Originally posted by Nash
I've been playing this one called Vietcong... basically the only FPS I've really played for more than a few days. But, my k/d has gotta be somewheres near 1/10... if that.
It's like, I'll be lying in a bush kinda hidden with my gun trained on a small area where I know the enemy is gonna pop out of. When he does, he kills me. I just don't know how to get any good at these things.
Does anyone have any tips?
Also, besides Medal of Honor, what's the king of WWII FPS for online play?
Battlefield 1942 is the king. It's not the best imho, but it definately has the largest following. Battlefield Vietnam didn't seem quiet as successful. 1942 though is cool since you can fly (granted, arcade style), drive tanks (again, arcade style), shoot artillery (they have a sweet "camera" style system), drive battleships, u-boats, landing boats, etc.
Call of Duty, while it doesn't have BF 1942's following, is one of my absolute favorite FPS games. The single-player is cool, and the deathmatch is very, very fast paced & brutal. I just hope they nerfluffied the PPSh, since it was ridiculously overpowered for good, balanced gameplay.
Day of Defeat, based on the good ol' Half-Life (ala Quake) engine probably has the best infantry vs infantry ww2 gaming of them all... it's just not all that realistic. Still the best ww2 lemmingfest available though.. and it's free as long as you have a steam cd-key. You can go get Half-Life for $5 from the bargain bin, and it'll let you fully upgrade to get Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Species, & all that for free.
A few tricks to increasing your FPS skill:
1) Play using Keyboard & Mouse. Seems obvious, but it has to be pointed out. Mice are infinately more responsive and accurate than a keyboard will ever be.
2) Continually lower your in-game mouse sensitivity. A movement of the mouse from dead center, to the far right of your mouse-pad should be a 180 degree turn. Not everybody knows this one. My current Counter-Strike setup has my sensitivity at 1.8 (really, really low). Basically, it smoothes out your play. Higher sensitivities make you "jump" over pixels, lowering overall accuracy.
3) Buy a good mousepad. The mousepad that came with a PC in the box is not a gamer's mousepad. I personally use a SteelPad 4S (about $55), but you can find Ratzpadz for under $15, and they are worth every penny. Durable, very slick surfaces, and much larger surface areas.
http://www.frozencpu.com has a decent selection of them.
4) If you're gonna go, go hard. If you run out & buy a new gaming mousepad, spend an extra $20, get a Mouse Bungee, and teflon mice feet. The Bungee keeps your cord lifted up, out of the way so you don't snag the mouse on it & ruin a turn. It's very helpful for me. I stopped giving up kills to my mouse cord. The teflon feet are for the ultra-dweebs like me. I can flick my mouse lightly, and it'll slide all the way off the mousepad.
5) Play smart, but extremely aggressive. Don't lay in bushes. Instead, "tree walk" baddies by putting buildings, bushes, & trees in between you & your targets. Now when I said "tree walk", I really meant "tree run". Unless you're trying to be quiet in deathmatch, run (or bunny-hop) everywhere, shoot first, ask questions later.
6) Practice makes perfect. Find yourself a nice tree on the map, and make sure you have every weapon you can (pistol, smg, assault rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launchers, rail guns, bfg's, whatever). Practice circle-strafing around it until all of your bullets are hitting all the time. Increase the diamater of the circle and repeat. Practice fast weapon switches, the only thing that keeps you alive when your main gun runs outta ammo. Practice fast-zoom shots. With any sniper rifle, in almost any game, you should be able to run with your pistol out, spot a baddie, change weapons, acquire, zoom (you've already lined him up in the acquire part), and fire in under 1/2 a second (that's allowing 1/4 of a second for the weapon switch). The zoom-fire should be virtually instananeous.. you really just zoom so in your minds eye you know you were on target, and most games let you see the impact. Get a friend to help if you can. I used to run a gun drill, where you had to post-up on a 5-pixel wide sliver and stare at it. Randomly (1 - 3 minutes) a guy would flash by that crack or come out shooting at you. If you missed, you had to repeat until you got him. It's not hard, it's just practice. My average AWP (sniper rifle) accuracy in Counter-Strike was 80%, with all other guns being 60%. It's alittle bit of skill, a smidgeon of talent (well, growing up with FPS games helped), and a helluva lot of practice.
7) Run like a chicken (poultry, not coward). No joke. Random zig-zag's are your friend. Straightlines = straight shots at you. Bob & weave like Fester was chasing you in a 262. Works in real life, works in paintball, works in video games. Erratic people can be a serious pain to shoot, especially if it's laggy.
8) Get a great (not good, but freakin' great) set of headphones. If the game lets you, turn the stereo separation up to maximum. You should be able to zero in on any sound, on any map. Speakers are bad for high-end gaming, while they can sound amazing, sometimes room background noise absorbs the little sounds that mean somebody is around the corner, reloading, and needs to die by your hand.
9) Make demos/films every chance you get. Review them afterwards, preferably with a friend. Look for holes in your style, nitpick all the little details you missed, and use it to improve your overall gameplay.
10) Keep looking through online servers. Leave any server that you're the best player in. Find a server where you get trounced repeatedly. The fastest way to get better is playing people better than you.
...mmm that's all I got off the top of my head
