Black Ops 2 Is Like A Rich Jerk

[jmarquiso]

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.

Edit: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has sold about as much as Skyrim as of last week. Since I doubt Skyrim will be getting too many new sales and Christmas is coming up...it's going to beat Skyrim for sure. Just a small sidenote.

COD is actually going down in sales, causing concern for its owners.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/29/analyst-black-ops-2-sales-a-cause-for-concern-downgrades-act/

However, something selling like hotcakes says more about its marketing campaign and brand recognition than it does gameplay. I think there's a point to be made about introducing mechanics for setpieces and throwing them away. Also by only getting to the good bits, one can (I'm not saying this about Blops 2, just talking about a problem of design) get fatigued. Not in a good way. In a struggling way.

Now, COD seems to be a shooting gallery game - while doing something else. Shoot while in the back of a Jeep! On a plane! Jumping from a plane in a wingsuit!

Never changing the shooting at things as they pass by formula, but just changing the thing that your camera is attatched to! Mainly so we can see the spectacle and only that!

The thing about storytelling, and games, is that they're best when you feel that there was something to overcome, to beat. Something insurmountable. A WAR could easily be that thing. But CoD games aren't about that. They're one off action movies not about the little guy against a huge machine, but a huge machine attatched to wingsuits against several smaller machines.

Best stealth title of the year is easily Mark of the Ninja.

 

[Kopikatsu]

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.

Edit: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has sold about as much as Skyrim as of last week. Since I doubt Skyrim will be getting too many new sales and Christmas is coming up...it's going to beat Skyrim for sure. Just a small sidenote.

COD is actually going down in sales, causing concern for its owners.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/29/analyst-black-ops-2-sales-a-cause-for-concern-downgrades-act/

However, something selling like hotcakes says more about its marketing campaign and brand recognition than it does gameplay. I think there's a point to be made about introducing mechanics for setpieces and throwing them away. Also by only getting to the good bits, one can (I'm not saying this about Blops 2, just talking about a problem of design) get fatigued. Not in a good way. In a struggling way.

Now, COD seems to be a shooting gallery game - while doing something else. Shoot while in the back of a Jeep! On a plane! Jumping from a plane in a wingsuit!

Never changing the shooting at things as they pass by formula, but just changing the thing that your camera is attatched to! Mainly so we can see the spectacle and only that!

The thing about storytelling, and games, is that they're best when you feel that there was something to overcome, to beat. Something insurmountable. A WAR could easily be that thing. But CoD games aren't about that. They're one off action movies not about the little guy against a huge machine, but a huge machine attatched to wingsuits against several smaller machines.

Best stealth title of the year is easily Mark of the Ninja.

That's just the genre, though. First person shooters will inevitably be about shooting things (Unless you're running around being a knife Commando, I guess)

If you take away the shooting stuff, then it's no longer an FPS. Unless you have a way for an FPS to remain an FPS without shooting somehow?

I could make the same criticism of Super Mario Bros. Jumping! First you're jumping on some blocks and then off a pipe! Exciting! Holy shit, we're jumping clouds now! And just jumped back down into some water! Fuck yeah! Mario is far stronger than any of the enemies that he faces, too. Even Bowser seems like a degraded version of Fire Mario.

 

[jmarquiso]

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!!

I believe Yahtzee's talked about his views on multiplayer in general at length. In short he doesn't review it. You shouldn't view him if you're interested in his views on multiplayer. Rarely does it even come up.

 

[Treblaine]

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 ^_^

WHY?!?!

That's just dismissive of multiplayer. What of Team Fortress 2? Or Left 4 Dead?

Did you stop to think that Multiplayer is THE REASON for it's potential.

You seem to be automatically assuming that the single-player story mode is THE GAME, and that muliplayer is and always will be an ancillary extra. This is again this film-critic approach to games criticism, if it cannot fit into the mould of film criticism then it must be worthless from consideration, but what the heck do you think games ARE!!!? Just expensive live-rendered animated films where you just get to play out the stunt scenes yourself??!?

I mean they are clearly trying with the single-player, the problem is they:
#1 are not good at it
#2 don't have enough time anyway

It takes a LOT of time to make a good story, not enough time with a 24 month turnaround cycle. Hollywood film stories take AGES! Scripts are written years before they get shot and there is a long process of elimination looking for a good one that can actually work, and longer after than to make amendments and figure out the right way to shoot the movie and longer after that to edit it. And it's EASY to tell a good story with a movie compared to a video game.

 

[jmarquiso]

That's just the genre, though. First person shooters will inevitably be about shooting things (Unless you're running around being a knife Commando, I guess)

If you take away the shooting stuff, then it's no longer an FPS. Unless you have a way for an FPS to remain an FPS without shooting somehow?

