3 WTF / LOL Gaming Moments

The Medal of Honor series has had its games and its moments, and personally I think of Medal of Honor: Rising Sun to be one of the series’ better games. Of course, it was a blast fighting WWII in the Asian front, especially since that particular game had some story line and multiplayer maps in the Philippines where I am. But before I digress…

Given that the game is a first person shooter, you can probably tell the majority of it is played running around shooting Japanese imperial army soldiers. Fun, really. Especially when you confront kunai-throwing chefs and leaf-camouflaged hara-kiri dudes. But more surprising and more ridiculous than these guys were the kick-ass samurai officers.

We were running across a map shooting anything that moved – imagine the adrenaline and trigger-happy inklings of the moment. We ran into an ancient temple and went by its inner garden, ready to let a full magazine of the Thompson SMG loose on anyone who went past our crosshairs. As we were running across the tranquil garden, we noticed a Japanese dude in white sitting cross-legged in the middle of it, meditating.

Now the setting was WWII, and we were in the battlefield. Not a lot of dudes sit down and meditate in the middle of a war. So instead of the normal reaction (shooting his ass off), we were caught off guard and driven by curiosity to see what the hell was wrong with the guy. So we approached, and got close enough to see that the fella was indeed meditating solemnly with his katana right next to him. A few more steps closer and in one movement the dude picked up his katana, did a martial arts Chinese get-up (or kid-up, whatever), then unsheathed his glorious katana and managed to swing it twice or thrice before the barrage of bullets that we were shooting at him finally killed his ass.

We went from adrenaline-pumping to curious to WTF to oh-shit-he’s-killing-us. We had ourselves a freakin’ laugh. Turns out that from then on, we would encounter a lot of other powered-up katana wielding dudes as we rushed across the Eastern Theater. As soon as we saw the others, however, we didn’t bother getting up close and personal before pulling the trigger.

Sixth generation gaming console AI don’t typically behave all smart and sassy. This is fine when we’re talking about enemy AI, but when it’s ally AI that’s ****ed up, it’s both annoying and ludicrously entertaining.

So there we were in Halo 2, trying to keep a bunch of marines alive so they could come along in a Warthog while we were sporting Covenant Ghosts. Problem was, in Halo 2, the vehicles easily sustained damage when you were bumping them all over the place and even when you weren’t riding them (different from damage mechanics in Halo: Combat Evolved). So we constantly had to switch Ghosts. To make it more difficult, the marine AI (Artificial Idiots) couldn’t ****ing drive right. We had to constantly guide them, wait for them, nudge them back into the vehicle when it rolled over and they all got out, and even shoot them in their feet when they just stood there like dumbasses.

We were laughing our asses off because we were turning Halo 2 into GTA and the marines are plain idiots. To top it all off, Fort was trying to make the marines switch vehicles but their idiocy wouldn’t let him, and just as he was about to retrieve a new Ghost instead, the marines got on the Warthog and decided to floor it and ignore the debris in their way – including the Ghost. Fort was like “What the ****…?” Okay, now you want the Warthog?

I’m sorry, but words cannot convey how ridiculously and simply silly it all was. I was in stitches for 10 minutes. It was just one of those stupid and funny situations that you should be in to appreciate (and laugh hysterically at), so forgive me if in my narration it does not seem all too funny. God, I love those marines.

COD: MW 2 has one of the best storylines I’ve ever seen a game. It was plausible but unrealistic, and made for an awesome FPS game. I can’t vouch for its stupid multiplayer, but I loved the gameplay in the campaign. Anyway.

Around the time that the Russian forces have overpowered initial and unprepared US defenses along the Western coast (was it the Western coast? I forgot), the city map you’ll be playing in will be fraught with varying degrees of destruction and destitution. Cool place to have a firefight. One house in particular actually had the front end of a plane crash into it, so a portion of the house is destroyed and open for everyone to see and access. You can also get into the house through the belly of the disemboweled plane. That’s what I did when I was playing, and I ran into a few Russian soldiers in the house. When Fort was playing, he took the time to survey the place and found a small opening underneath the plane that led to the interior of the house, namely the kitchen.

And lo and behold, inside the kitchen, holding the refrigerator door open and looking for something to chow down on inside, was a lone Russian soldier. His back was turned to Fort as he approached, and we were snickering as he wound his way up close. As close as he could get, Fort’s player finally came into contact with the busy Russian, so he turned around suddenly and was surprised to see an American GI right behind him. I don’t remember if Fort shot him in the face or stuck him with his knife, but I do remember ROFL-ing at his surprise. It was rather impressive that COD:MW had AI reactions that were as genuine as that. And of course, it was quite a laugh.