Black Ops 2 Is Like A Rich Jerk

[Woodsey]

You mention that you grew up under the background hum of guilt....well, brudda, it was people like you before you that inflicted that guilt, and you seem to have little issue continuing the cycle of regarding people as shit just because their ancestors were imperial jerk offs.

He's not regarding people as shit because they have imperial "jerk offs" for ancestors Honey-Bunch (see, we can all be condescending too), but because they act like the imperial jerk offs that are their ancestors.

Also very well put. Not trying to make this thread political, but this is a huge trend I'm seeing emerge. The socialist mentality that anyone who isn't poor is evil, as long as there are people who are more poor. If you're successful, that isn't ok because there are people who aren't successful. Personally, it makes no sense to me; but it seems to be very popular around the world.

That's because you're swallowing the shit-sandwich that's fed to you by everyone with a bit of money. "Oh, they're just jealous because I'm richer." Well, no, people don't like you because you're obnoxious with your money and do your best to avoid paying for things the rest of us do - and you'll cheat and lie until you're blue in the face to do so.

It's not about how much money you have, it's about how you conduct yourself with the money you have. The uber-rich aren't bemoaned, the uber-rich pricks are bemoaned. Just so happens there's quite a few of them to choose from.

And that's what the article's about: showing off and being obnoxious as if that's supposed to impress anybody.

OT: One of your best pieces to date, and a perfect summary of why it's such an increasingly vulgar series. No sense of fucking class or finesse.

 

[Treblaine]

And the main flaw in your argument is that sales numbers are the be-all/end-all of legitimization.

Just because something is popular and financially successful doesn't make it classy, respectable, or objectively good. And many things that are classy, respectable, or good are not popular and financially successful.

Is CoD the game people want? Yeah. Is it rediculously financially successful? Of course. But neither of these things instill CoD with deeper value, and I'm confident that that was Yahtzee's point: Acitivision and the CoD teams could use their position ("we know that millions are going to buy this game on day one") to at least bring innovation to the genre (they could even push the boundaries of the medium if they chose) but they don't. And that is a waste of potential. Not potential revenue, but potential for something of deeper value.

But sales are at least a reason to look at why it is successful and it is NOT FROM THE SINGLE PLAYER!

Why are critics of COD so afraid of considering COD's multiplayer? Are they just so ideologically opposed to the idea of a game being about multiplayer rather than a structured linear single-player campaign they will indulge in the delusion that COD is popular for it's laughably shit singleplayer rather than its multiplayer.

There are so many sites on the internet completely dedicated to breaking down and analysing every aspect of the multiplayer, the total weapons stats of the weapons in multiplayer are uploaded... but not the same for the single-player.

What makes sense, tens of millions of players are wrong for loving COD's singleplayer, or a couple dozen internet critics are making a wrong assumption of the root of COD's popularity.

It might be traced back to COD4 that had a rather good single-player campaign (it only touched on trends that would be later overused and hated for the smallest mention) and was very popular in sales. They make the false correlation that millions bought it for the campaign, but no, it was the multiplayer. And when MW2 came along with a pants singleplayer and a compelling if unbalanced multiplayer then the critics were just too damn proud to admit they were wrong linking their assessment of COD4's singleplayer as key to it's success, and basically called millions of fans as idiots for liking the single player... which is hardly much of a selling point to them.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Wait, don't James Bond games basically do the same thing? Giving you gadgets that only have one use over the course of the game?

Come to think of it, doesn't the James Bond film series do the same thing?

 

[CosmicCommander]

I don't see why I, as a white British man, should feel any sort of guilt for the acts of those generations before me. I never partook in the atrocities (not to mention the numerous forgotten services done) by those men to the peoples of other lands. The entire concept of this modern-day original sin is absurd; and the continued efforts of many to force not just the guilt of colonialism, but the entire concept of such guilt stemming from living in a part of the world our forefathers worked hard to create, is absolutely abhorrent.

This entire privilege idea usually is an excuse for reverse racism (South Africa), sexism (divorce settlements), and cultural destruction (go to an art gallery).

