April 25: You Just Got Poned!

In high school it was Goldeneye. In college it was Halo. Guys everywhere were crowded around television sets and killing each other with AK-47s and grenade launchers. As time passed and technology improved, people didn't even have to be in the same room to play. They began gunning each other down from different states and countries. Now, friends connect their consoles to the Internet and use headsets to communicate with each other. Some of them team up with each other to kill other teams and some of them prefer the free-for-all style where it's every player for himself.

I purchased Call of Duty 2 for my Playstation3 console with the hopes of improving my game skills on the day the game came out in November. I had never been any good at any game that wasn't baseball related, but I thought I would try nonetheless. What I didn't expect, however, was the enthusiasm these other online players possessed. Guys will literally spend hours on end playing the same game over and over again running their characters around in these made-up worlds dodging bullets and spitting expletives and insults through their headsets. A noob like myself had less than zero chance at survival.

I've never been called such offensive and downright foul names by complete strangers. N-words, F-words, c*ck-sucker, and f*ggot. All because I couldn't shoot and kill before being shot and killed myself! You see, when you're sitting comfortably in the privacy of your home with a headset on and a controller in your hand, you can say whatever you want to the other players in your simulated battle zone. And because I spend each round running around aiming towards the clouds instead of mowing enemies down with gunfire, I am the recipient of such taunts.

This is the basic breakdown of each round for me: Game starts, my character steps around a corner and POW! Dead. Camera changes to the killer's perspective and I watch my character step around that corner only to be gunned down by a merciless teenager with a different area code. The game then drops my character in a different area of the level. This time I'm in a warehouse and at the top of a flight of stairs. I'm more cautious as I approach a window to look down on the other players in hopes of picking each one off. Out of my rear speakers, I hear a slash and watch my character fall to the ground. Camera changes to the killer's viewpoint again. There I am; looking out of the window minding my own business. My killer approaches my character, withdraws a knife and slices through the back of my neck.

Throw in the expletives and hate-filled insults in between each kill and you have a typical round of online play. My character stays alive for an average of fifteen seconds before being gunned down and dropped into another area of the game. This "entertaining" process goes on for the duration of the five minute round before the game congratulates me on spending the most time looking through the "kill cam." My counterparts are being awarded with "best shot" or "most kills." I get "most time spent looking through the kill cam." Thanks.

Suffice it to say I didn't play Call of Duty 2 very much before retiring it to my shelf. I finished the game on the easiest setting (which took longer than it probably should have) and haven't played it since. This is the new wave of home entertainment: to sit at home in my underwear and be called a f*ggot by punks with no lives. At least it comes to me in stunning high definition surround sound!