Gaming Moments of the Year 2012 Page 3

Dishonorable Mentions:

Tribes: Ascend

What it is: A reboot of a jetpack-based online shooter

Why it's not a moment: Yay! It's Tribes! Moments later: oh, right, it's Tribes.

Tribes isn't a bad game, and I get why some people really dig it. For me, once the nostalgia wore off, it took me exactly the same amount of time to get bored with it as it did for me to get bored with the original. So I'll give them credit for that, anyway.

Battlefield 3: Armored Kill

What it is: The third add-on to the multiplayer Battlefield 3.

The not-Moment: Getting trapped (again), in a town bombarded from afar (again), and being completely helpless to do anything about it (again).

I love Battlefield 3, it's one of my favorite multiplayer games of all time. The Back to Karkand expansion was excellent. But with Armored Kill, a vehicle-focused add-on, the fundamental balance of the game was shifted so far as to be broken. Playing as infantry, which most of the team must do (not everyone gets a tank or plane), is nearly unplayable. Or at least, unfun.

The vehicles have such defenses that it's essentially impossible to damage them as infantry. In the normal game this is fine, as there are only a few tanks or planes. In AK, your life expectancy on foot is moments. How is that fun?

More of me bitching about Battlefield 3: Armored Kill.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

What it is: An update of the greatest multiplayer shooter ever

The Moment: My third round on Dust 2.

As I said in my review of CS:GO, I've been playing Counter-Strike for 13 years. I'm not sure when the Dust 2 map came out, but it's been a long time. Because the initial launch of CS:GO just had updated versions of the original maps, everyone playing knew exactly where to go, exactly what to do. There was no suspense, surprise, or varied tactics. Matches were over with minutes to spare on the counters. It was... boring. That's when I sadly realized I was over Counter-Strike. It's not you. It's me. You'll find someone better, I promise.

As for me, I've moved on to the far better looking, far younger, and far more entertaining Battlefield 3 and Planetside 2

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