Mash together children’s toys, a Spyro- branded button masher, a wonky USB attachment, and some really neat gaming tech. Stir in all of the evils of pay-to-play downloadable content. Garnish with consumer frenzy.

You’ve just created Skylanders, the game and associated technology that will take me over 1,200 words to describe.

For Christmas, I received the Skylanders “Mega Pack,” which my dad purchased from Best Buy as he overheard “all of the nerds” (his words) talking about it. Thanks, dad.

At the core of the game, Skylanders is an enjoyable button masher, where each character alternates between three primary attacks and powers, which you can make stronger throughout the course of the game. For some characters, such as Spryo, the default attacks will take you through most of the game. For others, such as “Gill Grunt,” the character becomes significantly more powerful once you start investing the in-game currency in upgrades.  But that’s just describing what is on the disc.

Why the tech is cool

The nerd part is that the figurines serve as both a keycard to activate your character in-game as well as memory stick for your character attributes. For gamers, the best description would be that the figurines serve physically as downloadable content.

While I was skeptical of the game at first, the nerd side of me geeked out once I started digging into the underlying tech. The “portal of power” itself, where you place your figurines, is a fancy RFID reader that pulls information from your figurine and updates the on-board memory with your character’s progress.

The bottom part of the Skylanders figure enables the game version

To activate the Spryo character for instance, you bust the figure out of its packaging and place it on the portal.  The character is then digitally dropped into the game with a short but flashy cut scene and you are immediately playing as Spryo. Take him off the portal and replace him with any of the other 31 characters and they will instantly appear on screen and be playable, which is where the diabolical retail ploy comes in.

Each new figurine has its own set of attacks, talent trees, upgrades and personalities. Most characters have a worthwhile and varied arsenal that makes each unique to play. With each new character you add to your armada, you also unlock a challenge level that all of your characters can then play for a specific character upgrade. These mirror traditional role-playing stats such as stronger attacks, faster movement speed, and more armor.

What’s cooler, especially if I had a bunch of 10 year-old friends, is that I could take my figurine characters over to my friend’s house, plunk them down on his portal, and the characters would retain all of their intrinsic stats and earned upgrades.

After invading an elementary school to capture some friends, I could also play my characters on either the Xbox, Wii, PS3 or web version of the game.

The elements

Where the game drops into the cool, yet evil category is that each Skylander character has an inherent elemental trait (think Captain Planet power). There are a total of eight elements. Where it gets interesting, and money grabby, is that each level contains certain doors that can only be unlocked by a certain element character type.  These are never core to completing the level, but often hide treasure chests and other rewards for your character.  So with the starter pack (which is basically the only thing left on store shelves today), you would be able to complete the game, but in each level would have a number of avenues blocked to you, which feels crappy.

But here’s why it is brilliant from a game developer perspective.  By the second level where I hit a blocked wall that needed a “life” element character, I was online within minutes looking to complete my character ensemble. This brings us to one of the crippling effects of the game – its massive popularity.

Here's the Portal of Infinite Earnings and my Skylander Figurines

Ok fine, just take my money

Kotaku calculated that to collect  the initial batch of characters and expandables, you’d be looking at over $200 for an all-inclusive set. While this is the cost of about five standard Xbox releases, due to its popularity, you don’t have a shot at collecting all the new characters, let alone one.

Good luck parents!

If you search at an actual retail location (remember those?), you will see empty shelves with only a few picked over starter packs left. Searching online at Target isn’t any prettier.  For a stand-alone single character (Retail $7.99), 17 out of the 18 nearby stores in Jersey are sold out, with the 18^th marked as “limited availability”. This is for just one of the 31 characters. 

So a secondary black market of ebay and craigslisters has emerged with prices ranging from slightly higher than retail to three times. This has frustrated thousands of parents who haven’t been able to find the toys that their grumbling youth want to play.

Kids game, but enough here to interest 30 year-old gamer dorks (me)

Back to the game. The storyline is standard fare. Some evil ankle biter has destroyed an object of power that previously kept the land safe. Only you, “Portal Master,” can help reacquire the 80,000 pieces that it blew up into to rebuild it. This will take you to a bunch of levels. You get the stuff. You’ll build the power item back up. You won’t get the girl, however.

