Weapons testing finally improved in the Call of Duty series?

Yes!

The Past

In the past, if you were a Call of Duty gamer and wanted to test out the different available weapons, you would have to try to maximize your gameplay during the solo (and sometimes, if available, cooperative) campaign mode, or struggle with picking over corpses during the multi-player match modes. This typically involved constantly playing through the different modes over and over again, in a nasty grind, until you finally got enough exposure time on the various weapons to determine whether you actually like using it.

What We Have Now: Combat Training

It is called “Combat Training”. This new feature is available from the Multiplayer menu, as a peer to other game formats like Player Match and Private Match and Wager Match.

Such a simple concept: offer a hybrid mix of players and bots to rage it out on all of the available maps, using one of two game modes: Team Deathmatch (TDM) and Free-for-All (FFA). AND: let the users experiment with the different weapons mixes and perks and other unlocks.

Trying Them Out…

One school of thought is, of course, that Combat Training is a necessary feature because of the new CoD Point System, in which not only do you have to unlock new weapons, attachments, gear, and perks, you actually have to accrue enough CoD Points (an in-game currency) to buy each of the unlocks. This is true: it translates bad decision-making during your Custom Class design into seriously heavy penalization for your matches.

However, the more subtle benefit for Combat Training is that you now can test different weapons and attribute combinations without the hassle of real users interfering with your test trials.

But Not Perfect

(UPDATED)

Unfortunately, although two game modes would seemingly be plenty to test out the new CoD subsystems, there are a few odd issues with Combat Training, although it somewhat makes sense, albeit in a negative way.

Unlocking the Pro versions of some of the perks will be impossible if you rely upon matches that are only bot-driven; in other words, you will have to invite some friends (or other people) to help you unlock them. For instance, the trap-based unlock requirements will not be possible because the bots do not lay any traps. This is something that could be corrected by the developer (Treyarch) by combining anticipated trap points for each map and AI probability logic for planting them. After all, heat maps for K/D and entity grouping across all of the maps are already reported on the game servers, so using that data– even in a dynamic manner– should be relatively straightforward.

Good ‘Nuf

But, overall, having Combat Training is definitely a Good Thing.

Plus, it helps to keep the players in the action… without actually being in the action.

Coming soon from Infinity Ward and Microsoft [MSFT], in addition to the game itself, will be the Modern Warfare 2 limited edition Xbox 360 Elite, with a new custom paint scheme, and a 250 GB hard disk, which surpasses the standard 120 GB hard disk shipped with regular Xbox 360 Elite consoles. In fact, the 250 GB hard disk will not be available separately.

It’s an interesting question, as to whether the 250 GB truly transcends the previously-known 126 GB format limit on the Xbox 360 disk partition structure, or whether it is two separate partitions (either in the form of tandem drives, or a single physical drive). Given the wide availability of multi-terabyte capacity hard disks, it is a wonder that Microsoft has not expanded the Xbox 360′s disk partition maximums.

In addition to the larger hard disk and a custom paint job, the limited edition Xbox 360 Elite kit will ship with the Modern Warfare 2 game and two wireless controllers in matching paint scheme. The retail price is set for $399 USD, and pre-ordering should begin shortly.

Did Treyarch jump the gun?

Not satisfied to let Call of Duty: World at War fade into the long, dark quiet of obscurity (well, that’s an exaggeration, given the intense love a lot of gamers have shown toward the title!) while Infinity Ward turns up the heat on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the announcement for Map Pack 3 came yesterday.

More multiplayer maps, more zombied fun, a few more custom weapons, and more Achievements with additional Achievement Points!

If you haven’t logged into Xbox LIVE yet, you should give it a shot and fire up your copy of CoD:WaW: you will receive the game update, which includes the new menu configuration that allows for better access to the zombie maps (and clearly shows the teaser, grayed-out entry for the new zombie map from Map Pack 3).

There’s even a new HD video available of the new zombie map, available from the Call of Duty site and on Xbox LIVE.

Wow…

In all of the noise from the bazillion (seemingly) DLC’s– really, just songs– for Lips and Rock Band and their ilk, it was very easy to miss a nice gem of a free downloadable map for Call of Duty: World at War. This goes nicely with the other multiplayer maps that the game comes with, and it will also complement (and round out) the anticipated maps from the first paid DLC for the game.

The Makin bonus map is something you may already be familiar with… in the campaign mode, you would’ve seen Makin at nighttime. This new map switches to daytime, which certainly changes things… a lot.

Yesterday, the E-mails went out to registered CoD:WaW folks about the first downloadable content (DLC) for the game.

Yes, the game has been plenty of fun, having the updated COD4-style engine driving a WWII gaming experience. And, oh yes, the Nazi zombies extravaganza is definitely a must-try (if you haven’t already).

But, as is typical for these games, the gamers want more. And for a game in this genre, it typically involves a map pack.

So, the first DLC is a map pack. As reported on the CoD HQ site, there are the following multiplayer maps:

• Knee Deep: Pacific island (Peleliu) village map
• Nightfire: Berlin city map
• Station: Underground subway station map
• Verrückt (Zombie Asylum): the insane asylum is back, but this time for 4-player co-op Nazi Zombies hilarity!

While no definite release date has been announced yet, it is expected to be sometime in March 2009.