Skyrim is perched over my shoulder like a dark cloud, so I’m extra grateful the guys at Activision hooked me up with an Elite subscription. Now Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 can’t get old. For those of you who have the Elite pass, you’ve probably spent the last few days scampering around the endless staircases of Piazza, and slipping from bush to bunker in Liberation. It’s been a week now since the first content drop, and in-between Blake Griffin dunking on Kendrick Perkins so bad he had to delete his Twitter and the Orlando Magic turning into the Orlando Tragic, I’ve logged my share of time in the trenches.
So how good are the maps? It’s hard to compare the two since they are so incredibly different. I haven’t used a sniper rifle since MW3 came out, and yet it took me all of one match on Liberation to say, “F— it, I’m bringing out the .50 Cal.” I’m an assault rifle-touting soldier through and through, so it takes a lot to get me to give up my Scars and my M-16s. But unless you’re some type of God shooter with those weapons, you’re at an extreme disadvantage on this map. We asked for less short-distance maps, and they gave us one.
Liberation is set in Central Park and is centered around dry creeks running underneath a couple of open bridges. To the corner are buildings and walkways that offer ideal camping sights. Add in a couple of underground bunkers, and this mostly flat area suddenly feels quite vertical. If you somehow find yourself stranded on the ground in the middle of the map, it’s a breath-stopping race to get to the edges. That’s the only way to survive.
Piazza is completely different. It’s a small map, probably one of the smallest in the game, and is set in a tiny Italian village along the sea. The colors are duller, but the action isn’t. Every corner, every stairway, every winding road puts you on the edge of your seat. Especially in the middle of the map, it’s almost a death sentence. There are too many narrow alleys and too few places to hide; you’re inevitably getting popped in the back within 20 seconds. So plan accordingly with your weapon choices.
Me, I stick to the perimeter, flank the choke points and pick people off who aren’t looking. Just like Liberation, there’s a vertical feel to this map, except on this one, it’s even more pronounced. When two sides are camped out, trading bullets along an alley, no one bothers to look sideways at the patios below them or the lookouts above. That’s where I come in.
Two maps. Two wins in my opinion. While I haven’t mastered the maps or even had a single great game on either one, I’m assuming there are a few guys who have.
We’ve all heard about the video game culture that Oklahoma City has. Their idea of a fun date is hitting up someone’s crib after practice for a five-hour gaming session. That might be extreme in NBA circles, but there’s no denying the pros love to play. And the Call of Duty series is at the top of the list.
Over the past year, I’ve chatted about Call of Duty with a numbers of players. Tyreke Evans. Deron Williams. Jason Terry. Rudy Gay. They’re all into it, and all considered themselves prestige-level nice on the sticks. But I never got to actually play with them, never got to spray them with assault rifle bullets.
I am, however, willing to bet most of us could predict how certain NBA guys play. Michael Beasley is gonna be rushing from corner to corner, wielding SMGs and flinging grenades, the loudest dude in the chat room. Joe Johnson will have his Ghillie suit out, silencers armed and ready.
One of these days, I’m going to recruit a team of Call of Duty players from the NBA to play with me online. I’ll take myself, and five NBA players into Team Deathmatch. My own personal vanguard. Here’s the guys I would choose to watch my back:
STEVE NASH
You always need one sniper, even on some of the smaller maps. Once your opponent knows you have one, it changes things. He has to be more careful, mindful that any step he makes too quickly could result in a blown-open skull. Nash would be my guy, seeing as he’s always consistent and willing to play any role. Be a decoy? He’d have no problem. Shoot off a couple bullets to attract attention? No one’s more unselfish.
Plus, he deserves a chance to get a couple of Ws under his belt. They’ll be no scrubs on my squad. Now we’ll just have to pry him away from his ballet classes and summer soccer workouts.
RUDY GAY
Considering I already know Gay plays Call of Duty a lot, he wouldn’t need much practice. Gay might not be an All-NBA player, but he’s one of the better midrange shooters in the league. He can elevate and finish over everyone. Even LeBron felt the taste of a Gay game-winning pull-up last season. Mix that in with a guy who’s incredibly soft spoken, and you have the perfect makeup for a squad anchor. How do I know he’d be perfect staring down the aim of an assault rifle? He told me:
“The only weapon I like is the one you don’t gotta be close to them ‘cus I’ll get shook (laughs).”
When we talked Call of Duty, he was in the process of losing to Jason Terry. But everyone lost to the JET last year. There’s no shame in that.
CARON BUTLER
Butler’s been shooting midrange Js since he traded in a bib for a ball, and while his long range accuracy has rocketed in the past few seasons (43 percent last year, a career high, and 1.9 treys a game this year, also a career high), we all know what the Clipper small forward’s bread and butter is. 17 feet away, if he sets his feet and gets a look, you might as well book it and start jogging back down court.
Plus, wouldn’t “ToughJuice005” make for the best nametag? That’s a lot better than some of the other garbage people come up with.
TYSON CHANDLER
A bruiser that has touch and actually cares about the team? I have spots for days for shooters like that. Chandler would know his role: get into the middle and blow s— up. Attract fire one minute. Play defensively the second. The big difference for him, and the reason why I’d court him harder than Kim K did Tim Tebow is because of that shooting percentage. Does anyone realize he’s shooting just below 70 percent this year? I can’t even see that number in MW3 with a knife. Chandler doesn’t have a jumper, but his free-throw percentage really increased over the years, rising from 50 in 2006 to nearly 79 this season. In the trenches in MW3, ever split second counts. When you hit that left trigger, you have to be Mark Wahlberg. Don’t miss, or you’ll be sipping lead.
ZAZA PACHULIA
The second big man on my vanguard. I can already see Zaza ambushing opponents around a corner, shotgun locked and loaded, screaming something unrecognizable. Pachulia would be spectacular next to Chandler. He makes it in the NBA solely off brute force, and he’d be the muscle on my squad. Step too hard to our snipers, and Zaza would be waiting to blow out your chest with a shotty. Try to hold down the bunker in the middle of the map, and Zaza is sacrificing himself to destroy your camp. He might be destined for a whole lot of 8-kill, 13-death games, but those would be eight of the most valuable kills of the match. He’d be like the first policeman through the door: soften it up and let the heavy artillery swarm in.
Lastly, Zaza just looks like a goon they’d cast in The Bourne Identity.
Would my team run lobbys online? Maybe. But as long as they make me look good keeping up my kill/death ratio, I’ll be happy.
…hit page 3 for an exclusive photo gallery of the new Call of Duty Elite maps…
All photos courtesy of Activision
If you had to run with a squad of six, you and five NBA guys, who are you taking?
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