Overall, the storyline and characters are no cheesier than a Saturday morning cartoon, but the problem for adult gamers is that these scenes can’t be skipped. For kids playing, they aren’t going to notice, but for dad (or Troy), you are going to endlessly mash what should have been the skip button during the cutesy cartoon dialogue and cut scenes.  This is especially true during many of the scene transitions where you will unlock a new portion of the game and be introduced to a new non playable character that guides you to the next mission.

For the arguably more mature gamer , the Xbox achievements can be challenging and enjoyable. Each character’s unique level also adds a nice amount of variety, though after you’ve figured out the optimal solution, it is easy to replicate with most characters.

Each playable character can be leveled to max level in a few hours of play, or less in the later levels. During my play through, I leveled the abilities of four of my eight characters to max level, with a couple of the characters left by the level one wayside.

Skylanders Giants

Activision recently announced a forthcoming version of the game called “Skylanders Giants,” which promises even bigger (and more pricey?) figurines. Your existing Skylanders will be playable in the game and hopefully also give you the ability to continue to improve upon your max level characters.

In Summary

Should you start down the Skylander path yourself?  If you can get ahold of a MegaPack and have a younger gamer to play with. Definitely. If you’ve got a soft spot for Pokeman, Warhammer or other collectible games – this could be bad for you. If you’re of the Gears of War or Modern Warfare crowd, this probably won’t be your cup of tea, but keep a lookout for more physical ways to incorporate retail elements into the software world. If there’s one thing Activision is good at, it’s making bullion truckloads of money and getting us to buy over and over again.

If you can’t be on the water, you might as well take a few minutes out of your workday to learn about tactics and be jealous of others that somehow get out every day of the week. More important, such distractions should put you at least mildly at risk of missing your work deadlines.

During one of these recent procrastination sessions, I came across a Bozeman Chronicle article on the 20th anniversary of  ”A River Runs Through It”. Like many, the movie served as my first real exposure to fly fishing.

I wasn’t nearly alone in this interest. Much like Rounders spawned a surge in Texas Hold ‘Em players, River made an immediate and long-lasting boost on the fly fishing industry.  According to the Chronicle: “In the first year after it came out, the fly-fishing industry grew by 60 percent, and the following year by another 60 percent.”

I made a few minor attempts in high school to test the local rivers on the Mountain Loop Highway to little success and this hobby fell by the wayside. It wasn’t until about 10 years later that I watched the movie again. This viewing spurred a Montana fishing trip and an obsession had been officially locked in.

Besides economic benefits, primarily from my paychecks, The Chronicle article also discusses the conversation efforts that the movie kicked off.

At the time of the filming the Blackfoot River was in poor condition from logging, mining and grazing, so the river scenes were filmed on other Montana rivers. Since the movie, the river has once again become one of Montana’s top destinations for visitors and locals alike.

For more on the movie’s effects and how it “changed” Montana, check out the full article.

Since my parents purchased me a fly fishing tear off calendar in high school, I’ve wanted to fish in winter conditions. It’s difficult to not get excited about a snow day in general. Now combine that thought with hunting gathering instincts and perhaps some bourbon to keep you warm – and more important – NO CROWDS. What could be better?

I tested this theory without the bourbon and snow over President’s Day weekend on the South Branch Raritan near Califon, New Jersey. For family and other friends reading this, the first thought is probably – “Wait, in Jersey?”. I suspect Jersey’s standing reputation is that you are more likely to catch herpes from Snooki than a single-headed fish.  Only somewhat true.

The reality is that once you get past industrialized, New York City’s dumping ground Jersey (including Newark), which extends roughly 30 miles to Highway 287, there’s some truly beautiful country and remote farmland. On my first fishing outing last May I nearly ran over a black bear.  One hour from Manhattan, you can be on Jersey’s best rivers, which are well-managed and routinely stocked.  The juxtaposition  is well – how do I put this – absurd.

The South Branch of the Raritan, a bit naked in Winter

I set out expecting a zero on the scoreboard. Since I moved to Jersey, I’ve spent more time on the Raritan than any of the other “famous” rivers. There’s a phrase that’s oft-repeated in the fly fishing world: “Fish what you are confident in,” so I keep ending up on the South Branch. Whether mysticism, coincidence or pure skill lined up, within an hour of suiting up I had caught a nice colored rainbow.

Booya!

