• It’s not as “quick” as MW2, but it’s about as close as they can probably get.
• Maps are better in my opinion. More routes from any two points. This reduces emphasis on accuracy however since you’re likely much closer to your enemy.
• Ninja perk now grants silent footsteps, and is at perk level 3 with little else of value, so everyone uses it.
• Possibly connected to point above, sound doesn’t seem as well executed. In MW2 you could stop moving and know exactly what was going on. If you do that now, you get knifed withing seconds. I’m holding off my final judgment on this until I get Ninja Pro.
• Spawn system seems bad. The game will likely spawn an entire team around the corner behind you at any moment.
• Net code seems pretty good in game, except for when it REALLY misses. Two examples. 1: “3 bar” connection sometimes seems as good as a full 4, but sometimes feels more like 1. 2: Sometimes killcam doesn’t resemble your experience at all (I was killed hiding behind smoke, while the killer had no smoke at all on their screen).
• Net code seemed to fail hard on Xbox last night when we tried to add a 4th to our party. Couldn’t play any games together.
• Guns seems less deadly (slightly, eg. M16 requires two bursts pretty much everytime), but victim can’t respond as quickly either, so shooting from behind is actually more effective.
• I like that I can buy any attachment for any gun right away. Save’s me the wasted time of killing people with an ACOG just to get something else.
• Seems harder to “see” other players. My eyes just don’t seem to pickup players as easily. Crouching in a corner is somehow a more effective strategy now.
• Custom games with ballistic knives, hatchets, and friends are stupid stupid fun.
• The AK-74u rocks (with the grip). Hopefully the AK-47 is at least that awesome.
• I hate all the losers who found a game where drop shots with the Mp5k are more effective.
• If you run into two guys at the same time, you most likely won’t kill both of them (see gun less deadly point above). More realistic yes, but much less empowering. Emphasizes team play opposed to lone wolf style (which I like).
• Tactical equipment (forget the real name… flashbangs, gas, stun etc…) seems nearly completely pointless in this game. Hard to stun anyone well enough to get any real killing benefit from it.
• Grenades and other “thrown” items don’t seem to go as far.
• Care packages are much safer to stand near when they’re being dropped.
• Running doesn’t feel as… good. It’s a smoother more sterile version.
• There are a few spots on levels that had to be specifically designed for guys to camp in. I get trying to make everybody happy, but lots of camping IMHO ruins the spirit of FPS games.

Hmmm… that should be enough bullet points for now. Gotta to play some more anyway.

I’m way late to the game on this one. It was not shown in HD in Canada last year when it was initially run (as far as I could tell). As a result I just kinda skipped over it. This year however, some other channel is carrying it in HD. I watched about 3 episodes then I decided to just buy in on Blu Ray.

It is not of the style SG-1. There’s not a ton of techno babble. It’s a drama with a Sci-Fi setting. It’s totally about characters clashing. I’m only part-way through the first season, and loving it completely. The episode “Light” was the episode that made me purchase the show on Blu Ray. The combination of the visuals, the tone, and the wicked synthy soundtrack were too much to ignore. That episode is a gem.

The crazy thing is I’m not really sure who the protagonist is. That’s not to say the show features all these different people and never sticks with anyone. The show really focuses around a handful of characters. But much like the characters in the show, I’m not really sure who I’m supposed to sympathize with.

The current state on the ship is basically two men at war with each other. One a Colonel, the other a brilliant scientist. They each have their own methods of problem solving and their own priorities and they are battling for control of the ship, both in the literal sense and in the court of public opinion with the rest of the crew (a mix of military and civilian personnel). But it’s more of a crazy mind game. Once you think you know who you’re agreeing with, that character goes and does something to advance their own goals that doesn’t jive with how “your hero” should act. Neither character is “the good guy”, but they’re both attempting to achieve the same goal, just with different methods.