Ah - I wasn't clear -

COD Single Player seems to be about shooting while being tethered to something else. The back of a jeep, on a wingsuit from a plane, while climbing a mountain, etc. Mainly so it could show off setpiece after setpiece. Not all FPS's do this.

Half Life 2 is about shooting and physics puzzles - but it's spaced.

Doom is about shooting while finding appropriate keycards and avoiding closet demons.

 

[Bindal]

The shoe appears in 3 levels
The sun appears in 4
The beetles appear in 2

Just saying.

You're wrong.

Just saying.

Unless we talk about two different "Super Mario Bros. 3" games, then no, none of these things made more than one appearance. I played the game about 50 minimum already, in 100%-runs, speed runs, mix of both, on the NES, SNES and GBA. Even got the official strategy guide (about 120 pages) and read that thing a good bunch of times.
And no, those things only made an appearance in ONE level each. And considering that this was a game with about 100 levels instead of 10 like CoD, that is actually EVEN WORSE than CoD. Heck, even if they were all in 5 levels, that would be relatively seen less than CoD had.


And yes - just because it's the same as usual doesn't mean he should plainly ignore it. I would be already fine with having one or two sentences. Just aknowledge that the MP is THERE is enough. But to simply ignore it as if doesn't exists? No, that's wrong, period.
Same for Zombies, which IS offering even new things. Again, he didn't even bother to mention that it EXISTED. He did so with BO1 (and indirectly WaW in the BO1-Video as well). It were just a few lines back then - but that's still more than nothing.

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?

If you took THAT out of the game, you didn't pay any attention, did you? The two mentioned events (Mission 1 and 3, respectively) take play in the 1980s and are actual black operations on regards of the CIA. The "That was textbook"-lines is from a successful Strike Force Mission in 2025. One that is NOT black but green and official. AGAINST AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT GROUP OF PEOPLE!
But hey - if you don't want to be taken serious anymore, keep on talking like that.

 

[jmarquiso]

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.

Actually the first Call of Duties were closer to classic WWII movies - more Band of Brothers than Michael Bay: The Game. Modern Warfare definitely has those very tropes. Frankly, Michael Bay: The Game sounds not just terrible, but exhausting. I mean, I loved Bad Boys, but after The Rock he just got more and more ridiculous, and the military tech porn isn't helping.

Why can't there be a Ridley Scott: The Game?

Oh wait - that's Max Payne 3.

 

[Kopikatsu]

That's just the genre, though. First person shooters will inevitably be about shooting things (Unless you're running around being a knife Commando, I guess)

If you take away the shooting stuff, then it's no longer an FPS. Unless you have a way for an FPS to remain an FPS without shooting somehow?

Ah - I wasn't clear -

COD Single Player seems to be about shooting while being tethered to something else. The back of a jeep, on a wingsuit from a plane, while climbing a mountain, etc. Mainly so it could show off setpiece after setpiece. Not all FPS's do this.

Half Life 2 is about shooting and physics puzzles - but it's spaced.

Doom is about shooting while finding appropriate keycards and avoiding closet demons.

That happens very infrequently. Like seriously less than one rail shooter segment per mission.

I guess I just never understood the complaint about setpieces. I will grant that set pieces can hurt replay value if they're static, but I play games like CoD and Uncharted specifically for the set pieces because it's boring otherwise. I'll give an example of what I mean:

Dynasty Warriors. Your combos are the same no matter what you do. An 'epic' fight with an enemy general basically devolves into you mashing square, square, square, triangle, triangle x 50 times until their health is depleted, at which point they fall over and die. To me, that's incredibly anti-climactic and boring (Although I still love the DW games)

Using the same 3-5 hit combo over and over again until the game arbitrarily decides that you've hit them enough to progress just seems...terrible to me. Compare it to something like Force Unleashed, where when you get their health down, you do something like Force Choke to lift them into the air, spear them with your lightsaber, then knock them up and Force Crush them to death. That's a lot more satisfying than just hitting them with my neon glowstick until they suddenly fall over.

Edit: Just realized I was talking more about QTE than set pieces. Oh well.

 

[Treblaine]

I believe Yahtzee's talked about his views on multiplayer in general at length. In short he doesn't review it. You shouldn't view him if you're interested in his views on multiplayer. Rarely does it even come up.

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

That source cites his dislike for the particulars of World Of Warcraft and doesn't get into anything inherent. There is one general dismissal of multiplayer

"I who have dismissed multiplayer as a mere dalliance on the edge of gaming's true potential"

Posted this review on 12th of September 2012.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6276-DayZ

Multiplayer online-only zombie game.

