Tuesday, June 28, 2005
I might be a bit late in reading Jon Dudlak's feature on cheaters, but it raises a solid issue: What the hell is wrong with these people?
I love how they immediately try to pass it off as only levelling the playing field. "It's not our fault we have lives! We don't play the game as much as everyone else so we get killed all the time!"
Such a theory is sadly lacking in many areas. Like, for instance, how they manage to find so many unorthodox glitches and cheats when they don't have "six to eight hours a day" to play. It also makes no sense for someone who is a poor player to "level the playing field" by cheating. By inflating your scores, you're only raising your ranking further... only to play against even tougher opponents. Meanwhile, because you're relying on cheats your own skill has not increased at all.
But it's silly to argue stupidity with logic, because that's just an excuse. It really pisses me off to see people stoop to that sort of level, since I'm in the same boat too. I usually get my XBL games a week later than everyone else while it's shipped from the US, and I don't have that much time to play anymore. So when I jump online, I'm totally green and I'm going to get wasted (and DO get wasted -- remember that 30-0 pasting I had in 2v2 Halo?). But that's OK, because that's how good -- or bad -- I am. And the only way to get better is to play, learn from the losses, and increase your skills.
Here's an example: I used to hate Colossus in Halo 2. I used to groan audibly every time it came up in Rumble Pit. After it came up for the third time in five games one night, I sank to my customary last place halfway through the round when a pattern suddenly emerged from all those deaths and I "got it". Shotgun. Take it, hold it, love it. Charge towards your enemy. Take the hit from whatever they're firing at you. 95% of the time (at the lower levels of Rumble Pit anyway) you'll survive long enough to close in to just before melee range. And then fire in the gut. One shot kill. Repeat ad naseum. I did this and rocketed from last to first by the end of the round. Seems like an obvious or weak strategy, right? Sure. But before that I was totally lost in Colossus. Now I have some basis for attack, some plan I can go to, and now that's one of my favourite stages.
Moral of the story? Stop complaining about how unfair it is, and either put in some practice or quit playing. There is a perfectly serviceable single player mode, I notice...
Posted at 5:47 AM