At any rate, I’m having great difficulty watching a single episode at a time. I have little doubt that I’ll blast through the entire first season in a couple days, then re-watch everything. Then I’ll be anxiously awaiting season 2 on Blu Ray. The production value of this show is so high, I don’t want it diminished by compression, bandwidth, commercials, audio blips, bad recordings or whatever. Watching it on Blu Ray is so pure and enjoyable. It’s making me pine for a 1080p plasma now to replace my 720p projection.

From what I’ve heard, much of this style is similar to Battlestar Galactica, which I’m interested in checking out. I just need to catch it in HD from the first season or something to get into it.

Most of the people who switched to Mac in the last couple years have switched likely from an old Windows XP installation, bypassed Vista and Windows 7. Vista aside (not terrible if you waited for service pack 1), Windows 7 is fantastic, and many people don’t realize this.

But this isn’t a post regarding Windows 7 specifically, or the “which is better a better OS” debate. They’re both great at different things. This is a post comparing the two GUIs assuming the user is using the mouse the year is 2010. I’m going to look at user behaviour, Fitts’ law (in concept, not with hard figures) and computers and how they’ve advanced hardware-wise and how this affects GUI elements.

Fitts’ Law

A quick review of Fitts’ law, upon which all my points refer to. The law essentially states that for user using a mouse cursor on a screen, the distance the mouse must travel and the size of the target are related to how easy it is to acquire a target. Target acquisition is the most fundamental action a user takes in any GUI. So, if a mouse must travel far, the difficulty goes up. The difficulty also increases if the target is small.

The Law Applied

The application of Fitts’ law is obviously the most important aspect of it. A little trick that UIs have been doing is placing buttons or menu items on the edge of the screen. This has the effect of making a target area of infinite size (since the mouse cursor cannot extend past the edges of the screen). In the case of Apple’s computers, due to their patent, they always place their menus on the very top edge of the screen (not sure why Linux distros aren’t affected by this patent, obscurity I suppose). File, Edit, View etc. are always in the same place for every program. This is great because it makes consistent mousing to the menu bar much easier. This is good for Macs since they’ve always been mouse-oriented.

Similarily, Windows has been using this trick for the start menu (and some other elements). And in fact, the start menu is probably the easiest to acquire of any UI element on any OS since it’s in the bottom left corner (by default). It essentially has infinite width and height. You don’t even have to look, just throw the mouse that way and click and you got it. However, depending on what you’re doing, you probably don’t need to access this menu nearly as much as the file menu in a program (this is just assuming your only mousing within the active program).

At any rate, due to the way the Mac OS was designed (I’m not just talking OS X… pretty much every version I can think of), this has always been an advantage for Apple.

Things Change

I believe Mac’s advantage in this area is now a liability for many users for a number of reasons.

1. Computer resolutions are much much larger. Just ten years ago (anecdotally), 1024 x 768 was the resolution used on nearly every computer. Now, computers are generally at least 1280 x 1024, or any number of widescreen resolutions (1920 x 1200, 1680 x 1050, 1280 x 960). This means total screen area has increased in general anywhere between 150% to nearly 300%. This doesn’t even take into account multiple monitor setups, which are continuing to gain in popularity. Multiply this effect for Mac users since Apple has truly been pushing high quality, larger displays in the last ten years. Ask any user of a 27 inch iMac how large the display is. A far cry from the resolutions when the patent was filed. What were they? 480 pixels wide?
2. Computer power in terms of multi-tasking is also generations ahead. More and more computers are now truly capable of running multiple programs simultaneously. Having a program open on the right-hand side of your 27 inch iMac, and going to the file menu that’s in the top left corner is a huge distance for the mouse to travel.
3. Users are now more physically capable users. Having a button on the screen of infinite size benefits the user new to a mouse (or trackpad, track ball, whatever) much much more than an experienced computer user. Most people have been using computers now for well over a decade. It’s the same as a new driver. Control of the gas pedal in a car is more erratic for new drivers than drivers with even one month of experience. Most people now click on relatively small targets with their mouse with little issue.
4. So much of what everybody does on a computer now is browser based anyway. The internet has been stealing users of applications for years now. You’ll probably hit the back button in your browser many more times a day than file and quit. This post was typed in wordpress, not Word or Textedit.