He reviewed it barley 2 months ago. HE commented on interacting with other players.

Yet he doesn't have anything to say about Black Ops 2's multiplayer OR Zombies games.

At the very least he could have played the combat training which was against bots but frankly he's being churlish to object to any possibility of human interaction with online multiplayer, it's not like there is much awkward broken teamwork or trust, it's mainly a way of getting player intelligence to be an effective and natural AI opponent.

It's an utter myth that Yahtzee "doesn't do multiplayer" he does, for reviews as well.

And even if was so adamant about not reviewing multiplayer games, then that is grounds for him NOT REVIEWING BLACK OPS 2 AT ALL! As he should recognise that's what Black Ops 2 mainly is.

Because if there was a critic who only reviewed multiplayer games, then he shouldn't call System Shock 2 a shit game because it has a tacked on co-op mode that isn't well balanced.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I believe Yahtzee's talked about his views on multiplayer in general at length. In short he doesn't review it. You shouldn't view him if you're interested in his views on multiplayer. Rarely does it even come up.

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

That source cites his dislike for the particulars of World Of Warcraft and doesn't get into anything inherent. There is one general dismissal of multiplayer

"I who have dismissed multiplayer as a mere dalliance on the edge of gaming's true potential"

Posted this review on 12th of September 2012.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6276-DayZ

Multiplayer online-only zombie game.

He reviewed it barley 2 months ago. HE commented on interacting with other players.

Yet he doesn't have anything to say about Black Ops 2's multiplayer OR Zombies games.

At the very least he could have played the combat training which was against bots but frankly he's being churlish to object to any possibility of human interaction with online multiplayer, it's not like there is much awkward broken teamwork or trust, it's mainly a way of getting player intelligence to be an effective and natural AI opponent.

It's an utter myth that Yahtzee "doesn't do multiplayer" he does, for reviews as well.

And even if was so adamant about not reviewing multiplayer games, then that is grounds for him NOT REVIEWING BLACK OPS 2 AT ALL! As he should recognise that's what Black Ops 2 mainly is.

Because if there was a critic who only reviewed multiplayer games, then he shouldn't call System Shock 2 a shit game because it has a tacked on co-op mode that isn't well balanced.

In Yahtzee's defense, he doesn't choose the games he reviews. He mentioned that he does get some say, but big name games like Black Ops 2 can't get a pass from him.

 

[jmarquiso]

That happens very infrequently. Like seriously less than one rail shooter segment per mission.

I guess I just never understood the complaint about setpieces. I will grant that set pieces can hurt replay value if they're static, but I play games like CoD and Uncharted specifically for the set pieces because it's boring otherwise. I'll give an example of what I mean:

Dynasty Warriors. Your combos are the same no matter what you do. An 'epic' fight with an enemy general basically devolves into you mashing square, square, square, triangle, triangle x 50 times until their health is depleted, at which point they fall over and die. To me, that's incredibly anti-climactic and boring (Although I still love the DW games)

Using the same 3-5 hit combo over and over again until the game arbitrarily decides that you've hit them enough to progress just seems...terrible to me. Compare it to something like Force Unleashed, where when you get their health down, you do something like Force Choke to lift them into the air, spear them with your lightsaber, then knock them up and Force Crush them to death. That's a lot more satisfying than just hitting them with my neon glowstick until they suddenly fall over.

Granted. Honestly it seems to be what I hear about when talking about CoD games from a design perspective. In this case the design complaint is *NEW TOY* *SETPIECE* *NEW NEW TOY* *SETPIECE* so we should probably stick to that. Setpieces aren't inherently bad.

Some games do setpieces rather well. Half Life 2 - for example - sort of invented that on rails shooter style, but rarely gets called out as much as CoD. The reason is pacing, largely. You're given breaks between shooting segments, you're being led around on a roller coaster ride, but in a way where you're meant to anticipate and prepare rather than let it happen. Further, they give you interesting tools (everyone mentions the Gravity Gun) which lead to interesting ludological solutions. While you're still being led on the nose, you actually feel like you're struggling against overwhelming odds. As such the "setpieces" it uses are actually in such a character arc.

Doom had quite a few of them. Introducing the Cyberdemon is one that immediately comes to mind. But it leads up to it. You spend some time fighting zombies than imps, then pinkies and eventually this hulking minotaur is introduced on an elevator ride. It's dark, you can't see, and then - there he is - in shadow. it isn't easy to get away. \

There's a difference between this and the sort of explosion/explosion/explosion spectacle that CoD can be.

