You may not believe this, but I do try really hard.
Sometimes I think that the very laws of physics are designed such that no matter which direction I’m facing when I fire, the rocket will streak in a complete 180-degree turn and slam into my teammate’s face.
I have to wonder if the comedic value I bring to a game outweighs the frustration I cause when I do things like sink my own carrier. I don’t even try and blow anything up. I’ll just be running to get on board the helicopter before it takes off, and then, I dunno, I trip or something and drop a bunch of landmines on the deck of the carrier destroying any chance we have of launching any form of air support for the rest of the game. Then I try and make up for this by throwing a bunch of grenades onto the mines, hoping to blow them up…
Only to have my entire team spawn on top of the grenades.
I think that people invite me to play in their games in a new variation of the Conquest maps. Here’s how I think it works: the two teams agree before hand on a certain goal – say, sniping a helicopter with a rocket. Then the first team that accomplishes this ‘secret mission’ wins the round, and the other team gets me. It’s kind of like handicapping in golf. Only in this case, your entire team winds up with about a 8 billion stroke penalty.
Lately I’ve been trying to learn how to fly helicopters. The results are, as you might expect, disastrously funny. I’ve learned that the writers of Airwolf weren’t lying – a helicopter can do a loop, provided you don’t mind the loop finishing at the bottom of the ocean. Also, anti-aircraft (AA) fire operates on some strange physics, which I’ll attempt to illustrate with the formula below:
If (HELICOPTER_pilot) == Kwip, then damage = 5,000,000
else
If (AA_gunner) == Kwip, then damage = .1
Granted, I haven’t run this through any scientific tests, but I’m working on it.
It’s disheartening, though. I’m manning the AA guns at our base. An enemy chopper will hover overhead and drop off about twenty parachutists. They’ll land, set up a picnic basket, volleyball net and a barbeque pit. They’ll spend an hour or so frolicking, then calmly climb into all of our vehicles and drive away. The entire time, I’m blasting away at them with the AA gun. It’s hitting – I’m getting the little X’s that show a hit – but everyone’s ignoring it as they dance around and eat their cheeseburgers. Then a helicopter will fly overhead and drop a brick on my head and I die.
However, if I am flying an airplane on the same map as an AA gun, the gunner merely needs to sneeze and my plane will explode in a fiery ball.
You don’t even want to know about me and that DC30 thing. Last night I’m flying around on that thing, so proud of myself for all the stuff I’m blowing up when finally I happen to glance at the chat screen and notice that for the past ten minutes I’ve been bombing my own base as the pilot tries to land for repairs. Sigh.
The thing I don’t get, though, is that everyone knows I suck. I mean, I think that’s the title of the upcoming expansion: Battlefield 1942: Kwip Sucks! So why on earth would you want me to accompany you on your little jaunt to capture flags? The way my luck operates, I have just as much chance of being effective if I stand back at our base and shoot rockets over the battlefield. In fact, that’s probably safer.
I spent the entire time whining for a sub level. I like driving the subs because the chances that I’ll ruin things for my team are relatively slight. Except for that time I surfaced in the midst of a convoy and torpedoed every one before realizing they were our ships.
Most of the time last night I spent running around trying to shoot Devilmouse and Crowley. Which kind of got embarrassing when I found out I was on their team. (See a pattern here yet, folks?) I reached an all-time low when I tried to jump in a hummer with Mittens, only to be run over. Then I realized I had switched teams again.
Sigh. Someday I’ll be good at this game, honest! Actually, I’d settle for just not being an embarrassment…
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