But wait, all of these points aren’t Mac exclusive!

Windows resolutions are up, multitasking’s never been better, the users are also experienced, and we have the internet in Windows too! But here’s my reasoning for windows superiority…

1. Combine points one and four. Most of what people do on computers now is browser based. Meaning, user aren’t going to the file menu for all their operations. The most common action for a browser from the file menu is probably quit. Well, if the browser is maximized (it’s probably the most commonly maximized program used now), then quitting on windows is just throw the  mouse to the top right without looking and click. That’s faster and easier then getting to the file menu alone.
2. Consider also that if a program in windows is maximized, you can actually close it in the top left corner by double clicking.
3. If a user is multi-tasking in windows, and you’re working in a specific program, unless the program currently in use is in the top left of the screen, then getting to the menus is vastly shorter for the windows user. Combine that with point three, then hitting a menu that’s not on the top edge of the screen’s advantage is lessened by computer user skill.
4. If you need to get rid of all the windows open to get to your desktop on your Windows 7 installation, just chuck the mouse to the bottom right and click. No need to minimize, minimize, minimize etc.
5. Accessing your pictures, documents, “My Computer” or any number of other items that may not sit on your dock can all be found one level deep on your start menu, which is super quick to access.

Basically, strictly from a mousing usability perspective, Apple’s hold on the most usable OS has eroded away since the early days of GUI computing. Today, Windows (more specifically Windows 7) is a better OS overall for mousing (which is kind of ironic since the Mac OS is more mouse focussed).

That isn’t to say that the Mac OS is unusable. I believe that they are advancing GUI OS’s more than anyone on a large perspective. iOS is a perfect example. While not a GUI by traditional standards, their touch-centric interfaces still rely on GUI elements. Combine this with the desktop trackpads with multi-touch they now offer, they’re obviously attempting to move away from the standard GUI’s we’ve become accustomed to the last 20ish years.

As I’m eagerly awaiting the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops next month, I’ve still been playing Modern Warfare 2.

There’s still quite a few people playing on Xbox live. I still really like the game. I know a lot of people have issue with some choices the designers made, and I understand and acknowledge those complaints, I still think it’s the best online shooter on consoles. I find most people that either don’t like it, or do but find themselves in a rut need to change their play style/setup. Just recently I started using a silence M21 EBR sniper rifle (I’ve typically only used the barrett sniper rifle, and not that much), and that has proven to add even more enjoyment to me playing the game.

I played Halo Reach. I really liked the single player. The multiplayer was exactly what I expected, it is Halo after all. I just feel like their specific multiplayer style feels 10 years old. Which is interesting since most of the people that I know that still play Halo were probably born when the original Halo came out. Still the best one of the series too.

Starcraft 2

I’ve also been playing Starcraft 2. Another game that I suppose should feel at least 10 years old. I didn’t play the original, so it’s all new to me. It’s such a fun game. Still struggling to get the right balance between army and economy. I can build them up pretty well (in my opinion), but a very hard computer of the same faction still seems to roll up on me with more units within the first 7 minutes. I also find building vs expanding difficult to balance.

It’s funny how playing MW2 and SC2 highlight different aspects of a person’s brain. In MW2, with my headset on, I have no problem tracking multiple people through multiple walls, selecting the correct weapons, thinking about defeating the other player’s tactically, still reacting to non-stop changes all while navigating a map. However, play SC2 and try to command an army in a battle while remember to build units back at your base. I have so much problem remembering to do that. I can hotkey just fine, but cognitively I just can’t seem to multitask in that game like I can in MW2. Granted I’ve played many more hours of MW2 (and shooters in general), but I don’t think that’s the whole deal. Interesting to me anyway.

