Under the Gun

Kept you waiting, huh?

It's been a while. For good reason, I assure you. Please bear with me - the tone of this post is probably going to be a lot more serious and relevant than I'm used to writing. In the past two months, I've been rather busy. Granted, work takes a lot out of me, and I basically work a second job in MechWarrior Online at this point, but I've been meaning to get something off my chest. It's something I've been thinking a lot about, and I've been waiting for someone in the video game community to come out and say it, but as far as I can tell, nobody has, so I guess it falls on me. Here's hoping it doesn't fall on deaf ears.

Balance, Tactics, and the Problem with Pistols

Average semiautomatic pistol, according to DICE

Author's Note: This article will include discussion of both real-world and virtual weapons deployment. If you are unfamiliar with one or the other, I strongly suggest doing some research on your own so that you can have a better understanding of my claims.

I play Battlefield 3. A lot. Like, an awful lot. As in "I give myself insomnia playing this" levels of "a lot." While the game is certainly fun for the most part, there's a certain element that has bothered me since launch, and, curiously, it doesn't seem to bother anyone else. In fact, it doesn't seem to bother anyone in Battlefield 3, it didn't seem to bother anyone in Modern Warfare 2, and it didn't even bother them in Rainbow Six: Vegas. Maybe it's simply because it's such a small part of the actual gameplay, but I feel like I'm the only one who's bothered by this. Whether or not anyone else notices, it's a problem that has gone on for far too long and needs to be addressed. 

The problem? Automatic pistols.