It was the year of 2007-08 when these games were all out and I had a friend list of a strong 20 who I could play with. I had my real friends, my GOW friends, my COD friends. I'd just jump into parties and engage in gore.
Gears of War presented the real challenge of the bunch, were true skill would come into play. I remember practicing how to shoot, there was an x amount of hours you'd have to put into to learn how to use the shotgun on the multiplayer. Kicking off the match there was the unison of players ducking and sprinting to meet their foes in the centre of the map. The clash was like a wall of warriors of old, instead of shields smashing it was the butt of shotguns, instead of spears splintering skulls it was the crack of shotgun blasts that would shatter your opponent. On the team chat, there would be the shout that would send the bottom of your stomach two inches deeper, as you know defeat was inevitable 'Crab Walker' and 'Host Lancer'. There was the moral dilemma of going toe to toe, fighting fire with fire, and leaning on that walking snapping the A button to dive so you too would have the same power as the host, but also be permanently sprinting yet have the agility like you were jogging and Crab Walk like them. The GOW etiquette of not killing a downed enemy that wasn't yours, so many unwritten laws that made this game feel more like a sport.
Then there was the all out fuck fest of COD4:MW1. The game that started it all, the multiplayer experience. I don't care what anyone says, Halo was good, but COD4 made multiplayer famous. I remember I had two clans I would play with bums, my real friends (a clan that survives and fights to this day) and then there was sRuz. The unofficial scousers clan short for Scouserz R Uz. Team chat was always a source of hilarity, a poor fool would challenge the skill of this firm of northerners as the seconds counted down to a new TDM or S&D. Only to be soundly routed by this squad of LAA's. I remember coming across the first sRuz player named Ant Macefferty (xbox name) when playing Rainbow Six, he later introduced me to Peno and No.1 Rodney on Call of Duty. We were the most consistent group of sRuz players, winning victory after victory. One instance comes to mind when after one audacious victory on Search and Destroy another team accused us of camping and all that other bullshit. The battle lines were drawn my friends, we sRuz was called out, our honour was called out, our skills called into question. We did not stand for this besmrichment. The challenge was laid out, 'Our 9 best vs your 9 best' in a standard GROUND WAR TDM. The next thing I knew, it wasn't just tizza65, Rodney, Peno and Ant, it was Jay Dono, Delboy, Toner06, LFC Fan, Bootle Badboy and others, They headed the call, rallied to our lines and we charged. We charged my friends and it ended with every single one of us with a positive Kill/Death ratio. Scouserz R Uz fought it's most important fight and won!
Now Left 4 Dead was something more intense, more private and enclosed. Never before had a game encapsulated everything I wanted in a game. Friends, FPS, a black man called Louis and Zombies. Do not doubt me, this was what I had been looking forward to since I first saw screenshots of Resident Evil 1 in the official ps one magazine. My real friends, our backs to the wall, shotguns and automatic rifles in hands, mowing down the ever encroaching hordes of the undead. Our shouts of 'I'm down, finish it without me Cake!' 'Dammit Tizza you're getting to that saferoom with me!' 'Quick I'll cover you with a pipe bomb.' Shouted Beckett through my mic as he picked off a hunter mid-air, heading for Cake. The 11 hour sessions of trying to finish one campaign on the hardest difficulty. AND I DO MEAN 11 HOURS. The endless restarts and replays, the random drops of healthpacks and upgraded weaponry and just when you think you are safe, just when you think the game wouldn't throw anything at you as you hobble toward the safe room, only metres away, on 2 health, last clip of ammo, no painkillers and the all your friends dead...that...rumble...that music...that muscle bound TANK would smash you halfway across the map as you would turn the corner and bump right into him. A man's hope and patience would be tested in the fires in Left 4 Dead, and my readers, BUMS was tested and BUMS passed with flying colours. An extra 50 achievement points glisten our gamerscore thanks to superhuman effort and teamwork. There is a story behind this ordeal, one so epic it deserves its own blog so I'll leave that for another time and move on.
Yes, these years were perfect. I'm not even sure it was 07-08, but it wasn't the year that was important more the arcadia of gaming during this time. Part of my personality and mentality was actually forged during these days. A part of my life that was so important that I still have memories, sitting on my couch playing these games and having the best time ever. I fear that these days will never come back. This time when gaming was so important and gave so much in my life. This may seem a bit sad and geeky to some of you, but you weren't there, you didn't experience all those highs and low's of all these games. It truly was golden.
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