A Farm production

Once a fair number of The Players had picked up the game of the moment, Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and that, despite the impressive single player mode, the multiplayer online gaming was where the addiction lay.  Regardless of the fact that most of us were mostly online playing COD4 most of the time, we still decided to have an official COD4 Night, on Tuesday nights, which had the most common occurrence of other halves being out (rumours of a COD4 Widows Club is, as yet, unconfirmed).

The first such evening took place on Tuesday 12th February, with spacemanmf, mike_mayhem3030, The_Stott, MABarlow, CFFIA and jake7sta doing battle.

Tuesday 12th February

Tuesday Night One, as it shall forever rarely be known, concerned itself only with Private Matches, i.e. those where we set up private rooms.  Memories of this are hard to come by, but some highlights were:

1.  The_Stott winning most games (by his own admission), but being closely fought by MABarlow (unsurprisingly, it was these two players who had racked up the most in-game playing hours), having started badly ("on the first map getting killed by fletch three times in a row in the same place").

2.  MABarlow and spaceman nearly winning a game of Domination vs 3 enemies (storming start, just failed to hold out).

3.  MABarlow winning a mammoth game of Old School with 60 kills (this was spaceman's first ever Old School game, finishing last with 30 kills) and also winning the last game of the night, a closely fought game on XX MAP with spaceman stupidly popping up to get shot as MABarlow finished with three quick kills.

4.  Jake7sta spending most of the time hiding in a skip.

Tuesday 19th February

A week later and we were back in action, this time joined by Ogaswara2, nimble of finger and accurate of shot, but without MABarlow.  'Oga' started barnstormingly, from what I can recall (nearly two months later writing this!), but it is best expressed in the words of The_Stott:

"Was good last night, Ogasawara did very well in pretty much all of the games, including a couple where we got demolished while you [mayhem] were seeing Rachel off (not that you would have made a difference).  Overall last night I was getting really frustrated with the lag on the online games and the number of times we got kicked out.  It's not usually that bad for me.  Jake's really funny.  Don't think he knows the maps proper yet so just wanders round aimlessly.  He'll get better."

Not sure spaceman quite agrees with the "was good" sentiment.  But Oga was the star player, starting stupidly well (30 or so kills with the rest of us on, like, 10) and only fading slightly as the night went on.  But, despite this stand-out performance, we still suffered some thrashings (by Americans) or got kicked out due to the dreaded "Host ended game".  And we struggled to set up a party a few times to being with.  These themes would run and run over the next few weeks, we soon discovered.

Mayhem was so bold as to offer up an early ranking table:

1.  Ogasawara2

2.  The_Stott

3.  MABarlow

4.  mike_mayhem3030

5.  spacemanmf

6.  jake7sta

7.  CFFIA

Spaceman begrudgingly agreed but felt the only difference between 4 and 5 was knifing ability, and mayhem did admit that 4 through 7 were close.  By this time, CFFIA had sailed past spaceman in playing time, despite getting the game a fortnight after.  That's commitment (and another recurring theme).

With Mrs_Ross not really joining in our games, it wasn't possible to slot him in.  Jake7sta had a few words to say:

"The headsets will come in handy a lot, last night on that stupid one kill and your out thing [Search & Destroy], when you watching other people its really funny, you can see where the enemy is hiding or where they have just ran off to.  There was situation last night when one of our guys [CFFIA] saw the enemy run passed, our guy followed him round the corner then he seem to disappear round another corner he didn’t, you could see he was hiding behind the bin, our guy walked completely passed him & went round the bloke.  I was screaming at the screen [and evidently the player can't hear us, no matter how loud you holler].  Lol."

And more:

"Enjoyed last night until we went on that stupid game when once your dead that’s it, its crap.  Them yanks were peeing me RIGHT OFF. Wait till I get my head set sorted I’m going to rip the bejesus out of them George Bush lovers.  [Mrs_]Ross knows what I’m like to rub it in someone’s face when I’m winning, its not nice."

CFFIA confirmed that he ditched the headset once he heard the first sign of an American twang.  "They were talking shit!" says he.  Spaceman and CFFIA did play a pre-game Team Tactical (three on three) Search & Destroy, with CFFIA admitting that he was "a bit rubbish" and spaceman recalling the level where he finished the opposition team off and defused the bomb with seconds to spare, forcing it into extra time.  Think we may have won the decider thanks to the random third person.

Tuesday 26th February

The third official PS3 night (there are many unofficial such nights) and we were getting to know each other's games.  The lesser performers were beginning to prove their worth (this was perhaps the night the spaceman came of age, if not then almost.  As last week, spacemanmf, mike_mayhem3030, The_Stott, CFFIA, jake7sta and Ogaswara2 played, to be joined by Mrs_Ross.

We did quite well as a team in general, but this wasn't enough to stop mayhem get frustrated with things, being "SOOO fooked off" when he started off "soooo shit", getting killed 20 times before getting a kill.  This happened to be the game in which spaceman did rather well (for a change), getting 25 kills and 4 deaths (with another 'copter on the way) whilst the rest of the team faltered badly (no Oga at this point).  The strategy was basically hide in a room on Crossfire which was a key chokepoint and pick off the enemy (even with the Desert Eagle at some points, when ammo was expended).  It worked wonders.

More views from the GRR! clan (more on this later):

Jake7sta said "It was good fun last night, I wanted to get on at 8 but my tea took 30 minutes & I had to shower!  Where was MABarlow, it felt like there was a few missing last night?  Yeah Mrs_Ross saw the end of my knife a few times, I just kept seeing him running in the opposite direction from me so I followed him.  The best was when we was in the Bog, all our team was in one corner then they ran off to attack, Mrs_Ross the sneaky git was placing himself around them so he could shoot them all in the back, then I merge out on the corner behind the bush it was just like Rambo when he rises out of the water to slice the enemies throat, pure skill.  Can you remember that one Mrs_Ross lad?  Your bro was doing my heading on the last couple of games, he would just sit in a corner waiting!  Don’t think Lewis [a temporary player] knew what hit him to be honest!  Lol."