 

[Bindal]

This is what put me in mind of the analogy I used in the video of someone buying an entire roast chicken to take one tiny bite and throw the rest away.

Did you play Multiplayer?

Did you play Zombies?

If not, then why not? Isn't that like buying a whole game and only playing a 1/3 of it. Probably less than 1/3 of the effort went into the campaign.

If you did, then why didn't you mention any aspect of them in your review or your followup?!?

I wouldn't mind if you ripped on it, but rip on it for what it is ACTUALLY PROSPEROUS FOR!!

This, right here - I can't take anything in any form serious from Yathzee if he plainly refuses to mention more than half the game. Yes, I know his usual "I hate to interact with other people"-stuff. But guess what? THERE ARE BOTS FOR MP AND SOLO MODE FOR ZOMBIES!
This is especially annoying after DayZ, which is a PURE Multiplayer Zombie game... you know, exactly those two things combined he refused to look at in this case.


Also, complaining about mechanics only being used in ONE ONCE and then acting as if it would be something new? Well... may I point your attention to a little game called "Super Mario Bros. 3"? There were a few levels, which did just that: Have a mechanic in ONE Level. All leading the Kuribo shoe in World 4. Then there was the Sun in World 2, which also had just one level it existed. The red, flying beetles? Once again, just one level. Ability to change the size of enemies? Again, only used once.
That is NOTHING NEW to the industry.

 

[Treblaine]

Oh, I'm pretty sure he calls out the rest of the games in the genre as well. CoD is just a stronger offender because of the way they structure their single player campaign. Did Battlefield 3 even have a single player campaign? I can't remember anymore... <.<

Point being, CoD is the biggest and most common example, especially since all the sub-series make it the most prolific modern shooter out there.

Well it's a war game, they have to fight someone. Just randomly selecting a country chances are they won't be fighting other Americans. Is it really fair to say an American game can only be about fighting Americans?

MW2 you spent the last act fighting and killing Americans where the main villain was a US general.

What more do you want? It's rather selective to look at "ooh, they just showing Russians as the bad guy" while ignoring how the main bad guy is an Actively Serving US Army General. MW series took the time to make clear that not all Russians were bad with Nicoli and again with Yuri and saving the Russian President as of paramount importance. Black Ops again had a Russian hero protagonist in Viktor Reznov and a heroic uprising by Russian political prisoners against their captors as well as re-living the life of a Russian soldier fighting the Nazis and show how he was betrayed by the SYSTEM not that "all Russians are bad".

COD single-player campaigns are poorly written and poorly placed but they aren't racist or xenophobic.

If they were, then why would they have all these elements that a xenophobe would be instantly turned off by.

The crime of COD is bad gameplay design and hackneyed storytelling.

 

[WanderingFool]

Yes, COD should stay as COD and not change dramatically, but as I see it that isnt the point Yahtzee was making. The point is (I think) that the amount of resources poured into making a new COD game is largely a waste. They have largely the same style of play from game to game, same art style, same engine etc, with just a few tweaks and a new story each time. Considering how much money each iteration makes, can you honestly say the company spends that amount making the next title? Of course not, and so maybe they could use some of the huge profit they make every year developing new ideas and franchises, as they are in an almost unique position to play around.

PS. Sorry if there are typos in the last quarter of the comment box, theres an ad here

There's the old adage, "if it ain't broke, dont fix it" that comes to mind here. I enjoy CoD. I LOVED Black Ops, and liked Black Ops 2. I've, actually, really liked EVERY CoD game that I've played [1, 2, 3, MW, WaW, Mw2, BO, MW3, & BO2]. They sell fantastically and they're very popular.

Also, in the end, it isn't our business how much they spend on each title. It matters not to me. At the end of the day, I'm going to pay $60 for a game I want to play, whether they spend $500k or $550M on it. That's up to Activision.

While true in some cases, it doesnt hurt to try something new every once in a while, and COD did need something new. Thankfully, Blops 2 did try something new, in both MP and SP. Im loving it. I do hope that, since its already a fact MW4 is coming out, that they do the same in its campiagn (with multiple endings and branching paths) as Blops 2 did.

