Game servers sometimes shove you into impossible situations and rate you on your reaction.  Unlike Star Trek, cheating isn’t an admirable response - you’ll either be banned or, worse, NOT be banned and become one of those people who enjoys running around while their computer plays the game for them.  Making this one of the few situations were being caught and punished, or even being killed by a freak lightning strike, is preferable to getting away with it.

But how do you know when you’re in an impossible situation?  What signs warn you that it’s time to switch servers?

Team Fortress 2:  Doctor Doctor

This team could be made invulnerable to damage and still lose.

The worst waste of time in the world is waiting while you’re “Sending Client Info”, only to find a four-sniper team when you connect.  You’d be better off trying to teach a gorilla the trombone, which at least that has potential for the funniest YouTube and the funeral stories ever, depending on the patience of your gorilla.

Logging on to a TF2 server and becoming whatever your team needs is a great way to play, but Medicking a Scout-Sniper-Spy side is just getting in Darwin’s way.  Anyone who prefers a second spy to a medic are better off dead, and when your defenders have more snipers than engies?  They wouldn’t recognise co-operation if Sesame Street hired the A-Team to beat them up.

Correct response: Hit that “Disconnect” option like you found it stealing your wallet and go find an un-idiotic server.

Call of Duty 4:  Crates of Death

Call of Duty server doom-identification is extremely easy: do you see a collection of crates?

Shipment is the antithesis of everything Modern Warfare servers are about, as well as being an excellent commentary on the horrors of war (because even when you win, you lose).  Those who score on Shipment have a tendency to make with the Martyr and fling Frag x 3 as soon as they spawn - in other words, they’re the scum of the server.  You could do the same thing, just like you could win a street fight against a drug addict by losing your job and getting tough by living under bridges and picking fights with hobos for a while.  It’s not worth it!

Correct response: Bring out whatever weapon you haven’t achievement-ed yet and just let rip.  There are no tactics, teamwork or anything resembling justice on this map - you’ll die utterly and only because someone else knows how to work the grenade key - but it’s an excellent reaction test and pretty much free target practice.

Counter-Strike:  Clan-tastic

There are few things more fatal than arriving on a clan-stacked Counter-Strike server, and none the average person can get at.  You’d have to juggle sharks inside an active volcano to die even nearly as fast.  Some clans have been playing since 1.0, and if they decide to be unsporting about it there’s literally nothing you can do - you can’t even take yourself out, because even when you’re actually holding a machine gun and grenades they can still come and kill you quicker and more efficiently than you could do it yourself.

Correct response: While “one brave soul taking on impossible odds” is usually the entire point of a shooter, this is the time to disconnect and find another CS server.  If they’ve decided to open their clan server to the public just to shred all who come in, that’s their problem - real pros engage in clan matches against other pros, or randomly assign themselves mixed teams to practice against each other.  Those who stack a full clan against random pubbies are like pro wrestlers proving they can beat up everyone at a playground - they’re right but they’re tragic.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare News, Call of Duty News, Counter-Strike: 1.6 News, Counter-Strike: Source News, Team Fortress 2 News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.