I was particularly pleased with the pickup because I had cast to the hole at least a dozen times with no success, then adjusted my drift to hit the slower current just to the side of the run. This dropped the zebra midge (size 20) deeper into the pool and a hookup ensued. Given the winter conditions and the cold water,  the take appeared as more of a nudge on the strike indicator, which was a good lesson for me. Set the hook on any slightly off-kilter movement.

The first rainbow was caught in a pool on the back side of the middle island.

I cast to the pool a few more times and then moved slightly upstream to a spillway that flows from a very slow portion of the river. As I worked my way to the next pool, I came across the best possible flotsom (garbage) that I’ve seen in a waterway… a vintage WWF skateboard.

Vintage WWF Skateboard - Best river trash ever

While I debated about throwing this in my car and keeping it forever, it was interesting to see that there is still quite a bit of debris left over from the river surge of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee last fall.

Irene is serving leftovers

I passed on the skateboard and finally made my way to the spillway. In a late summer trip, I had tried the same spot with no success but it just looked too fishy to pass up. After working various casts for about 10 minutes to no success, I waded to a small offshoot where I suspected other folks had not cast to recently. On the second cast, I had an aggressive hit and after a few flips and runs had landed another Rainbow.

Rainbow in net

Interestingly, fish in the net look minuscule, so I committed a minor faux pas and brought the fish well out of water to snap a much more “proud” picture.  Same fish, much meatier.

I can assure you he swam away

This rainbow had jumped all over a Flashback Prince (size 16) which I had acquired in an “Eastern Fly” pack. Differentiating it from other ties I’ve seen, this one had quite a bit of red worked into the fly, which made me skeptical. Success is its own measure, however, and I continued to fish the fly – only to lose it a few casts later to a tree branch, which is a convoluted embarrassment of a story that I’ll save for another day.

All in all, the day was a success in the “winter fishing” category. I am selectively choosing to forget the next three fishless hours and the ****ing tree.

The highest circulation papers In the Northeast have all jumped to some form of paywall in the past year. The notable exception is the Washington Post, which has bet that a social and web strategy will allow it to buck declining ad rates.

On my last Android phone (also available on iOS), I downloaded the Washington Post application when it was highlighted as application of the day in the Android Market.  My readership immediately exploded due to the offline reading  (similar to instapaper) and ease of use of the app. Sync once or twice a day and all articles are available for offline use later (subway, Amtrak, dead zones, etc).

Washington Post's Android Application

This became my go-to news app, as coverage was updated frequently throughout the day and pulled all major content from politics, business, sports and more. It also was subject to less “trend of the moment” news that plagues Google News as an aggregator.

On the social front, you have likely encountered the Post’s “social reader” in your Facebook news feed. Ever clicked through a Washington Post link  to reach a permission page? If so, you’ve hit the social reader’s application page.  While installing any application into Facebook’s platform turns me off (please don’t spam my news feed), I regularly encounter friends that share a Washington Post article, driving increased views back to the mother ship.

These aggregated efforts have translated into the nation’s second best web traffic for a daily newspaper. The Post is attracting 19.6 million unique visitors per month, only behind the New York Times, which reported the figures.

Despite the success and web growth, the Times reports that the company continues to struggle to meet its budget. Last week 20 new voluntary buyouts were offered to managers at the publication.

On a personal front, I recently switched to a Windows Phone 7 (HTC Radar) and the Post’s app is not available, resulting in far fewer visits from Troy (I expect this will be accounted for in their next earnings release).

While the Post has embraced social and mobile, the other mastheads of the Northeast have been experimenting with other efforts to drive revenue and pageviews.

Philly tablets for digital subs

Last fall when the Philadelphia Media Network, parents to the Inquirer and Daily News, rolled out a lineup of editorial and web site changes, they also introduced program to offer discounted Android tablets to digital subscribers of either publication. The logic, one assumes, is that viewing the digital version in more places (phone, computer, or tablet) will increase stickiness of the service.

Philadelphia Media Network tried a tablet approach to grow digital subscribers

Pricing for a 1-year package was $129 if you agreed to subscribe to the papers’ applications for a year. However, the tablet was WiFi only, which seemed to negate many of the benefits of a newspaper on the go.

According to a paidContent article in November, the tablet offer had not performed as well as the company had foreseen, however CEO Greg Osberg expects to turn a profit on the deal.