 

[Bindal]

While true in some cases, it doesnt hurt to try something new every once in a while, and COD did need something new. Thankfully, Blops 2 did try something new, in both MP and SP. Im loving it. I do hope that, since its already a fact MW4 is coming out, that they do the same in its campiagn (with multiple endings and branching paths) as Blops 2 did.

Modern Warfare? Trying something new?
Are we talking about the same Modern Warfare games? Because the MW games I know REFUSE to change. I think, TotalBiscuit described it best. "Infinity Wards have stuck to the rail so frigging hard you would think the rail was magnetised. And glued. And then glued again."
So, expect the biggest change to be a new name for the Nuke.

 

[themilo504]

All very true but most of the people who buy cod play it for the multiplayer most of them don?t even look at the single player.

 

[inkheart_artist]

Did anyone else catch that high school drop out part? I'm a bit surprised by that if its true.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

All very true but most of the people who buy cod play it for the multiplayer most of them don?t even look at the single player.

That makes it even worse though, not only is it wasted potential but it's wasted potential into which the playerbase only sinks ~5% of their total time into, the rest being multiplayer.
I know some who didn't even play the campaign, just jumped straight into MP.

I know that's what I did with BF3, about ~30 minutes into the campaign I brain suddenly realized "holy fuck this is boring". I then launched multiplayer, wriggled into the nearest jet and nose-dived it into an unsuspecting sniper. Aah, now I'm having fun ^_^

 

[N-Vee]

Why are critics of COD so afraid of considering COD's multiplayer?

Alright. Herein is my capsule review of the 'important' part of COD: The Multiplayer.

The narrative is non-existant. Consistent character arcs seem to be completely eschewed in favor of the constant din of runny-gunny shooty gameplay. Voice acting is in dire need of several more passes as I am certain a few actors had their voices pitched five times higher than normal to sound like children. There is no motivation or plot, on the level of the individual character or overall for the run of the game only unreasonable conflict without reason. To misquote the Bard, the game is a poor player, that struts and frets it's hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Does that answer why the story is critiqued, instead of the multiplayer?

 

[Kopikatsu]

Why are critics of COD so afraid of considering COD's multiplayer?

Alright. Herein is my capsule review of the 'important' part of COD: The Multiplayer.

The narrative is non-existant. Consistent character arcs seem to be completely eschewed in favor of the constant din of runny-gunny shooty gameplay. Voice acting is in dire need of several more passes as I am certain a few actors had their voices pitched five times higher than normal to sound like children. There is no motivation or plot, on the level of the individual character or overall for the run of the game only unreasonable conflict without reason. To misquote the Bard, the game is a poor player, that struts and frets it's hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Does that answer why the story is critiqued, instead of the multiplayer?

Not really. You're judging it based on what it was never meant to (or claimed to) be. It's like saying that Operation Raccoon City is a terrible survival horror game when Slant Six specifically said it would be a full on action game where the zombies are little more than environmental hazards in their very first Q&A about the game.

Same dealie with Call of Duty. It never, EVER claimed to be a deep, intellectual experience. It's meant to be Michael Bay: The Film: The Game and that's how it should be judged.

It has shooting, it has explosions, and everything is very pretty. So it succeeded at what it was trying to do and should be rated accordingly.

 

[Erttheking]

Ah God. The fires finally went out and now they're about to start up again. FUCK!

 

[Treblaine]

Why are critics of COD so afraid of considering COD's multiplayer?

Alright. Herein is my capsule review of the 'important' part of COD: The Multiplayer.

The narrative is non-existant. Consistent character arcs seem to be completely eschewed in favor of the constant din of runny-gunny shooty gameplay. Voice acting is in dire need of several more passes as I am certain a few actors had their voices pitched five times higher than normal to sound like children. There is no motivation or plot, on the level of the individual character or overall for the run of the game only unreasonable conflict without reason. To misquote the Bard, the game is a poor player, that struts and frets it's hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Does that answer why the story is critiqued, instead of the multiplayer?

This is why I want Yahtzee to review Black Ops 2's multipalyer and not Mr "First post since joining 3 years ago".

