Recent gaming blogs have been ranting about this new $4000 dollar gaming console and how awesome it is. USA Today’s Game Hunter Blog gives it plenty of attention and tries and draws some obscure comparisons to the Xbox 360 and PS3. Marc Saltzman, who wrote the article, unfortunately is misinformed. If Saltzman and the other game blogs ranting about the JVL Encore system being the most expensive console than they are sorely wrong. To start the JVL Encore is a coin-operated counter top game. Here is a big give away – it has coin slots.

What’s that you say you charge your friends to play? Sorry I forgot today’s economy is tough and even friends are now targets for potential paying customers in your home. The JVL Encore was designed as an “arcade game” in fact they are actually called “counter-top games” just like the ones in most bars around the country. They have card games, strategy games video poker and photo hunt style games. They in no way shape or form are even trying to compete with the PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms. The JVL Encore is targeted at revenue generating businesses and for home owners that want to add a novelty type “arcade game” to their home game room.

It also read that it was available at Amazon.com exclusively. Wrong! You can purchase them at many different game room retailers and cheaper than at amazon.com. About that concept of charging your customers, well there is a “free play” option on the unit so you can let your closest friends play for free and acquaintances have to pay. If you really want a unique gaming experience than you need to play a multi-arcade game. There aren’t 120 games and it doesn’t cost $4K either yet it’s what made help make gaming popular and led the way to what we have today. I have played on this game personally and totally enjoyed it. Yes I am older and grew up playing these types of games and blew many quarters every week going to the arcade. My kids have grown up around gaming and they have all the different consoles but they still enjoy playing Ms.Pacman and other arcade classics (60 in total) that are on the system. It only costs $2600 so you still come out cheaper and you will own a piece of arcade gaming history.

Despite COD 4 being almost the perfect shooter game ever made it had some flaws. I can only hope that when Infinity Ward created COD-MW2 that it looked into making some adjustments. I think the biggest flaw in COD4 is the “Kill Cam”. You play hours and hours as a sniper wearing a carefully crafted gillie suit sneaking behind the enemy or on a hill top, perfecting the art of being a sniper and you pull the trigger with a perfect head shot from across the map, only to have the ‘kill cam’ give you up. Now if you’re like me and I hate snipers, I will set out on my own mission and go to where the “kill cams” vantage point gave him up and either pistol him in the back of the head or knife as he lays on his belly hoping to avoid detection. Yes, i know what your saying “if you don’t like it play hard core team death match.” I would  but again I’m not a sniper and there are usually more players playing regular “team death match” than any other format.  Bottom Line – Kill Cam has to go!

I know I said that I hate snipers when in fact that’s all I used to do playing Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2. It didn’t have a kill cam but it did have silent sniper rifles. There was nothing better than being on Quarry and wedged behind some rocks picking players off as they walked by never knowing where the shot came from. Despite not having a kill cam or gillie suit the other players would still find me and kill me so the argument that you need a kill cam to progress the game is without merit. This brings me to another flaw in COD4 that should have been addressed in COD-MW. Silent snipers, now having a silent sniper, gillie suit and no kill cam, sniping would be bliss. I would probably go back to being a sniper and a lot of the players would go back to calling me all sorts of names online as I pinged them in the head from across the map.  Why no silent snipers?

Player rewards points also know as “XP” points should have some real benefit to the player other than unlocking new weapons and perks. How about for snipers after 100 head shots you still get XP points but you can use them to improve your accuracy. This could be done with any weapon. As in real life the more you shoot your weapon the better you get at it so why not allow players to perfect their chosen weapons and increase their accuracy with it. It could be applied on a sliding scale upwards where at 200 head shots your accuracy went up five percent and at 400 another five percent. This could be applied to all weapons and perks. I have played with players who don’t know how to throw a grenade and players who are deadly with grenades. If you accumulate so many kills with grenades your accuracy and range should improve. Not a great deal but enough so that your not that “random frag” guy.

Lastly I would say that it would be great to allow the players to choose the map they want to play. This was a great player perk in Ghost Recon 2. You could play any map you wanted and avoid the ones you didn’t. I love to play “Creek” on COD4 yet almost without fail everyone votes it off. Why, I really don’t know its a great map and offers every player and team a challenge. If you want to snipe its great to shoot across the gully from the cliffs. Or snipe from the top of the roof at players as the charge up the hill or walk the “ridge of death” as I like to refer to it. But it also has a tunnel and in that tunnel is where the battle is one and lost. You kind fine me in there waiting for unsuspecting players to try and make it through. Or I will be charging through the tunnel on a mission to kill a roof sniper who just splattered my head against the rocks. Either way for players to control the map choice would be a nice feature.

While I am writing this article I can’t help but think about my experiences playing Tom Clancy’s: Ghost Recon 2 which at the time I thought was an awesome game, also with its flaws, but still a great game. The sequel Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 I felt was never really as good as Ghost Recon 2. Which i can only hope that the sequel to COD4 will live up to the standard we expect from Infinity Ward. Its a great franchise that i hope will continue for years to come.

We are also needing additional editorial writers that would like to submit and participate in building Game Buzzard into a “gamers site.” I have also looked into becoming a “beta” test site for developers to have gamers play and comment on their games before they are launched to the public. So if you are interested in this potential dream job contact us through email.

I look forward to writing weekly posts on articles that i come across and information as it comes out from the gaming industry.