‘Pandora’ paywall – New York Times

When the New York Times introduced a paywall, the company also introduced a bean-counter  quota of 20 free articles per month. When you hit your 20 reads cap, you are relegated to preview-only mode, receiving a gigantic pop-up ad that blocks any content and encourages you to sign up for the digital version.

Between my three primary reading devices (personal laptop, work laptop, and mobile phone) my allotment chalks in at 60 articles per month. I continue to find that I’m hitting the cap mid-way through each month.  This cap was similar to Pandora’s 40-hour listening limit* and encourages a similar behavior; leave for other sites when your bucket is empty.

Northeast paywalls – Annual digital access

In the Northeast, major daily digital subscriptions are colliding near a price point of $150 per year ($12.50 monthly), with the premier properties charging a slightly higher $200 per year ($16.50 monthly).

• New York Times – $195
• Baltimore Business Journal – $59
• Baltimore Sun – $99.98
• Boston Business Journal – $59
• Boston Globe – $207.48
• Crain’s New York Business – $39.95
• Philadelphia Inquirer / Daily News – $155.98 each
• Providence Business News – $79
• The Newport Daily News – $345 (Flecks of gold apparently included)
• Washington Business Journal – $59

I should note that while some of these prices seem particularly misaligned (Newport Daily News), PR professionals are intrinsically tied to the success of these publications. I plan to subscribe to all but the Newport Daily News as my budget can’t justify a small town paper that charges 1.5 times the price of the New York Times.

Which model will win over? For what it is worth, my vote is with the Washington Post model as they’ve placed the biggest investment in spreading their news across both mobile and social – without charging a premium for their product.

There’s no shortage of low-hanging material about girls and video games. Writers like Leigh Alexander and others have noted how it is impossible to play online without being harassed, hit upon, or repeatedly asked about cup size.

While I have no doubt it sucks to game with bros, I’m here to tell you, don’t game the other way.

“The Lady” recently asked to play Portal, so in justifiable boyfriend logic land I purchased a copy of the second installment for her birthday. The fact that this passed as a legitimate gift and that we are still engaged is going to be listed as a qualification on my resume. Doubly so, because I wanted to play the game anyway.

Since no good deed goes unpunished, we spent five hours the past week teaching her the system and curing her self-diagnosed “spatial reality” problems. Note, I truly have no idea what that means, but I’ll try to describe it.

Somewhere in the dark corners of nerd mind, there’s a piece of the brain that thinks it would be awesome to game with their significant other. Who wouldn’t want a gal that knows why we call a Warthog a Puma? Unfortunately this is the same part of the brain that thinks five Jager bombs on a Sunday are a good idea.

In our last attempt at gaming as a couple, we started Fable 2 together. My best friend’s wife loved Fable for its softer side of wood chopping and electronic marriage. Given that my friend came home and saw his wife playing the game on multiple occasions, I figured there couldn’t be a better entry point…
…until we met the door boss.

I learned that spatial problems meant that in a dual-analog world, she couldn’t walk a straight freaking line. Hours were seemingly spent just entering and exiting buildings. She also wasn’t able to recognize a new environment versus one she had already been in so we took dozens of trips back and forth between the same room. Forget objectives or smashing a hob with a sword… we had go back to infant stage and take pictures as the little lady learned to walk.

I remember when i first played Halo on the first Xbox. Coming from a GoldenEye world of a mimicked w-s-a-d movement with one stick of full control, jumping to dual-analog sticks was like being thrown in the pool for the first time. However, with a few hours of practice, grunts were exploding and jackals were laughably squashed underneath my cyborg fists. In contrast however, my dad, who taught me to love Metroid, missed the incremental N-64 step and couldn’t make the transition to dual-stick from 16 bit.

The lady claims to have been a relative goddess at Mario Kart 64, but when you walk in-game like a drunken pegleg, I grow suspicious. This, I believe, is at the root of “spatial problems.”

So let’s play a super abstract physics-based puzzler!

Now the “special” movement, while annoying, can be overcome with practice and super sensei patience on my behalf — but that would leave out the fun of nausea.

While we were conquering basic movement, her lack of control over the right stick (looking up down, left or right) became a pendulum that swung violently between the ceiling and the floor. Violent. Vertical. Whiplash.

So while she discovered the textures on the ceiling and floor of each puzzle room, I discovered that you can get seasick from sitting on the couch. So that’s a win.