Civ V is excellent, I haven’t played a ton of it yet though. Looks like typical Civ quality.

Astro A40 headset and mixamp are still awesome

Speaking of my headset, I’m still extremely happy with that purchase. I was correct is spending the extra money and get something that works accross systems and works well. I can’t recommend them enough. If you spend time gaming, just get the A40 audio system and forget about whatever else there is. They’re worth every penny.

New things

GoogleTV continues to produce videos and improving what looks like it’s going to be an excellent service. This is why I believe the AppleTV is now $99. Apple is really looking to get a foothold in that market before Google swallows it with it’s unique and superior (in my opinion) approach. However, I’m not interested in another box, and I’m not interested in IR blasters. Basically I’ll have to do some more research before I purchase my next TV.

I’m still looking at a 60 inch Samsung plasma with that game mode. The game mode removes some picture processing to reduce the delay that they introduce. Probably (and unfortunately) won’t be buying a new TV until next fall however.

I’ve also find myself much more interested in getting an iPad. Now that the initial hype has subsided, I’d really like a an internet device on my couch with a screen larger than my phone with little to no startup time. Sounds like an iPad. Too bad too because I increasingly dislike Apple (have you been to the Apple store in Market Mall? It’s busier than the rest of the whole damn mall).

I’ve signed up for Netflix. So excited that this service is finally available in Canada, if you could call it that. The initial selection is pretty slim. Luckily I have missed so many movies they have enough to keep me happy for now. They seem to be adding some meaningful suggested movies to me each week though. If they want to succeed in Canada, they really need to improve the new release selection and make more TV series available (I’m specifically referring to Battlestar Galactica, but there are many many others).

Other Stuff

I guess the Star Wars movies are going to be coming to theatres in 3D. My nerd rage is still in full effect. All I want is original theatrical cut on Blu Ray, and done right. That’s what I want, nothing more. That said, I’ll probably go watch the original trilogy in 3D in the theatres… Any opportunity to watch 4, 5 and 6 in the theatre shouldn’t be passed over. It really really pains me to think I’m going to pay George Lucas again for something that isn’t specifically what I want (the aforementioned Blu Ray release), but I don’t think I can help myself. I will not buy any 3D version for my home theatre though.

I was thinking about my iPhone again today. Still using and liking my 3GS. I think what I want is a better function iPhone 4, but with a larger screen. I think an extra half inch diagonally would suit me just fine (with that retina display).

I still hate facebook. Can everybody stop using already so I can delete it too? It’s just self-propelling at this point. It’s getting so big I pray it’ll just go super nova and free us all.

The Digg V4 design. Everybody is hating on it. Personally, I’m not as mad as most, but I’m using it maybe a couple times a week now, instead of every 11 minutes. I guess that speaks for itself.

I’m again digging into building a MAME machine. I want to run it on Ubuntu, but I’m also lazy. Who knows how long it’ll take. It shouldn’t be this inconvenient, but maybe that’s why it exists still.

Inception was a very good movie. I don’t think it was as mind-bending for me as most (I’ve kinda thought about “mind-recursion” before), but it was pretty awesome anyway. Certainly the new “Matrix” movie. Hopefully any potential sequels don’t suck (Christopher Nolan or JJ Abrams should simply direct everything I watch, maybe Ridley Scott too). Breanne however says that we both mis-understood the ending. I’ll watch it again on Blu Ray this holiday and seem if I can come up with a different explanation.

Will be trying the Medal of Honor Multiplayer PC beta this evening. Hopefully it doesn’t suck. At the same time, hopefully it’s not too good either. I only have so much time to player modern military shooters…

Anybody know of a tumblr-style theme for wordpress?

