J4MES OX4D

I'd go with this team and then leave them in Qatar😎

England 3-3 Germany after coming from 2-0 down thanks to two howlers from Maguire. We played well for about 15 second half minutes when we had nothing to lose but failed to shore up when we got ahead and Pope made possibly a career-ending error to cap it off. Our defence is horrendous so we need to focus on pure attacking football especially with the players we’ve got. Foden needs to be utilised better or dropped altogether and we really can’t persist with Maguire if he’s going to play that woefully against a German B side. Bellingham is looking really good at least but we are still in a very precarious position going into the world cup with no more international fixtures left. If Maguire remains dropped by United then he seriously can’t play for England in Qatar.

Beta ends today in a few hours so I thought I'd share some final thoughts after about 3 hours on PS5 and 4 on Steam;- I think the beta itself has been very poorly handled especially with no flexibility on feedback, lots of shoddiness and the game itself not being the significant jump we should be getting. Despite the game looking great and handling fairly well, it doesn't have the initial wow factor we saw with MW2019 and I'd say that game probably is more refined despite its catalogue of bad design and concept decisions plus washed out aesthetics. 2 years is a very long time for this game to run especially when COD MP aspects seem to fizzle out before Christmas now so they really will need to improve on what they have so far and go against their grain to keep people happy unless this is part of a deliberate push to get people on Warzone. Footsteps, perk framework and the gunsmith tree will probably be huge sticking points for many and these will persist as they are because they are deliberate and conscious design choices rather than mistakes or bugs. I'm also not convinced about the new modes or big filler events - we all remember the hype and absolute travesty that happened with the Spec Ops mode 3 years ago. The same old issues still remain with connectivity and bullet registration (not an issue in many other FPS titles) and with no real enjoyable honeymoon phase, much of the community will be going into this game negatively with design and technical frustrations right off the bat. I also didn't find the gameplay to be much fun either - it's as exhausting as ever plus with disbanding lobbies as per, the social aspect is completely depleted and this is something that is totally underestimated as part of the huge decline with common multiplayer deathmatch. Players just feel like a pawn in their monetised matchmaking algorithm. I honestly can't see myself buying this on launch or at all. I really want to play the campaign but not for 60 notes. The game may be in a better place in year 2 but by then it's just a bit late in the day with only tryhards remaining in a depleted community. Gonna be a tough choice.

Even the nighttime Miami map in Cold War, you were still able to easily see people across the main stretch and in the alleys whereas on the museum map on MWII in sunshine, it can still be very difficult to see people because of darkened areas, shadows and other textures that just blend. The hotel map is also a nightmare and your best hope so far is that the enemies are wearing grey on the largely brown palette. For all the realism, I'm still bumping into solid locked-down objects such as the tables and chairs on the museum map and it's like the more realistic they've tried to be in instances, the most unrealistic other parts of the game begin to be. I remember when the devs on Vanguard said they wouldn't be adding certain community wishes because they wanted to keep the WW2 identity and a few months later there's laser beam weapons and other crap being thrown in! I don't think they've deliberately tried to make visibility shoddy though - it's probably just a design consideration that was missed whilst they focused on other deliberate changes.

Modern Warfare II Beta PC

Played a few hours last couple of days and despite some good visuals, mechanics and gunplay, I actually think the game as a whole is a very bland, mentally and physically draining and an overly frustrating experience with some very questionable design decisions that just doesn't provide much fun in return. COD betas are usually the honeymoon phase where everything feels fresh, exciting and the servers given are of the highest tick rate but here it just feels like we've played it all before, with the same old problems only this time with a diabolical connection and iffy hit detection. I've turned off motion blur, film grain, bloom and all the other shitty needless effects and still I'm being blinded by all these bullet effects and gunsmoke. Sometimes I can't even see who I'm shooting at because of it and it's made even worse if the enemies are blending in with the scenery. The biggest newfound complaint I've realised with this and it's nothing new but more prominent than ever here, is that this game rewards bad players who play safe and pedestrian. Others that press and play as intended are actually at risk of having a bad game. There's just not enough counters to passive players and those who are mobile are relentlessly punished. I've also tried Ground War and it's an absolute shambles of a design - they think making a big map and planting a load of buildings and capture points instantly makes an appropriate game mode when it is just a cluttered mess where there's no flow and 90% of the lobby don't know what they are doing. Third person mode is also quite clunky and could very well join the usual Christmas playlist exodus. I may very well just sit this out like I did with Vanguard. Two years is a long time for this game to remain but as it stands, I think I may be better off well out of it. So many better games out there.