A portal way of thinking

The Portal series is not only the most well-written and humorous of this generation, but its strongest trait is the games’ mechanics change the way you think about problem solving and getting from point a to point b.

So back to doors. Hopefully a decent way to explain the basic logic of the game is that you have the ability to place a two-way door anywhere you want in order to surpass obstacles and move objects. Only the door has been cut in half so that you place both the entryway and the exit at different points. These points still comprise a single door, but you can change where you enter and exit.

After playing the first Portal and with the altered view of “the rules,” I could look at the room and have a solution worked out within a few seconds. I only point this out because I’m clearly super smart, but there’s often arguments against how video games are no better than passive viewing of television. I’d encourage anyone that makes this argument to spend five hours with Portal, and see that opinion change; or watch five hours of Jersey Shore — either proves my point.

That said, it was rewarding to see the lady’s Portal way of thinking evolve over the hours that we played. At the start, she appeared to eye each Portal suspiciously, as if walking through it was going to drop her into a pit of sharks (only if you place the exit portal over sharks, dear!).

Creative interpretation. Originals via Wikipedia and Stock.Xchng.

Within a few [grueling, painful, vomity] hours, she began to pick up the paces and was able to look at the rooms and have a fair shot at knowing which tools would get her across the room.

After five hours of campaign, we tried the first levels of Co-Op play, which adds a another layer of complexity to the puzzles. I’m not too proud to say that when I was stuck in the first level, she was the one to figure out the solution — I was caught in the single-player way of thinking.
Shortly after this milestone, I had to return to New York. I’m excited to see how my little Portaler-in-training develops. As any respectable gamer is known to do, she plans to start over the game so that she can earn achievement points on her own profile.

Welcome to the team.

*Lady disclaimer: Note that the above post may or may not be exaggerated for comedic purposes. I am glad that you want to learn my world. I have to go hurl now.*

In the last post, I covered the top 3 improvements in MW3, according to a player that has spent roughly 26 days with the series. I would feel bad about this number, but my fiancée spent twice that amount of time on Facebook last weekend.

This week I’m going to take a look at three trends that have inspired the most rage quits over the past few weeks.

Map Design: 

The level designers made a conscious choice to force more frequent encounters in MW3. Following a death, you should expect to encounter enemies in a few seconds (if they aren’t already shooting you in the back). This forces a system that feels more Duck Hunt than a well-thought out war (there’s an Iraq joke in here somewhere).

On maps like Dome and Arkaden, two of the most blatant examples of the new design schema, the maps are so small and encounter-heavy that it feels like two toy armies were thrown inside a shoebox to duke it out.

One of the design choices I appreciated about the Modern Warfare series is that even though certain spots can net you a few extra kills due to protection, there were nearly always directions in which you would have to guard with a claymore or risk death. If there were a minimum of two points of entry into every vantage point in MW2, there are now four in MW3, with the addition of a hidden wall directly behind you.

Gone are cover and safe harbors to either toss a well-earned killstreak or to earn a few campy kills. The map flow and size brings enemies down all paths regularly, so that there’s no time to take a breather in between reloads.

Spawn system:

To put it elegantly, the spawn system blows.  The current system (I have hopes Infinity Ward will patch it) results in no clear level flow. The most common and frustrating experience is being shot in the back or dying to “revenge spawns” where the player you just killed comes back to life within feet and murders you.

I need to do more research on this, but I believe this effect us worsened because “flips”, where teams change sides of the map, are far more liberal and “safe spawns” have also been redesigned to have stricter requirements.  This is compounded by the small map size.

The result of all of these factors is that there are never any clear “trench points” developed where you know you will encounter the enemy and a firefight can be planned for.  Most likely, if you don’t see an enemy ahead of you, it’s going to feel a lot like prison shortly.

Here’s a nice example of the spawn system at its finest. Credit: Youtube via wTHETODDw.

Perhaps “Too” Balanced

I stole this phrase from a friend, but one of the greatest strengths of multiplayer in MW3 – the balance – also detracts from the fun factor of killstreaks that pillage the opposing team and boost your digital pride.

In a typical match a seven- or 9-killstreak will only net you one or two additional kills, if any, because opposing players now receive a reward for destroying other streaks.

Ever sit in a trendy bar on a Friday or Saturday night and watch for the pretty girl to walk in? You’ll notice that the girl doesn’t make it to the bar before fending off passes, drink offers and one-liners. It’s very similar in MW3, because shooting down a killstreak now awards one point toward your own streak.

