Early on in my gaming “career” (I’ve never earned a penny, I’m not that good) I found myself developing particular techniques, largely to help me with my slow reaction times, I was on medication which slowed my brain down at time and I often found myself being bested by players popping out, even when I was already aiming at them!

So the first technique I managed to create was shooting people by sound on Counter-strike, I’d wait until I hear them just come out, I’d adjust my aim to allow for my reaction time (normally 1cm on screen from the doorway) and then as soon as I saw movement I’d hit my button and probably 9/10 times I’d headshot them and they’d go down without a chance to react. Sadly you can’t do this technique on Call of Duty.

Following on from that I started developing a set of skills and tactics for running my clan on the PC, sadly my PC gaming career was ended by arm problems, but a couple of years later I got an Xbox 360 with Call of Duty 4 for Christmas and I was hooked again, writing and publishing a book on Call of Duty World at War a year later.

So as most people do I learned some techniques, following on from that I developed some tactics – but recently I’ve been thinking along the lines of strategy and a team’s gaming approach or mindset. This sounds a bit airy fair, but let me explain a bit more.

The way I play currently is fairly team based, I communicate well (perhaps too much) and I trust my team mates to cover my ass (I don’t run over and cover the same door, I instead tend to concentrate on a different choke point). But one thing that I don’t do is have a lot of confidence during clan matches. Check out my favourite class MW3 for example:

Primary weapon: M4A1 with red dot + silencer
Secondary weapon: Stinger
Lethal: Claymore
Tactical: Flashbang
Perk 1: Blind Eye
Perk 2: Assassin
Perk 3: Dead Silence
Deathstreak: Final Stand
Strike Package: Assault: UAV, Care Package, IMS

This is a great class for an individual player playing Search and Destroy when you can’t really rely on your team mates and you can often find yourself on your own. Trust me it’s got me a lot of XP.

But it’s a terrible clan class or team class – think about the mindset:

Silencer: This shouldn’t really be necessary, my team should be caning the enemies so badly that we should be everywhere, if we’re all around them then knowing our presence is actually going to distract them. You know those times when your team is being beaten so badly and you run to kill an enemy you notice on radar and you get shot in the back, over and over. Those guys don’t use silencers. Instead I may be better off choosing extra large mags – which is superb by the way.

Stinger: By getting a Stinger you are doing two things, one you are saying the enemy is likely to get a lot of kill streaks that you need to shoot down, secondly you are foregoing a secondary weapon that can be a backup in case you run out of ammo in a tough situation from killing so many people. On a winning team a Stinger shouldn’t really be necessary.

Blind Eye: Again, if the enemy has killstreaks, you’re probably being beat anyway and you shouldn’t have let it get this far – I’d be far better off with the Recon perk, which would tag enemies hit by flash/stun/explosives on the radar for 10 second, and the pro version does it for bullets – and get this – the whole team gets it on their radar too. Think about the impact that would have if 2 or 3 members of a team were using this.

Assassin: Again, this is kind of like saying that I can’t hit the enemy from the front, I have to maybe sneak around and take pot shots, not a strong mindset. A good team should have all entry points covered, so you shouldn’t be able to carry out sneaky kills. Great fun for team death match, not that useful in a clan match or when you’re in a big party. Instead perhaps using Hardline (extra killstreaks) or Overkill or Quickdraw would be better.

Dead Silence: Again, same principle with assassin – besides you can have the same effect from crouching and it forces you not to sprint all the time (which can get you killed a lot). Perhaps some good alternatives would be Marksman or Steady Aim.

Weak Choices VS Strong Choices

I thought it would be a good idea to list the attachments, perks and equipment that are weak and which ones are strong.

Attachments

Weak:

• Silencer – less damage, more hiding like a big girl
• Any stupid sight that allows you to flick between zoom levels
• Shotgun – you’ll die simply trying to switch to this instead of a secondary weapon
• Heartbeat sensor – this is just a distraction

Strong:

• Red dot / Holographic / ACOG
• Extra Mags – these are awesome, seriously
• Rapid fire, put this on the Type 95

Lethal Equipment

Weak: Bouncing Betty, Claymore, C4, throwing knife
Strong: Frag grenade, Semtex

Tactical Equipment

Weak: Scrambler, Trophy System, Portable Radar, EMP (you don’t need any of this)
Strong: Smoke, Flash, Stun, Tactical Insertion

Perk Slot 1

Weak: Blind Eye, Scavenger
Strong: Recon, Sleight of Hand, Extreme Conditioning

Perk Slot 2

Weak: Blast Shield, Assassin
Strong: Quickdraw, Hardline, Overkill

Perk Slot 3

Weak: Stalker, Sitrep, Dead Silence0
Strong: Marksman, Steady Aim

What is a strong class then?

Primary weapon: M4A1 with red dot + silencer Type 95 with rapid fire + extra mags
Secondary weapon: Stinger FMG9
Lethal: Claymore Semtex
Tactical: Flashbang Stun Grenade
Perk 1: Blind Eye Recon
Perk 2: Assassin Quickdraw
Perk 3: Dead Silence Marksman
Deathstreak: Final Stand Who cares this ain’t ever going to happen!
Strike Package: Assault: UAV, Care Package, IMS Specialist – best chance of getting a MOAB

• Buy a house (at 20% below its price in March 2011)
• Finish my “Diploma in Direct and Digital Marketing”, on course for a pass (praying I don’t have to do resits) soon I can get the professional letters after my name
• I didn’t fix my neck but I managed to get some relief, and I now know the cause of the problem, so that’s something.

Sadly I got nowhere with my knee, arm or any of my fitness plans (I now weigh 13 stone).

So, what are my plans for 2012? Well for starts I’m going to be a dad, right now I’m quite happy where I am, but I just need to get a little healthier, as the marketing course took up all my spare time in 2011, so I’ve not been able to relax as much or go out and be more active.

So, here they are, plans for 2012:

• Get a couple of Digital & Direct Marketing Plans under my belt (hopefully The Old Deanery, Express Group and perhaps Bronco where I work fulltime)
• Go private about my arm problem
• Find a physio who can help my knee
• Get some permanent neck pain relief
• Start a sport (Basketball, Karate or something else)
• Do up the kitchen, bedrooms & lounge in my new house!