I\u00a0wanted to finish writing\u00a0my review of Persona 4 while it’s still fresh in my mind but for some reason, my motivation to to do so is very low.\u00a0\u00a0Most\u00a0people knows\u00a0that it’s\u00a0a great game, so I feel like I’m beating a dead horse by reaffirming\u00a0that sentiment. \u00a0Honestly, I’d rather talk about what I did over the last\u00a0couple of\u00a0weekends.\u00a0 Granted, there’s only so much I can talk about but it’s a lot easier to write up and hopefully, a lot shorter.<\/p>\n
The weekend before last, a lot of my good buddies\u00a0gathered at my\u00a0house to play some videogames.\u00a0 It’s nothing out of the ordinary and I don’t mind it most of the time since I don’t have to go out of my way to drive to their houses (which usually takes at least half an hour).\u00a0 The main game of the night was Street Fighter 4 with a little bit of four player Phantasy Star Portable and some Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.\u00a0 I particpated in all of the multiplayer games except for TvC.\u00a0 I have never played TvC and hold no interest in playing it as long as I don’t own a Wii that can read region 2 dvds and games.\u00a0 Nothing really exciting happens in PSP and unfortunately, it’ll probably stay that way forever.\u00a0 In Street Fighter 4, my Abel\u00a0loses to most people.\u00a0 It’s one thing to play against friends who only play fighters casually.\u00a0 You can usually go in there and exploit every mistakes they make and breathe a sigh of relief every time they miss their opportunity to go for a killing blow.\u00a0 It’s another thing when you’re playing against people who understand the concept of\u00a0minimizing their risks,\u00a0the art of zoning\u00a0and\u00a0how to take\u00a0advantage of every opportunity that opens up.\u00a0\u00a0My frustration about this game\u00a0is that unless\u00a0I can perform complex moves, links and combos consistently, I won’t be able to access the real game where better\u00a0tactics and mind games will dominate the matches.\u00a0 Instead, I get\u00a0killed by a\u00a0fireball\u00a0because my EX anti-air throw came out instead of my ultra.\u00a0 I did manage\u00a0win one match against a really good Ryu, so at least I know that I’m getting better.\u00a0 But even with all the losing, it was still fun and that’s all I care about.<\/p>\n
Once we done with Street Fighter 4 and the majority of my friends left my house, I decided to play a little bit of Quake Live.\u00a0 Quake Live is pretty much Quake 3 Arena except you play it on your web browser of choice.\u00a0 There are some small notable changes to the game in order to make it more balanced (railgun no longer does 100 damage and has been toned down to 80 damage) but overall, the fundamental gameplay remains the same.\u00a0 It’s a no-holds-barred first person shooter where the winner is determined by the amount of kills he\/she gets.\u00a0 I know that sounds like a “no shit, sherlock” kind of statement but believe it or not, there’s a lot of first persons shooters out nowadays that don’t have the same\u00a0“kill the most dudes”\u00a0objective like Quake Live does.\u00a0 The game itself is very fast paced and aside from the shotgun, there are no random shots at all.\u00a0 The game is still currently in beta, so obviously there’s going to be few bumps here and there.\u00a0 As far I know, there are no significant technical bugs or issues that I have a problem with.<\/p>\n
The matchmaking system on the other hand is absolutely terrible.\u00a0 It’s Warcraft 3 matchmaking all over again except it’s three times worse.\u00a0 When Warcraft 3 was first released, there was a lot of time where you’d be\u00a0matched up with\u00a0somebody\u00a0who is significantly skilled enough to destroy you in a matter of 5-8 minutes.\u00a0 And the worst part of the system?\u00a0 WC3 didn’t even hide it from you.\u00a0 Before you enter the actual game, you can just look at your opponent’s name\u00a0on the loading screen for\u00a0one second and you will know if you actually stand a chance.\u00a0 A level 7 player versus a level 28 player isn’t exactly a fair matchup.\u00a0 Quake Live is like that where you can play a couple of games and depending on how you play, you’ll be placed in the appropriate tiers that matches your playstyle.\u00a0 You have a choice of servers and depending on what type of people are playing in there, the server will automatically adjust the server tier.\u00a0 Unfortunately, every server has at least one or two people with 10 years of Quake 3 experience under their belt and the rest will just be above average.\u00a0 It took me a good 5 or so games for me to adjust but it’s still frustrating.\u00a0 And that’s just Free for All mode.\u00a0 Team Deathmatch is even worse with one side always dominating the other side.\u00a0 And you can forget about dueling mode unless you’re really really good.\u00a0 Dueling is pretty much an exclusive mode reserved for only the toughest elitist and if you go in unprepared, don’t be surprised if you end the match with negative frags.<\/p>\n
Despite the matchmaking system, Quake 3 Arena was a very solid game when it came out over ten years ago and remains that way today.\u00a0\u00a0I remember\u00a0when I was still in high school,\u00a0Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament came out at the same time.\u00a0 There was a lot of debate on which game was better.\u00a0\u00a0Being the\u00a0Quake fanboy that I am, I really wanted to believe that Quake 3 was better than Unreal Tournament but UT just had a lot more variety and fun weapons.\u00a0 Believe me, it was very hard to ignore.\u00a0 On the surface, Unreal Tournament seemed like it was the better game.\u00a0 UT had more interesting weapons and each of them had an alternate fire.\u00a0 Q3A only had generic FPS weapons with no alternate fire.\u00a0 UT had more modes to play with like CTF, Assault, Domination, Last Man Standing, Team Deathmatch.\u00a0 Q3A only had Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and a CTF with only 4 maps to play on.\u00a0 The graphics looked slightly better on UT than Q3A.\u00a0 The only thing Q3A had going for it was that it had more variety in its models.\u00a0 It’s pretty obvious which game was better and every gaming website except Gamespy agreed that UT was the better game.\u00a0 Ten years later, nobody is playing UT anymore but Q3A still has a very active competitive scene.\u00a0 Like I said, on the surface, UT is the better game but when you finally go deep into it, Q3A wins no contest.\u00a0 It’s the same reason why people still play Starcraft and stopped playing Dawn of War.\u00a0 Like it or not, Starcraft is a much much better game than the Dawn of War series will ever aspire to be.\u00a0 I love Dawn of War but it will never\u00a0be able to stand\u00a0the test of time like Starcraft does.\u00a0\u00a0It’s because the design of the game focused on balancing\u00a0these\u00a0two points: Depth and Balance.<\/p>\n