In other words, the hot blonde now buys the first douche who hits on her a drink.

The most common case is that Helicopters – a seven kill streak- often don’t make it to the map.  Other well-earned streaks are taken down seconds after entering the playing field.

It’s a design decision that tones down outside influence over multiplayer, but at the same time makes those great runs far less rewarding.

A good example of the vulnerability of high-end killstreaks. In this case the Strafe Run, which requires 9 kills, is wiped out by a single Javelin. Credit: Youtube via badomen125.

Overall: 

The improvements are welcome to this year’s Madden Warfare (too easy?), but I am eagerly awaiting much-promised updates from Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer to fine tune the Modern Warfare experience.

Modern Warfare 3 launched nearly two months ago with the fanfare of a presidential inauguration.  The remnants of Infinity Ward teamed with Sledgehammer games to create the bi-annual installment of the largest video game franchise on the planet. While internet trench lines are drawn starkly for or against the series, it continues to be the series that all your friends are playing, for good reason.

Why write about the series that has been reviewed already by every game publication on the planet (and 75% of the publications on Jupiter)? Two reasons.

1) Collectively, and this hurts a bit, I’ve invested over 26 days in Modern Warfare multiplayer. It’s the most satisfying shooting experience since frequenting the hallways of Aztec and Dust 2 in Counterstrike.

2) The next Modern Warfare installment won’t come out for two years so we might as well discuss its continued merits.

Just before Christmas I hit the soft level cap of 80 at 1 day and 4 hours played.  At this point, I thought it was a fair checkpoint to critique the multiplayer experience. But note that in MW2, I prestiged 4 times over the course of 15 days played.

Here’s my view of the major improvements in Modern Warfare 3’s evolution of multiplayer – One prestige in.

Extremely Balanced:

One of the major complaints of Modern Warfare 2, was that certain combinations of perks and killstreaks were so powerful that they could skew the game. Other combinations, while exploitative, were never patched. The One Man Army perk for example was abused by a huge population of the player base which degenerated MW2 into an endless battle of noobtube-only gameplay. Think of it as a permanent match of rockets-only.

In MW3, these extreme abuse cases are gone.  Perks require careful choice and killstreaks are no longer the main focus of the game or primary annoyance.  Perhaps most important, there are very few, if any, safe havens from which to rack up the kills.

The weapons also feel fair and balanced, with a few exceptions that Sledgefinity Ward says they will be patching soon.

Objective-play rewarded:

One of the main problems with MW2 Multiplayer was that objective gameplay was largely ignored for the much more rewarding killstreaks.  Instead of players dutifully throwing themselves on a flag point, players opted to hide away to try to rack up enough kills for the devastating AC-130 killstreak or chopper gunner which promised five to dozens of kills.

This round, those team-helping actions are all rewarded with a point toward your killstreak. Capture a flag; get a point. Shoot down an enemy killstreak; get a point. Make your girlfriend a smoothie on her birthday; get a point.

Complementing this objective-based focus is a new set of “pointstreaks” that continue to accrue even if you die. In this instance, if you take objective points and toss in a few kills here and there, you will still be able to access an array of killstreaks that help your team and can dramatically hinder the teenagers on the other end of the controller.

This is my favorite addition to the game; you are now rewarded for more than holding down a trigger.

Rewarded for investment:  

Earlier, I had described that I had “prestiged” four times in MW2.  Let me explain further. For the trade that only a gamer would make, when you “prestige” you agree to reset all of your perks, weapons, and killstreaks to zero for a shiny new emblem and the chance to start over again.  In real terms, you are the Green Bay packers and you “prestige” back to 2005 and have a draft choice to make. May I suggest Aaron Rodgers?

The “fun” inherent in all of this is in rebuilding your digital portfolio of weapons and challenges. And if I were Green Bay, the reward would be a new color on my uniform. Sweet huh?

In MW3, each time you choose to reset your stats for a piece of digital pride, you are granted a piece of currency that allows you to unlock a weapon, perk or killstreak permanently. This eases the rebuild process considerably and rewards players that invest the most time in the game.

There are many more tweaks to the Modern Warfare experience, but these three stick out in my mind as the largest and most welcome improvements.

In a future post, I’ll take a look at MW3 Bads or “Reasons to rage quit”.