X-Com really hits a lot of key points and levels with me. For one, I like the general theme, alien invasion. Add on base building, resource management, fighting UFOs and exploring their crash sites makes it a cluster of awesomeness for me. I always think about my idea of an ideal game (an RTS where I can then take part in the battles in FPS mode, basically act as a hero unit), and X-Com probably comes the closest to this reality.

In fact, this game is resource management to the extreme. You have to manage your personnel, actual equipment and artifacts, money, approval rating, movement points, aircraft, base facilities, multiple bases etc.

Another thing I love about this game is it’s difficulty. I have actually never beaten it. Even now on it’s 2^nd easiest difficulty, I’m being challenged on the second mission. And you are challenged across the board. On the missions, all the management, the aircraft battles, everything. Keeping your soldiers alive is really key for later on because they gain experience. If all you ever have is a revolving door of rookies, you won’t get very far.

But what it’s probably best at is creating atmosphere. The graphics are ancient by today’s standards (after playing it for a couple hours, looking at my iPhone felt like I was looking at the highest res display ever), but they’re good enough to make it work. The music is midi-like, but sets the mood of all the various sections of the game perfectly. And many of the background graphics elevate this mood. For instance, when you’re looking to sell some of your loot from successful alien missions, the background image is of a shadowy character in a trench coat holding open a suitcase of money towards you. And there’s a number of barely visible characters in the background.

The game really sets the tone of “secret government agency stopping extra terrestrial attacks”. It’s a really good game. I’m really enjoying playing this 17 year old game.

I mean let’s review. Basically, the Xbox’s single best unique feature is xbox live. It isn’t new either. It’s been around for like 6 or 7 years now. It’s what pulled a good number of people off the Playstation 2 (the most popular console ever) and onto Microsoft’s new platform, the original xbox. It was and is a pay service. But still, people flock to it.

Now the xbox 360 is a true powerhouse in the console gaming space, and Sony’s playstation network is ok, but not great. It tries to copy the xbox features, but it lacks the community.

Nintendo’s literally pretending that online gaming doesn’t even exist (and what’s the HD everyone is talking about). Now Apple walks in with a phone, a mobile phone, announces their game network, and instantly it makes nearly no sense that Sony and Nintendo have missed this boat.

Nintendo isn’t really surprising because their history suggests that this thing would fly right by. But Sony. The very same strategy that Microsoft used to take a bite out of your console business should’ve been repurposed by you to take a bite out of Nintendo’s mobile gaming dominance.

Apple’s games are for the most part, cheap and of questionable quality. But in their vast library, there are quite a few gems. There are more gems on the iPhone than on the PSP. And there’s millions of iPhones and iPod touches out there. There’s going to be more of them too. It’s the hottest consumer device in years. The games will get better, and Nintendo and Sony will be left wondering out such an obvious enourmous business opportunity/threat looked them right between the eyes, and then moved on.

Microsoft has been touting that Xbox live will go portable (either on their crappy windows mobile 6 phones, or the newly announced Windows mobile 7), but their failure to create any device of note has truly let this opportunity vanish. An “Xboy” would’ve brought the console community over, but they haven’t touched on that either.

So in review, Apple didn’t come up with the idea of an online gaming network, they don’t pay publishers or developers, they have an online software delivery network (iTunes, hello no shipping and shelf space fees), a dedicated and expontentially expanding consumer base, and they’re going to put it all together and completely and utterly dominate the mobile gaming space inside of 3 years (my prediction). Add the quickly improving power of iPhone and iPad-like devices means that mobile games won’t have to be “mobile-like” games for long.

While the mixamp can handle so many different connections and wires, it’s actually a pretty simple device. There are two knobs, and two buttons. There’s a knob for overall volume, and a separate one for voice volume. There’s a button for power, and a button for Dolby Headphone. I say this only to emphasize my initial mistake and confusion.

