I used the free trial cards and still felt shafted. :lol:
The one time I had fun playing online was with Sweaney in Phantom Dust.
As for cheating, its not that much of an issue with 95% of the games I've played online. I've heard CS is horrible, but then again, its popular. And as we all know, everything that is popular sucks. Everyone wants to do it because its the cool thing to do and then it just becomes cheapened when every idiot has had their go. I remember CS when it first came out. It wasn't any more fun than it is now; just team deathmatch with 'real' guns. The only game I've ever seen cheaters really affect the system was Diablo 2. From what I've heard the same thing happened with Diablo 1.
While being on a pc makes it easier to cheat, it also makes it much, much easier for the cheats to be thwarted. Programs like Punkbuster check for suspicious activity and ban you globaly from any server using the service.
Lastly, I'd just like to hit on the subject of quick play. For PC games you hit quick game, 10-20 seconds and you're in the game. For XBL I always get 'checking for games' for about 40 seconds. Then I get joining game for another 20. However, it took so long that the game is already full. So now it takes another 20 seconds for the XB disconnect. Then I need to search again. I find a room, enter and then get booted by the host. Rejoin, finally start. Game takes 2 minutes to load. Start race and I find out every takes the Enzo Ferrari. The race is over before I finish my first lap. Yes, that was fun.
[quote name='Kapwanil']Well, it's one of the downsides. However, with most of my experiences with PC online play, I've met the same 12 year-olds and plenty of people who feel that hacking their game so they can get instant head-shots, 1-hit kills, immortality and teleportation abilities is the only way to play. Unfortunately, it's just more crap to slog through either way when all you want is a quick, fun game.
And, as far as interfaces are concerned, I heartily dislike the majority of Live UIs for most games. Personally, I'm all for more companies emulating the better interfaces such as Halo 2 and DoA: Ultimate, especially since they are easy to join, easy to set up, and have a variety of interesting and worthwhile options. I'm getting fairly sick of "Choose Quickmatch and wait for us to find one random game that you may or may not want to join".
Oh well, I just hope for better UIs, for the most part. I have the tendency to Mute every single person I come across who pulls anything idiotic, so that cuts down the wonderful throng of people I'd rather not listen to or deal with fairly easily. But, seriously, considering I've been paying barely $2 a month for over the past year and a half, I can't complain too much. Thank you, CAG![/QUOTE]