Medic!

I think I've found my calling in shoot 'em up video games. I am a Medic!

I seem to play better when I can hang back a little bit and take time to survey the action before rushing in. Then if anyone falls I can rush to their aide and revive them. It seemed to work well last night while playing Call of Duty: World at War on the co-op story mode with kaiakapero and Pogue Moran.

There was one mission where I didn't get shot down ending up in last stand at all. And I think two others where I was only downed once. I let Pogue charge straight ahead. I kept kaiakapero ahead of me, but always in my sights. And I just picked off anyone they missed and tried to revive them whenever they fell. Of course a lot of times it was kai reviving Pogue and me reviving kai. Still, I think it worked out pretty well.

I use to love running right into the action, especially in Star Wars Battlefront. I wanted to get in there and start fighting. I did find that while playing that game it was to my advantage to take a moment to look over the map or area to see where people were at before deciding which direction I was going to run. Maybe it was just having an overhead map that helped. I don't know.

I struggle sometimes in Gears because I don't have an overhead map and so you never know where the enemies are going to come at you from. You have to rely on your teammates to give you a heads up, but by then it might be to late to help them. Since there's no respawning in Gears (unless you play Guardian or the "territory" game types) it's very easy for half your team to rush into an ambush and get wiped out. When that happens pretty soon you find yourself alone and having to take on the whole team. Now you know why I like Guardian. I get to respawn.

When I've played Gears and hung back a little bit, getting a good look around before charging off somewhere, I seem to play much better. And if I'm the last one left alive (a rare feat at that) I find it easier to play when I can pick my ground and plan for the enemies attacks. Of course it helps to have some well placed grenades too.

I don't have the patience to play as a sniper in the Call of Duty games. And I get tunnel vision too easily that I forget to keep checking around me for incoming enemies. There's just been too many times I've been stabbed in the back while snipping. My brother kai on the other hand loves to snipe. He made a point of telling me about it last night before we got online to play. If you can do it, all the more power to you. It's just not my thing.

The movie Saving Private Ryan was on this past weekend and I was watching the final battle sequence. The interrupter they brought along was in charge of running ammo refills back and forth between the positions. Throw a medic's bag over that guys shoulder and that would be me. Except for the fear, sniveling, crying, "what have I gotten myself into" bit, of course. Because I'm a medic that can shoot. But only when I have to. And I might even hit something . . . eventually.