Thursday, June 2, 2011

Hackers Ruin CoD: Black Ops Matches Also

I was excited to see that Call of Duty: Black Ops is having a free (multiplayer) weekend on Steam. That is, until I encountered one or more game hackers in a match. If you've never played a recent CoD game, one of the handy features is a "kill cam" showing who killed you, from where. After getting killed immediately upon spawning (multiple times), I watched the kill cam for as long as it displayed. The camera of the player in question was moving in an unnaturally jerking manner, racking up kills through multiple layers of walls. It was quite obvious that this wasn't the behavior of a normal player, and 'his' 77-0 kill/death ratio seemed a bit odd as well. Teammates agreed that it just wasn't fun anymore, and we all left the match.

This is why I don't mind paying $50-60/year for Xbox Live. It may be a walled garden, but Microsoft at least tries to keep an even playing field by punishing cheaters. Only time will tell if CoD: World at War settles down from an online Wild West, but between that and Black Ops on PC, I won't be taking for granted a fair (fire)fight any time soon.

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