I must be a softcore gamer then.  I won't show penetration.

see my hatred for call of duty and it's zombie robot casual fanbase doesn't stem from the fact that call of duty exist, it's the mentality that because of call of duty any game NOT call of duty shouldn't exist. The mentality that call of duty is in fact a hardcore game and the reason many suck at other games is because those gamer are "broken', controls are to hard, too many bullets to kill someone, all bullshit complaints that are a mask to hide the true fault that lies within the gamer, which to me is the real reason this gen is so horrible (for multiplayer fps), casual gamers of the past never blamed the games for their short comings and the ones who did didn't have a voice. But now it's almost religion to protest a game being to hardcore and different and it's ALL call of dutys fault. 

exhibit A: 

this dick wad reviewer had call of duty's cock shoved so far up his ass he burped killstreaks, I mean nowhere did this reviewer stop to think maybe..... just maybe this game is trying to be funny???? I mean lets analyze the situation, you got 4 miscreants of the military, basically the three stooges plus one, who just went AWOL (not abandoned like this brain dead idiot suggested) to chase gold, maybe it doesn't want to be a super serious omg call of duty world gonna end uber madness, maybe it's a parody and wanted to be treated as such, maybe that's the reason for all the comedy, I mean lets watch the trailer shall we....

listen to the music and tone.......it really wants to be this:

NOT!!!!

the game got dinged for being something it never wanted to be, but why reviews, why did I see what you guys clearly didn't or better couldn't????

and what happens, I'll tell you what happens, a game that had no perks like call of duty, now has perks like call of duty, a game that didn't have insta-kill weapons now has insta-kill weapons and game that had little to no assist now has tons of assist. A game that had a different story that was  funny and was full of combat is now reduced to an imposter  call of duty world threatening wanna be, and it's pathetic. It was pathetic to DICE downplay themselves like that, they referenced COD in the main story and even spoofed the commercials, why DICE your better than that. but they did it to please the cod zombie horde the stretched from gamer to journalist alike, destroy their own formula to make people who couldn't care less happy, and completely ignore their tire fanbase who actually gave a shit about the battlefield THEY wanted to make.

and this tragedy echoed throughout the entire genre for almost all fps NOT call of duty.

take Guerrilla Games who just recently released the Killzone 3 beta to egaer fans only to tell those fans to go fuck themselves we want cod fanbase,

"Custom Games are out too. We have chosen for Matchmaking for a couple of reasons: to reduce the large amount of exploits, to make sure players are put in better competitive matches and to make it easier for people to find games. As we have noticed Matchmaking is not working properly yet. We are working hard to fix that, but it doesn’t mean the choice is not valid. Custom games created unreadable lists with a plethora of different games, but very often not the game that a player is trying to find. Yes, we have taken away some of the freedom, but we’ve replaced it with a much easier, user friendly system"

much easier and user friendly system for who GG??? Why take away our freedom, it's what made killzone 2 so unique and fun...........

and the real tragedy is how after every FPS franchise is streamlined into this call of duty piece of shit formula, only then will the industry and most of FPS gamers say we've reached the pinnacle "VARIETY"!!! when every FPS plays like the exact same shit will we have "variety"

Me: hey killzone 3 will you have that same snow level that's in EVERY other fps this gen.....

Killzone: yup

Me: hey Killzone will you now have that same jungle level as EVERY other fps

Killzone : yuppers

Me: how bout that SAME on rails section

Killzone: you betcha

SO MUCH VARIETY omg TONS OF VARIETY     ,,I,,___ d-__-b   

*sigh* is there a light at the end of this tunnel........... because I just don't see it.

There's a reason I don't really get FPS games any more. Same thing is happening to my favourite genre; the RPG, its being dumbed down and "consoleified" more and more and turned into action games. I don't mind action games like GoW and shit and I know that a lot of people love them but I want RPG's to be RPG's and not something else (FFXIII and Mass Effect 2, I'm looking at you).

yeah I too love those sterio types........

lost my virginity at 16 in the basement of the public library (main branch) and my current girl friend loves games as much as I do and we play all day together :)........ which reminds me, anyone know if move vibrates.........

I know man, it's like I don't mind that COD exist, as long as I can have different experiences as well, that's true variety, when everything is different and supports EVERYONE'S play style. But what are you gonna do? what can you do???

i think i am alive,

i hope i am

Casual has and always will likely be hit driven. However if you miss you miss badly. You can cue any number of examples here. In every entertainment industry theres a significant difference between those who spend $500 P/A or those who may only spend $0 and instead be reliant upon advertising for funding. Personally for me im the former with games and the latter with music, I guess that shows the total range.