Dolby vs Dolby…

So, knowing that that the “5.1 sound” in the headset was virtual, and in part due to their documentation, I assumed that the mixamp must have Dolby Headphone enabled to create the 5.1 surround sound. In fact, the very first time to turn on the A40 system, Dolby Headphone is enabled. This however, was a major error for me playing Modern Warfare 2.

As you can see in the picture from the quickstart guide, the button was more simply labeled as Dolby On/Off. Strictly speaking, this is mostly accurate. While the Xbox hooked up via optical cable is outputting Dolby Digital 5.1 sounds, this button enables Dolby Headphone. What’s the difference you ask? In the end quite a bit in certain situations.

As I found out later, Dolby Headphone is the rough equivalent to Dolby Pro Logic. What’s Dolby Pro Logic? Essentially it’s the ability that many receivers have to make a 2 channel (left and right) audio source sound like it’s coming from all around you, even though it is not. This clearly is the problem I was having. Dolby Headphone will also “create” the surround effect even if surround sound is getting piped into the mixamp. So when I said it sounded like the footsteps were all around me all the time, that was actually a much more true statement than I realized.

In short, for a FPS like MW2, make sure this button is off. For a game that’s more cinematic where directional audio is not important, the Dolby Headphone will add a compelling spaciousness to the sound. This is part of the reason why it took me so long to try MW2 with it off. Once you’ve heard Dolby Headphone turned on, the regular and accurate surround sound seems quite flat. In truth, it is vastly more accurate.

Ok, now we’re rolling

So now that I’ve had my “duh!” moment, how does the headset sound?

Very very good.

The audio cues for me are important, and when I had the mixamp running in the wrong mode, my gameplay suffered considerably. Once I had it set up properly, I was right back up to where I left off. I could easily tell where people were running and shooting from. I’m not really sure what else I could say about the sound. Whether it’s a virtual 5.1 or not, the differences to me are extremely minor and make little to no difference. I found the directional sound to only be slightly and momentarily more ambiguous than a regular 5.1 home theatre setup. By this I mean that I felt sometimes I didn’t know exactly where the sound was coming from instantly, but a split second later I would. However, I believe this is made up by the fact that I’m wearing a headset. Footsteps and other directional audio are noticeable much sooner. So any possible delay in interpreting the sound that I perceive is in the end irrelevant.

Comfort

I can also attest to the comfort of the headset. I played for many consecutive hours without any comfort issues whatsoever. The cans are cloth, similar to a felt, and there’s no “heat” issues. Some headphone will make you feel like you have ear warmers on after a while, these do not suffer in the least from this effect.

The downsides

As nearly every review you will read about the astro setup, there are two downsides. The price and the cables. If you know the price, and you’re not immediately turned off by it (I believe a good headset is worth the money), then the cables are you’re only potential downside. I for one prefer aspects of the cables. For one, that means there’s no batteries in the headset. This means less weight, and no batteries that involve charging etc. The cables need to be managed. Once you have a good setup, you probably won’t want to move much. It takes a little getting used to.

The only minor gripe I have is the location of the mic’s mute button. Regular Xbox 360 users know that the mute is on the plug for the headset. Easily within reach when your hands are on the controller for quite muting. I used that a lot. Understandably, since the Astro also function with a PC, this location would make no sense. So the mute is where it needs to be, just not where I’m used to. I will say however, that when people see me with the headset on, they don’t even bother to try to talk to me anyway (I usually can’t hear them while in game), so I haven’t needed a mute button nearly as much.

In the end

In conclusion, if you’re used to a 5.1 setup for your gaming or want to experience quality directional audio, the Astro A40 audio system will not disappoint. You might not want to spend that kind of money on a wired headset, but if the price and cables aren’t deal breakers for you, you will not have buyer’s remorse with this system.

While I know that the Astro A40 audio system is not a “true” 5.1 setup, all the reviews from every source imaginable on the internet said that every sound could be accurately placed in the sound stage, and that their virtualized 5.1 is excellent. So, despite the high cost (especially if you ship to Canada), I decided that I’m spending more than enough hours online play Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox 360 to justify the cost.

