim. And, unlike every other game out there where you can revive teammates, there is a cool limit on that. You can easily help up down teammates with some drugs, but do it too much, and they they will over dose and die.

Despite what it has going for it, I still can’t exactly tell you to go pick it up, as the gameplay will likely be a problem for most people. Check out the demo though, if you like it, I’m sure you could have some fun with it, but by now if you might be better off with GTAIV if you want a game like it, in terms of a shooter of course, and I mean this in terms of a setting. However, I for one will be looking forward to a sequel if it is ever released. If the developers fix the gameplay and continue with their art direction and other ideas, Kane & Lynch 2 could be a good game, or they could mix it up and continue under a new name, which would be just fine, starting a story from scratch might just be easier.

I've been a huge fan of the Call Of Duty games since I played that COD2 demo on the 360 way back when. Sorry, I should restate, I've been a huge fan of the COD games made by Infinity Ward. COD 2, despite the fact that the Germans where having tea parties in every house you were assaulting, was an enjoyable experience, even on veteran. COD 3 I literally played for five minutes, it was that bad. COD4 was of course fun, minus the stand off at the end of the sniper mission while playing on veteran. The whole game had the really great immersive cinematic experience just like COD2, even in multiplayer, which was brilliant. The camera movements in first person felt very fluid and natural, and the constant switch between attacking and defending was great pacing. Even though the modernness of Modern Warfare was a nice change of pace, I missed the feel of killing someone with a bolt-action rifle. It was good to know the next COD, now know as World at War, would be back in the world war two timeline, that was until I found out it was made by Treyarch, the game then fell off my radar.

Not to get any more back-story, I had the chance to play some World at War at a friend’s house in co-op. Which brings me to my first complaint, what the hell was who smoking when they decided to do that to split screen? For those who don’t know, instead of doing normal one screen on top of the other, the screen on the top is off centered, and you get a stupid picture behind the two.

Anyway, now on to the game. The controls and movement feel right, like COD4, not that crap from COD3, it appeared they just took the engine from Infinity Ward. I’ll say now from further playing, I guess that’s exactly what they did. So it handles fine, but there is plenty more for Treyarch to screw up.

As for single player, keep in mind I played on veteran, was a pain in the ass. Yeah, COD games on veteran are usually pretty hard, but still enjoyable, WAW on the other hand is just hard and very stressful. I think cheap is a better word then hard for this game, or I suppose just saying grenades works well enough. After beating the game, I’m fairly certain grenades just spawn underneath you, I’d have grenades underneath me even when standing behind a wall. Don’t think your safe even in places where it’d be physically possible for grenades to reach you. Seeing five grenade indicators on the screen at once was not an uncommon thing. Once I recall getting four grenade indicators instantaneously, one in front of me, one each side, and one behind me, leaving me nothing to do but put the controller down at wait for a reload. Next, your teammates don’t do anything, the only time I’ve ever saw my teammate shoot someone was when I was dead. So if you come up to a group of fifteen guys, you have to kill fifteen guys, hell, I don’t even know why your teammaes are there, its just you doing everything. And of course, the enemy only shoots you, I’d see my teammates at cover, and run over to them only to be killed guy an enemy sitting right next to them. Or instead of shooting my teammate at the front lines who is firing his gun hitting nothing, they’d turn at shoot at me hiding in a bush. Lets not forget when they charge, they would run past five of my guys, and attack me, and only then after stabbing me, would me teammates shoot them.

Further more, and this may seem minor, but I think it’s very important for immersion; the camera movements for the first person cinematics were so stiff and unnatural. The pacing was just bad, none of that attack and defend thing, just constantly attacking. Plus a few missions poorly copied from COD4 such as the sniper one, and one with you in a gun ship. Can’t really think of anything redeeming about the campaign, when I got to the end and unlocked the zombie thing I didn’t even bother with it, I was so fed up with the game, I haven’t played it since, glad I borrowed it.

As for multiplayer, its pretty much the same thing as COD4, but with WWII skins and guns, which is what I was excited about. But you still have these weird gun attachments, like some fake red dot sight; totally killing everything I was excited about. Same perks, same challenges for leveling up, nothing new at all. Well there is tanks and dogs, but nothing to buy a whole new game about. I’d have liked a classic mode, were you could only use WWII weapons with none of those attachments.

Another thing, and this pissed me off more then anything, a massive problem with COD4, if you had 8 friends, two Xboxes and two TV, you could only do a one versus one LAN. So no split screen LAN, which is complete bull, and guess what Treyarch copied and pasted that as well. Not that it would be much fun anyways, you only get to pick from a few horrible classes, you can’t pick your gun or any perks when playing with friends, something I questioned even in COD4. Though I guess most games are doing this, sure we have Internet gaming on the consoles but that doesn’t mean we can’t have LAN parties anymore. Gaming has always been about having fun with friends, but now I guess the trend in gaming, and everything else, is to cut back on social interaction, or at least face-to-face interaction.

Now let me quickly address the one kind of cool thing Treyarch did. They added a bit of gore, which actually looks pretty good, and fits well with graphicness of war. And I’ll say they fire effects in the game looked fairly decent.

In the end, if you want to get pissed off and break something, or you want to play COD4 on crappier maps, or you just want to waste money, go ahead and get Call of Duty: World at War.