The_Stott added: "Yeah enjoyed it last night.  I had either a fifteen or sixteen on one of the public games and again against you [mayhem] and jake.  Explorer Oga had a good one as well but not sure how many.  Spaceman found a really good spot on that level [Crossfire], it won us that game as the rest of us were struggling [alas we actually lost that one, spaceman fears].  There might have been another similar one.  Your [mayhem's] 0 kills and 20 deaths was funny.  I had a good night last night overall, only a couple where I had bad lag compared to last week where it was terrible."

Mrs_Ross rounded up the comments with: "Yep I  was owned on the bog level – my worst game of the night but after on the really big open map a didn’t badly when it was me mike and I think spaceman on a team.  And I left at 10 after that game because of moaning off the family as I was the only one online J nobody else could connect to the wireless network.  I know im telling [the family] now Tuesday is ps3 night and there not allowed online lol.  Ogasawara is a good player!  On my last game, I killed him a few times – kept catching him trying to sneak up behind where we where attacking but too many times I got him in my sights and he pulls the trigger just before me."

Mayhem and spaceman recounted the 3 vs 3 battle on the Bog map (mayhem, jake and Oga vs spaceman, Mrs_Ross and someone else).  As per mayhem: "it was sooo funny as jake knifed him about 10 times; kept hearing him chuckle "ohhh Mrs_Ross", slash... great.  Spaceman and mayhem had a few battles in the rooms on the side - spaceman missed hearing mayhem's audible groans upon death.  Mayhem recalls: "You stunned me at one point.  I wasn't best pleased".

Finally, a note about Oga's long-range shooting on a private Free-for-all on Countdown.  See him, line up, see a flash, dead.  The deadly accuracy of Oga's M16...

Tuesday 4th March

Another Tuesday, another COD4 night, and the usual players were on show, with the exception of Ogasawara2 and MABarlow (the latter seldom joining the Tuesday night battles anyway).  With a cool six (spacemanmf, mike_mayhem3030, The_Stott, CFFIA, jake7sta and Mrs_Ross), we could play a number of Team Deathmatch games with a full, headsetted squad.  Because of this rare display of organisation and co-ordination, and in order to help the post-match memory, spaceman decided to snap photos of the results pages.

What followed was a straight 10-match session (plus 1 host ended game and 2 further matches with not many attending) of Team Deathmatch par excellence from the Home Team.  We won 8 out of the 10, with a number of these being more than convincing.  The attendance record for these matches was impeccable, with only 3 or 4 no-shows, COD4 being surprisingly reliable.

The night started with a narrow win on Overgrown, with no-one in particular standing out, before Mrs_Ross blazed away with an impressive 25 kills on Game 2: Ambush, a third of the team kills (and a near 2:1 kill-to-death ratio).  Gelling faster than industrial grade superglue, we destroyed the opposition on Bog, everyone contributing but The_Stott the pick with a 16-5 record.

As so often happens in life, though, over-confidence lead to disappointment and defeat, and we succumbed to a narrow 750-730 defeat.  Spaceman, who had started with three unspectacular rounds, exploded into action, mainly carrying out sneaky mop-up jobs, to end with a 22-8 record on Backlot.  This led to three more impressive rounds with a 61-30 record, on District, Vacant and Overgrown (again) - despite this, we still lost a further match here.  Not sure what had happened to the team at this point: mayhem had ducked out of two matches due to connection problems, and The_Stott did throw in a classy 19-9.

That was end of spaceman's run.  Looking back, the run was a combination of luck (just happened to win more of the 50-50 battles), playing a contrasting strategy to the rest of the team (probably relatively conservative, looking to keep the KTD ratio up), plus increased determination (having done nothing much in the first three rounds) and increased knowledge of the maps.  But general fatigue and distraction from spacegirl, and a reversal of the 50-50 success (oh and they got sneakier - lots of being shot in the back), meant no more significant contribution from spaceman.  But, having not really done much on Tuesday nights so far, it was nice to get involved!

In any case, it was lucky that Mrs_Ross and mayhem were there to pick up the baton, claiming over 100 kills between them in the final three rounds, for around 70 deaths.  We finished with a hat-trick of victories on Strike, Crash and Pipeline.  Here, then, are the results.  In CFFIA's defence, he would like to say that he used a sniper rifle in 4 of them and a shotgun in 1 (Bloc, one of the after-10 games).

In addition, he adds: "On the Pipeline game at the end I only needed three points to get to level 55.  I made the error of taking a sniper rifle only for a series of comedy incidents to deny me any kills for most of the game.  I think there were 4 occasions on which I was about to pull the trigger only for someone else to kill my intended target.  In the end I just went back to M16 and got a couple of kills to save the embarrassment of the 'Team Bonus' getting me promoted after failing to kill anyone."
 

The_Stott had this to say: "All in all good results last night.  Got the makings of a pretty good team, especially with Ogasawara and MABarlow to come back as well.  I had a sneaky game with a silencer and UAV jammer.  Worked well (apart from me annoying team mates by telling them to get away from me!).  Backlot ruined me last night (usually my favourite), just couldn't seem to find anyone."

Oh, and check out some of the results pics here.

There were plenty more battles, and there may be more details here (although none quite so detailed or perfect as those above), but only when spaceman bothers to dig through the archives.