Because you aren't even "reviewing" it as a multiplayer game if you are rabbiting on about narrative, plot and voice acting which are not integral features of good multiplayer.

What you say dismisses almost EVERY MULTIPLAYER GAME EVER MADE!!!

And you are critiquing it more in the terms of the qualities of a Motion Picture or Theatre Play, not as a game, which is what it IS. You don't say anything of the gameplay except that it's got running and shooting, well that's obvious, it's a First Person Shooter!!

Different things deserve a different critique.

Where is the Narrative, voice acting or plot in Pablo Picasso's "Guernica"? You have such blatantly narrow and conveniently blinkered perspective.

 

[AlwaysPractical]

I was raised to spend my whole life walking around under a faint background hum of cultural guilt and embarrassment for having once been the biggest twats on Earth who got up to a whole lot of shady shit in other people's countries, and then comes Coddling Ploppy Plops wanting to fucking crow about it.

As a German, I fully understand where you're coming from. The game starts by you massacaring black people that run at you with machetes, then goes on to slaughter arabs on horse back, all the while the admiral sits in base going "yeaaahhhh, that was textbook!" I haven't been this disgusted by a CoD game in a while. At least the NPCs in MW 1, 2 and 3 kept their neutrality. The first Black Ops' campaign was almost as bad as this one. Treyarch, how can you be worse than infinity ward?

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

The main flaw in his argument is this right here:

the privilege of being in a position to make a triple-A game with cutting edge technology, some of the greatest talent in the world, and under one of the highest-profile titles in the industry. A privilege which is utterly squandered.

Here's the thing: It has the talent assigned to it, it sells like hotcakes, and it's possibly the most well known name in gaming because it is what it is. It didn't start out as an indie stealth/platformer. If they changed the formula significantly, then a lot of people who do buy it probably wouldn't and the people who wanted the change wouldn't buy it either because they'd still decry it as long as it has the name 'Call of Duty' attached.

Dishonored is considered the best stealth title of this year, for instance, and it barely broke a million as of last week. No recent COD has sold under 10 million within the first month or two. CoD is the game that people want. No more, no less. It's pretentious to claim otherwise.

Very well put. People can ***** about it all they want, but it sells and it hasn't really deviated from what it has ALWAYS been. Don't like it? I can't really get behind your arguments, because you should have KNOWN what you were buying.

I beg to differ. I absolutely loved CoD4 and World at War, as well as thoroughly enjoying Modern Warfare 2, but when I look at Black Ops 2, I can think of quite a lot of things that have changed. With each iteration the franchise has become more and more afraid to go more than 5 minutes without a huge set piece that regards player interaction with barely concealed disdain, and it's got to the point now where even people who love the basic formula of CoD, such as myself, are utterly sick to the teeth with it.

Hear is roughly my train of thought when I was watching a Let's Play of Blops 2 to see if it was worth my time (I'd been thoroughly disappointed by Blops 1 and MW3, but some things I'd heard about Blops 2 had sparked my interest again).

"Oh boy, this wing-suit/fighter jet/shoot-through-everything sniper rifle looks really cool, this might just be worth a purchase after a-oh it's over. What was that... about 5 minutes long? Oh well, maybe they'll be other chances to use them later on..."

*later on*

"Well, that was disappointing."

This game is that spoiled friend you used to have when you were a kid. The one who got over 50 presents for Christmas and couldn't wait to show (emphasis on the 'show') you all the cool new toys he had. However, because he has so many cool new toys, and so little understanding of how lucky he was, he got bored with them all one by one. Does he let *you* play with any of the toys after he gets bored with them though? No, because this kid is a ****, and the only role you play from his perspective is to sit there and admire all the cool new toys he's got.

If over 10 million people still think that's enough for them to spend $60 every year, then all power to them, but maybe, just maybe, if more of a big deal was made of games like Dishonored, enough to make the people who only really play CoD aware of its existence, then those sales figures might not look so rosy.

