Why Did I Do It Again?

I have no idea why, but earlier today I had a complete failure in common sense and thought it might be fun to try playing Call of Duty 4 again.

CoD4 is a game I have had a love-hate relationship with since it’s release. Only with less of the love. It’s a staggeringly good game, one I have sunk hours of my life into, but it also contains some of the biggest fun-prevention design techniques I have ever found. Maybe I’m playing it wrong, or maybe my expectation to enjoy myself is misplaced.

This all began last night, when me and a few people from Destructoid decided to fire up a game. I hadn’t played in a few months, but because we had a full team, I found it fun, almost relaxing to play. Today however is a different story.

I was playing by myself, which was the first and biggest mistake. The lack of skill-balancing really came into it’s own as I was dropped into a 1v1 (which I chose because I used to win 9/10 games) on a map I haven’t seen before against somebody with the highest ranking. Not helping the fact was the dodgy internet cable going in to the back of my 360 causing me a whole world of lag related pains.

Long story short, after one and a half matches I had to put the controller down, and leave the room. Self harm is not cool.