The headset arrived yesterday. The boxes that the product comes in are excellent. They really present the product. Unboxing was genuinely enjoyable. The cable selection is sizable, and the USB cable to power the mixamp is the thickest, heaviest, most beefy USB cable I’ve ever seen by far. I know it shouldn’t matter at all, but I liked that it was so rugged (and slightly rubberized).

Anyway, once setup, I had to “set” the cables, meaning make them usable at my desk. Astro is certainly generous with the cable length of all the cables (I would estimate the USB cable to be at least 10 feet, and the cables from the mixamp to the headset were at least 6 feet also). Since I sit probably 2 feet away from the mixamp, I re-bundled them to a more usable length.

Starting up the Xbox, the headset blew my mind with the regular xbox 360 startup noise. I started to get really excited. So then I fired up Modern Warfare 2.

This is where I feel I should clarify how I play and what I’m used to. I started playing MW2 on my 5.1 setup. I typically like my video games loud. I really like to hear everything, and sound is a huge part of my video game/movie experience, more than most of my friends. I consistently use the sound in MW2 to my advantage. I use the sound to locate enemies, keep track of my team, play stealthily and generally enjoy the whole thing. I probably put in roughly 100 hours on that setup. Then I moved my Xbox to my computer monitor and speakers.

So I lost my 5.1 setup playing the game on my computer monitor. As I said, my AudioEngine 5 speakers (only 2) now became my sound system (I really love these speakers, full balanced sound). At first, I really missed the full 5.1 experience. But over time (the next 100 hours) I’ve started to be able to pinpoint sounds from all around me again. I wouldn’t say I can tell where something is coming from every time, but quite frequently. I’m not sure if this is a testament to excellent sound design on behalf of the developer, or simply me adjusting to the setup. Knowing that I can’t see the sound source by default, suggests that the sounds is either to the side or behind me.

So, back to the headset. The actual in-game sound was basically too good. And I don’t mean that in a complimentary way. When they say you’ll hear footsteps, they’re not kidding. I felt like I could hear the footsteps of the other team from way too far away. If you’re around your own team, you’ll hear 12 separate feet hitting the ground everywhere all the time. I found that I wanted to ditch my teammates more than usual, just so I could make sense of the soundstage that I was presented. It’s not that I couldn’t tell there was footsteps to my left, right, front and back, it’s just that I was given so many that I couldn’t make use of all that information.

I also found the bass to not be the strong suit of the A40 headset. This however, does not differ from the other reviews I had consulted. If there’s a lot of air strikes, grenades, guns whatever going off at once, prepare to feel completely surrounded. This however is what you want I suppose. Again, I think I’ve just gotten really used to my 2 channel setup.

My first few games were very frustrating. I felt that the headset was overwhelming what I could handle. I tried extremely hard to “find” people using the sound. This was to the detriment of my score. To be fair, I was also quite distracted by other people at home and my dogs when I was playing. Once I stopped trying to actually “hear” everything and just started playing, things got better. I, on more than one occasion, pulled a 180 to shoot someone sneaking up on me.

All that said, I need some more time with them to form a valid opinion. My initial reaction would be categorized as good, but not great (as so many others have felt). I also believe, that I personally need some time to get used to this setup. I will continue to use them for the next week or so.

Secondary Weapons Replace Pistols. No more piddly sidearms. Well, not quite true; pistols are still in there if you want them, but you can pass up the lo’ Desert Eagle in favor of tactical shotguns, automatic machine pistols, and other nice gear to augment your primary rifle. All these secondary weapons can take attachments just like the primaries can, so if you want to throw a suppressor or digital camo on your shotgun, more power to ya.

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/hands-on-with-modern-warfare-2s-multiplayer/1685/

The blog is really starting to look like a MW2 fan blog… Whatever, I’m excited.