Tried Invasion last night - complete waste of time. Was playing on this really long 3 lane map and the match was filled with bots just standing still or even facing the wrong way. Don't know why they bother introducing modes that will be dead a week after release. Boring experience in all honesty. I also hate how the unlock screen is presented like a battle pass to be trendy - just give me a fucking grid of my unlocks immediately instead of some needlessly flashy screen. Challenges still overlap the lobby list which is so dumb.

I see they are adding bots into some multiplayer modes and Warzone 2. Nothing worse than shooting recruit difficulty AI fodder. Unlike Battlefield 2042, this decision can't be based on expected lower player counts/mass lobby fills so they are probably doing it to give crap players the illusion that they can do well and go on streaks. No regard to how this will impact experienced players on a annual brand that's been mainstream for 15 years. I watched a couple of Invasion steams last night and the mode just looked so bland especially with enemies that just stood around doing nothing or posed no threat whatsoever. This will probably play a big psychological part in Warzone 2 as Activision aims to hook players into spending money by increasing retention by convincing players they are doing well.

England relegated from the Nations League meaning we’ll be playing Ibiza and Jersey next time😂 5 games without a win, haven’t scored from open play in 7 hours and our worst run in 22 years - just under 3 months from the World Cup! Harry Kane cannot run the line solo - he spends most of the game chasing shadows and getting knackered. If it wasn’t for the hair and branding, Grealish would still be a championship player and Phil Foden along with many other top club players are completely ineffective at international level. We seem to have no strategy or proven lineup now and it’s getting very concerning. Can’t score, struggle to create and players supposedly valued at £100m+ getting rings run round by 35 year olds or ones barely turned professional. It’s absolutely diabolical quality of football and it’s just so clear as day what needs to be tweaked in terms of the system and lineup.

Probably lives just up the road from me🤣 Busted: UK police arrest 17 year-old hacker in connection with GTA 6 leaks | PC Gamer WWW.PCGAMER.COM Former Reuters journalist says the investigation is being done jointly with the FBI. Be hilarious if I know this mother or something

It's hilarious because Activision invited a load of cheaters for their shitty online reveal event last week and they were all absolute shit when they couldn't cheat. The number 1 female COD Warzone player who gets 20 kills a game there couldn't even get 4 kills in TDM and the other night her Twitch viewer/chat bot expired so she plunged down 3500 viewers live on stream. Activision know about the cheating and Twitch know about the botting but they don't do fuck all about it. This is all brushed under the carpet despite a huge amount of cheaters under the radar and many of them are actually affiliated streamers!

PC beta looks pretty solid. Gameplay just looks so much smoother and more fluid with a mouse and keyboard. There's a few instances of flickering that needs to be addressed but on the whole, it looks decent as should be expected.

Mirage will probably be another reskin with a needlessly big world and the same old mechanics. Once you've played one, you've played them all pretty much. It's one of just a few successful IP's Ubisoft have left so they will milk these games forever and they all have the same design philosophy and template which I don't like. If they cut down the game worlds by 60%, removed 100+ filler quests along with the level gating and made it more of a crafted experience then they could probably be onto something like The Witcher 3. Sadly this framework is just so safe, uninspired and mentally exhausting to play that I'll probably never buy another AC again. Wouldn't even force myself to play Valhalla for free.

I was thinking last night how there is 15 years of community feedback, a new COD game every year and probably close to 50,000 lines of patch notes on record, and yet here we are with mini-map and perk controversies less than a month before a game that has to last two years. Some things should just be set in stone or left to be expanded upon. All these edgy changes to make the game feel more fresh is actually doing people are disservice because it's removing staples we are used to and expect.

Same! I thought they just cut out any excess noise in the editing suite - didn't realise they'd actually go down this route of creating silent props.

Another thing about the footsteps in the MW2 beta is that they are very loud on a map which is a good test environment; the hotel one basically. This combines interiors with some wood or carpet flooring, stairs and upper levels. Some people are saying they aren't an issue when playing the farm or market map and this is probably the case, but only by virtue of the amount of exterior and quieter surfaces. The more indoor maps they have in the final game with upper areas or non-concrete surfaces, the bigger this problem will be. Personally I didn't have many issues with footsteps when I played but that was only because I played on the hotel map about 3 times but if you have 4-5 maps with this problem then it will turn into something more significant. This has already caused huge problems in Warzone 1 where you could literally hear people on the top floor whilst the other side of a 10 storey building for instance. There are also very smart players who can literally configure their headphones to only pick up on certain elements or enhance others so if they want to soundwhore to the maximum potential then they will to a devastating degree. The dead silence perk is very OP but a staple of the series and it could've been blended in a tier where users could have chosen that or the ability for their gunfire to not show on the minimap - either perk representing an advanced ghost-type one in a competitive slot but instead they've protected people loud with their guns and punished those that move around the map with their feet!

