Hardcore Team Free-for-All™

I'm an old guy, and I usually can't go toe-to-toe with younger guys. Their reflexes and eyesight are better. On HC TDM, yep, I camp and pick off as many enemies as I can without hurting the team by going negative. So, because I'm not as fast as a younger guy, does that mean I have to play on his terms? Screw that noise. In my experience (mostly HC TDM), the ones who really lose games aren't the campers. The ones who lose games are the ones who think they're good at running and gunning, but who go massively negative trying to do it.

When I get beat, I don't squawk. I don't make excuses that the other team was unfairly rushing me or flanking me. I got beat. When my camping team hands a team of rushers their asses in a basket, almost invariably, there are catcalls of "camping pussies" in the lobby. Why does this happen, other than the lack of grace and manners of the complainants?

When people complain about camping in TDM, it's because they weren't really playing TDM. They were playing Hardcore Team Free-for-All™; it's just FFA with fewer enemies. And most players can't stand being beaten, especially if it's by someone playing differently than them. There is some hope, tho. We had a match on Terminal, against a clan of young guys or girls, where we spawned outside as the Russians. We rushed through Burger Town and took up our usual choke point positions. We camped hard and won the match by 10 or 20 kills. And the other team congratulated us on a good match. It was a beautiful moment, not for the compliment, but because the other team was so gracious and polite. Think of it: Adolescent players who took a loss and didn't respond with a barrage of racist and homophobic obscenities. Maybe there's hope yet. On to the links:

• The Modern Warfare 2 PC Dedicated server petition is at 228,000 sigs.
• The Modern Warfare 2 PC Post-Release Petition has exceeded 6000 sigs and seems stalled. All the bitching hasn't stopped MW2 from selling a lot of PC copies.
• IW is apparently putting the banhammer on Modern Warfare 2 PC cheaters. Here's a YouTube vid of the aimbot in action.
  
• MW2 review round-up: 2theadvocate (multiplayer). Macon.com. JoBlo.
  
• Destructoid: MW2 DLC still planned for Spring 2010.
• Call of Duty is now a 3 billion dollar franchise. Pity they couldn't use a few bucks of that to fix the spawning.
  
• A PS2 player has beat the IW best time on "The Pit".
  
• Zombies were considered for MW2.
• CoD4 Galactic Warfare mod movie from BASHandSlash.
• Humor: Modern Warfare 2 Rickroll prank.
  

More Gaming Links:

• Battlefield: Bad Company 2 PC beta set for January.
• Followup: Red Dead Redemption release date.
• Kotaku Wolfenstein second look op-ed that praises unpredictability in level design. (Warning! Some spoilers!)
• GamesRadar has predictions for some hot gaming sequels. (Warning! Some spoilers!)