A hardcore base will sustain a wide range of different projects. If say the game industry were supplied by people whom only buy 1-2 games per year then it would be significiantly different in comparison to what we have today. Im not passing judgement im just addressing the market realities.

Hardcore can mean alota stuff.

Playing games on a hardcore level?

Games with a hardcore leaning curve?

In this case, I think it's pretty obvious -  that "hardcore" leaning curve that used to be much more common in older games has sorta died out abit. Gaming used to be aimed more at more younger audiences. It wasn't as mainstream as it was today. Then it's like some devs found out that if you make games easy but fun/awesome, you can sell to both gamers and non-gamers and make a shit ton of sales. The trend went on and gaming changed. The challenge started to die out.

As much as I like a challenge when it comes to gaming, I honestly do appreciate games like CoD. I used to play PC games all the time and still love playing BC2 online (prefer it to MW2) for the awesome teamwork but, I never hated CoD. In fact, I'll give IW props for it. Really, I think the game gets so much undeserved hate. Maybe it's because so many devs try to mimic it all the time beause of it's success. In that case, why hate the game? They just created somethin that sells so beastly. Sure "hardcore" shooters might not sell as much as the casual CoD series but other devs still arn't being put at gun-point and forced to CoD'ify their games.

My problem with this gen isn't games become easier but rather, visuals and the "cinematic" experience being such a huge focus. I've found the graphics whores to be more of a problem. Now more than ever, the graphics of a game have become important to alota people. Many will say that CoD looks like shit, looks like an old game, etcetc, and start to dis it for other random reasons.

Well, find me another shooter that has as much content/features/variety as current CoD games. The thing there is, you won't because you can't. In the long run, the quality of a game's multiplayer is what will keep it running and that's why games like CoD, Goldeneye, Battlefield, and Counter-Strike became huge successes - they focused on what matter's most.

I wanted to love KZ2 but couldn't.......retarded classes and mechanics such as Assault/Spawn Grenades raped the potential for balanced matches and after a while, I just couldn't be bothered to look for servers that had all the right things disabled.

I'm no CoD fanboy and won't deny that it has it's major flaws but, it's rightfully earned it's place as the most played fps today next to Halo 3/Reach. I've had plenty of good times with friends playing it, especially everyone taking turns in the same room - brings me back when everything wasn't so online-focused and people actually went over to eachother's houses to play games. I planned on skipping on Black Ops for abit to get GT5 but because of the stupid delay, I'll be getting it day 1 along with some other friends and I'm honestly pretty excited.

Don't hate the CoD.....hate the consoles for being able to put out such amazing visuals. Sometimes it feels like devs got bored with focusing on gameplay and are now just obssessed with pushing the ps360 to their graphical limits. If you ask me, that's taking a step backwards for gaming. I'll pass on all these 10-hour-long games that strive so hard to bring you a cinematic experience - as good as they may be, I don't plan on shelling out $50-60 bucks for them anymore.

I think hardcore is a combination of alot of factors.

The factors I consider are-

1. Emotional Capital- How much does a player invest himself into a game, does the play really CARE about the outcome, and invest himself to complete it.

2. Depth of gameplay- A hardcore gamer finds ways to maximize gameplay. Example from my experiance- In Final Fantasy Tactics I was the guy who in order to make my Knight Uber powerful I lvled him to lvl 99, then found a lvl down trap, lvled him down as a time mage, and then back up again as a Knight (makes a HUGE difference if you have not already tried this)

3. Quanity of gaming- You don't have to diverse to be HC gamer, but the quanity you play needs to be high. I would say it does matter if you play 6 games a total of 200 hours (in one month) or one game (Diablo 2....) the fact you played 200 hours and you prolly wish you played more is a sign you may be Hardcore.

All 3 of these things are signs, but I think you can have just one and be hardcore. For example, I think someone who works alot of hours but when he plays games he follow example 2 (DEPTH) he can be hard core only playing 15 hours a week (I fall under this category right now)... Well I doupt that cleared up much.

well i agree that a hardcore gamer is basically someone who enjoys gaming in general. I dont  know if im a hardcore gamer or not but i like to play a variety of games. I cant stand playing one genre of a game too long. I always switch between rpg, jrpg, shooters, sports, rts, etc.