Either way, while the basic formula remains largely intact, Blops 2 is not the same as CoD4.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Sometimes, a game will try to do a lot of things in order to break up the monotony of going 'pew pew' at the bad guys who wear different hats from you, and depending on the pacing, this can be a good thing or a bad thing. The entire Call of Duty franchise is like that; it's like some kind of hyper-active child that just can't sit still and doesn't give you enough time to get bored with or even enjoy the things it throws at you.

One of the recent games I played that did this sort of thing well is Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. Each level was unique to the character you played as and was structured very differently. Various levels and challenges are thrown at you pretty often but you don't get bored of them, nor are they snatched away from you before you can finish enjoying them.

More games need better pacing, especially shooters. It's not a problem limited to Call of Duty, but as Yahtzee points out, this particular franchise has the kind of resources most developers could only dream of, and it always seems like such a waste. Each year a minimum effort is put into cranking out a mediocre product that is wearing an only slightly different hat from last year's product, but no one cares because they just play the multiplayer anyway.

 

[N-Vee]

Same dealie with Call of Duty. It never, EVER claimed to be a deep, intellectual experience. It's meant to be Michael Bay: The Film: The Game and that's how it should be judged.

It has shooting, it has explosions, and everything is very pretty. So it succeeded at what it was trying to do and should be rated accordingly.

You're right. I was giving the game too much credit in my capsule review.

The point was, the one that seems to have sailed over heads, that while the multiplayer is 'what everyone buys it for' there's no point in critiquing it. "Same shit different day" does not fill out a word count nor make for interesting reading/viewing.

 

[xptn40S]

Why are critics of COD so afraid of considering COD's multiplayer?

I can't take anything in any form serious from Yathzee if he plainly refuses to mention more than half the game. Yes, I know his usual "I hate to interact with other people"-stuff. But guess what? THERE ARE BOTS FOR MP AND SOLO MODE FOR ZOMBIES!
This is especially annoying after DayZ, which is a PURE Multiplayer Zombie game... you know, exactly those two things combined he refused to look at in this case.

Perhaps you two would like some insight into why Yahtzee doesn't like this particular kind of multiplayer.

He explained it in one of his other Extra Punctuation columns, namely one from almost two years ago:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/8560-On-Multiplayer

Now, for something else...

Also, complaining about mechanics only being used in ONE ONCE and then acting as if it would be something new? Well... may I point your attention to a little game called "Super Mario Bros. 3"? There were a few levels, which did just that: Have a mechanic in ONE Level. All leading the Kuribo shoe in World 4. Then there was the Sun in World 2, which also had just one level it existed. The red, flying beetles? Once again, just one level. Ability to change the size of enemies? Again, only used once.
That is NOTHING NEW to the industry.

Maybe, but the thing about SM3's ideas for level-specific mechanics was that they all served the platforming of the game, it's hard to imagine an entire game based around running from an angry sun without having a different mechanic to actually get away from it.

Now some of the once-used mechanics in Black Ops 2 on the other hand (like the mentioned Wingsuit) could very well be used to make an entire game on their own (heck, with some imagination you could probably make some sort of racing-game based around it), what Yahtzee was trying to get across was that Black Ops 2 instead chooses to use this to wipe it's own ass with it and throw it in a bin (metaphorically speaking of course) for the sake of getting you to the next group of enemies for you to kill.

Also, I would like to mention that the "Ability to change the size of enemies" wasn't present in SMB3, you're probably thinking of that one level in Super mario 64.
What was in SMB3 however, was an entire world where every enemy was giant.

Are they just so ideologically opposed to the idea of a game being about multiplayer rather than a structured linear single-player campaign they will indulge in the delusion that COD is popular for it's laughably shit singleplayer rather than its multiplayer.

All very true but most of the people who buy cod play it for the multiplayer most of them don?t even look at the single player.

This got me thinking: If it really is the case that the majority of players buy the games for the multiplayer (which I wouldn't doubt for a second), then wouldn't it make more sense to scrap the single-player campaigns and instead use the extra development-time to polish up the multiplayer?
Because let's face it, if we see people complaining about tacked-on multiplayer modes for singleplayer-focused games, then surely it wouldn't be too absurd of a thought to think that the opposite could be just as bad?