As of yet I am not very good at Modern Warfare 2 or the PS3 in general. Having not played a console since Halo 2 on the original Xbox (both of which sucked, by the way), I found myself quite behind the curve as far as controlling my in-game characters. It took about three weeks to a month to get comfortable with such a dramatic change — I’ve become very accustomed to the 1:1 translation offered to you via a mouse. By now I’d call myself decent with a controller and thumbsticks. I have the highest MW2 kill-death ratio of the few people on my friends list and I never play in a party in order to get a stacked game. That’s worth something, right?
Having been not so comfortable using thumbsticks I had been avoiding using sniper rifles in MW2 until earlier today when I managed some 5o-odd kills with the Intervention. Playing with this weapon showed me just how important it is to center your view at all times.
In order words, you need to keep your view more or less “pre-aimed” at wherever you think the enemies are going to be. Don’t just keep this area in view; literally put it at the center of the screen. This way when you go to aim down the sight the gun is pointed exactly where it needs to be — or at least close to it. Ideally, if the enemy is centered directly between your crosshairs, when you aim down the sight you will already be aiming at him, allowing for a quick and accurate kill without the need to adjust your aim much or at all while looking down the sight.
If you’re not quite centered on the target, it will be a lot quicker and easier to get him in your sights than otherwise. The more time you spend pointing your gun around while looking down the sight, the longer your enemy has for retaliation. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to be aimed before you even start holding L1.
This is relevant for any and every gun in MW2 and any other game where you can both fire from the hip and aim down the sight. It’s especially true of sniper rifles as when zoomed in they have the smallest field of view. Having to adjust your aim when zoomed in with a sniper rifle is incredibly slow and dangerous; pre-aiming by keeping your view centered at potential targets is a must. In fact, doing so enables a style of shot/play called a “quick scope” wherein you fire as soon as the sniper rifle scopes up.
Here’s an example:
Notice how he’s able to fire on target immediately due to his view being centered on his target before scoping up. And if he’s not perfectly centered, it only takes a small adjustment to get himself on target. Compare this style of play to the one you see very often online wherein a sniper finds a camping spot and slowly aims each kill down the sight without regard to centering first.
Like I said, this knowledge isn’t constrained solely to sniper rifles. I’ve been using it to do quite well with the burst-fire M16 and it holds for every weapon you might want to use. Hopefully I can use this new knowledge to become even more decent at shooter games on console — maybe even decent enough to call myself good.