Sledgehammer did that under Condrey and Schofield with WW2 but they did it in a bait and switch form where they patched the beta to everyone's wishes but then in the final release they reverted all the changes and then told the community to basically screw themselves after we all paid up. Thank god both those dictator pricks got moved on and out the company after that saga and the game improved massively once feedback was acted upon by the remaining employees at the studio but it was just too late in the day to salvage the game. The studio then got pulled apart prior to Vanguard's development - that would have been a great game otherwise but it was instead left to a bunch of people who believes there are 650 genders. Trouble is with Infinity Ward is half the studio is legends and very talented developers and the rest is soy drinking numpties who design the game for themselves and then get deeply offended when the people they are supposed to be making the game for criticise or question their decisions which they can never seem to justify. This beta is nothing more than a waste of time really but it may have saved my £60 so I'm grateful. Victoria 3 and God of War Ragnarok is where it's at this year I reckon.

FBI Investigating Alleged Rockstar Hacker - IGN WWW.IGN.COM The alleged hacker that leaked around 90 videos of Grand Theft Auto 6 and also targeted Uber is being investigated by the FBI. Seems they are evening striking captured images now..

So basically in TDM, I can get the second one right at the end of the game even after getting 50 kills😂 Not sure why they have to tweak such a staple of the series just to make it appear they've done something different. Sure it's better than Treyarch giving people 20 perks right off the bat and 60 attachments but I hate all these convoluted and unnecessary game design changes which they cannot justify. That's modern Infinity Ward in a nutshell - do things and in interviews being unable to explain why you've done it and then blame the community. Yesterday I was seemingly earning a depoloyable piece of cover every 60 seconds too!

Nvidia announces RTX 4090 and 4080 graphics cards, DLSS 3 WWW.EUROGAMER.NET Nvidia has announced its latest generation of GeForce RTX graphics cards at its GTC AI conference - and its new DLSS 3 algorithm, which combines for mad results

I'm done with the PS5 beta - no point in playing any more as I've seen all there is to see. Gonna give the PC one a go when it's available and then make a decision. I did seem to notice more campy spots today and in some parts of the maps, enemies are really difficult to spot. I've turned off a lot of the effects like film grain and motion blur but there's just so many particle and post-processing effects in play, it's quite jarring at times especially the bullet spread. Also the interface for the post-match report is incredibly cluttered and you can't see all your rewards or unlocks and also the challenge sidebar overlaps your team line up which is kinda silly because 66% of the screen is taken up by empty space or an area which could easily accommodate the small menu. Even minimised, it still sits nastily on the screen. The lack of feedback on how to unlock weapons does not sit well and I hope they ditch this whole tech tree nonsense altogether - having to level up AR's to get an unrelated SMG is a bit daft really. I did have some good games and entertaining matches but I can't really say if I was having much fun overall. I do like how they've added an FOV slider and many other graphical options but I'm looking forward trying this with a mouse and keyboard and higher framerates.

Statement from Rockstar 30 hours later:-

Vice City seems to be the name of the setting judging by the metro - could be a district name but more likely the total Florida/Miami location. Protagonists appear to be called Jason and Lucia which fit the Bonnie and Clyde-style rumours revealed ages ago

Played just over an hour earlier (really not sure how people manage to play 50 in these betas) and thought it was an okay game that plays itself very safe. Some of the changes are quite bizarre i.e the unclear unlock system plus the traditional perk format being reduced to two fixed is also weird. It’s nice that the mechanics are less friendly with slide cancelling nerfed and not being able to select 49 perks like in Treyarch games will make it more challenging and users more adventurous with their selections. Crouch walkers seem very hard to spot though if they are right at your feet. I quite liked the farm map but the hotel and market one were a bit average and nothing we haven’t seen before. Some nice detail and aesthetics but nothing exceptional. Killstreaks also didn’t grab me but I’m glad they’ve ditched the stupid POTG and replaced it with the final kill again. I’ll have another go tomorrow but I’m not majorly convinced about buying a game I stopped playing 3 years ago for another two more. It’s decent enough but maybe not £60 decent. Doesn’t quite have the wow factor the original MW2019 initially had because that was a big step up but this one does seem more refined and has less irritations. A lot will depend on the content available at launch - something MW sorely lacked.