Winning gunfights with a knife.

If you're the sort of person who has played Modern Warfare 2, you probably fall into one of two groups. Those who use particular tactics, and those who decry these same tactics.

This is sort of inevitable in any online game where balance is a consideration, and there is often a great deal of flaming between those who believe that all options are equally balanced, and their chosen combo works because they're simply better than everyone else, and those who object to certain combinations being inherently easier to play.

I myself don't actually care, since I have no inherent need to prove my superiority as a human being by lewdly displaying the number of people I've killed in an online environment. However, certain situations in the game have led to some observations on my part that I think may bear some investigating.

1. Knives make you invincible.

Ok, that's an exaggeration on my part. I apologize. It's actually the act of stabbing itself that makes you invincible. While in the act of engaging in a lunging stab from about six or seven feet away, your body appears to enter an alternate state of being wherein bullets and shotgun rounds appear to have no discernable effect on your health. I'm not sure if the military is aware of this yet, but as bayonets have been equipped to rifles for centuries now, I'm sure they've experimented with this phenomenon. The fact that we continue to put bullets in our guns suggests to me that perhaps this isn't the height of realism.

2. Combat Air Patrol is for Pansies.

In Modern Warfare 2, the skies are unchallenged. The only thing protecting you from getting your skull penetrated (demolished? obliterated?) by a 105mm cannon is your buddy over there carrying a Stinger missile. Your commanding officers are apparently of the impression that you are such a blazing hardass, that you can fight a war on the ground and in the air simultaneously. Thus, when the enemy summons a lumbering cargo plan with more guns mounted than most large tanks, you are usually pretty helpless. No F/A-18s flying support, no F-15s on air superiority. Just an enemy AC-130 and a whole lot of craters.

3. Riot Shields are Invincible.

Why do we not all have riot shields? Why doesn't the president wear one under his suit? Because apparently, no matter how many .50 caliber anti-material rifle rounds you pour into a piece of reinforced plastic, it simply will not budge. But if you shoot a car with this same rifle, or even a 9mm pistol, and it will eventually explode. Apparently cars are a horrible safety hazard that we should take off the road immediately, since they are prone to explode once shot and left unattended. Or maybe, if we built cars out of riot shields, the world would be a safer place.

4. Grenade launchers are the primary weapons of homosexuals.

You know what? I'm not even going to explain this one.