My background is largely in film, and I find setpieces tiring for that very reason. A lot of writing lately has moved from careful character development to be about moving characters from setpiece to setpiece without regard to motivation. Just go from A to B and let the explosions happen. It's entertaining in the moment, but it really loses a lot. In a game, you're subjected to many more hours of it. And it really just fatigues the eyes, and oversaturates the senses. You can't appreciate the quiet moments. Because there aren't any.

 

[xptn40S]

That source cites his dislike for the particulars of World Of Warcraft and doesn't get into anything inherent. There is one general dismissal of multiplayer

"I who have dismissed multiplayer as a mere dalliance on the edge of gaming's true potential"

Posted this review on 12th of September 2012.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6276-DayZ

Multiplayer online-only zombie game.

He reviewed it barley 2 months ago. HE commented on interacting with other players.

Yet he doesn't have anything to say about Black Ops 2's multiplayer OR Zombies games.

At the very least he could have played the combat training which was against bots but frankly he's being churlish to object to any possibility of human interaction with online multiplayer, it's not like there is much awkward broken teamwork or trust, it's mainly a way of getting player intelligence to be an effective and natural AI opponent.

It's an utter myth that Yahtzee "doesn't do multiplayer" he does, for reviews as well.

And even if was so adamant about not reviewing multiplayer games, then that is grounds for him NOT REVIEWING BLACK OPS 2 AT ALL! As he should recognise that's what Black Ops 2 mainly is.

Because if there was a critic who only reviewed multiplayer games, then he shouldn't call System Shock 2 a shit game because it has a tacked on co-op mode that isn't well balanced.

Right, so now either you didn't read it all the way through or you didn't catch on to what really was the reason, so I'll just put it in this spoiler-box:

Spoiler

"There was a common thread here that made me realize something about myself, and it caused a lot of things to fall into place. I can't possibly hate multiplayer blanketly because that's the kind of thing that would characterise a total saddo with no friends, which I'm clearly not. I've enjoyed playing games like Left 4 Dead and Little Big Planet and System Shock 2 with the co-op patch, which sparked an enjoyable evening of yelling instructions to my partner in the next room. But I rarely play the competitive games available in the Mana Bar, getting exhausted by them very fast and preferring to stand by the bar glowering at everyone else's fun. I liked the jib of the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood multiplayer but could only tolerate actually playing it for short bursts. And I hate watching or participating in team sports, which dates back to being forced to play high school rugby in my shorts in weather so cold you'd have to run your hands under the hot tap in the changing room afterwards because your fingers were too numb to do your shirt buttons up.

And this all paints a picture of one thing: that I don't hate multiplayer in itself, I just hate competitive multiplayer. I'm fine until I'm expected to pit my skills against those of another and then I just get edgy. And I think I have a good grasp on why. It's because I have half of a competitive streak. When I say "half" I mean that a full competitive streak means that you love winning and hate losing, whereas I just hate losing and aren't particularly fussed about winning. So on the whole, from an accounting standpoint, it makes more sense just to not play at all. I play games to escape from the misery of daily life, not to feel all pressured from having to prove I'm better at some small meaningless task than some **** in Illinois."

Did you even read the column's second page?

 

[Treblaine]

In Yahtzee's defense, he doesn't choose the games he reviews. He mentioned that he does get some say, but big name games like Black Ops 2 can't get a pass from him.

Yeah, which begs the question WHY DIDN'T HE REVIEW THE MULTIPLAYER!?!?! He could have just said he couldn't review DayZ because he refused to go online and then done a joke review looking at some small indie games or his list of favourite mods.

He clearly has no actual problem with going online or with zombie modes.

He could at least have mentioned BO2's multiplayer, rather than act indignantly that the singleplayer was the entire selling point of the game and multiplayer is too insignificant to give any amount of attention.

Instead he clings to this arbitrary notion that "games must stand on their single-player alone" which the vast audience obviously does not ascribe to, yet he assumes they DO ascribe to and that they must like and approve of Black Ops 2's singleplayer, and chastises them for it. That's working backward from a false assumption.

I mean wasn't it enough having Russian playable characters in the story mode, a sympathetic Russian President and a US Army General as the bad guy enough? No. Still the allegations of racism and xenophobia. IT'S A WAR SHOOTER! Some people are going to get shot, the end of MW2 you were a pair of rogue Brits killing Americans, somehow still the entire COD series is jingoistic American propaganda?

No. It's a shooter. It's not obsessed with militarism, people who ARE obsessed with militarism HATE CALL OF DUTY!!! every gun video on youtube of a weapon that is named in call of duty, there's a top rated comment of a snide attack on the COD player-base for how inaccurately the guns are depicted and other minutia. It's not militaristic, it's trickshooting and throwing knives craziness. It's beyond even Michael Bay, it's well into John Woo territory with dual wielding and quick scoping lone wolf frenetic gunfights.

The COD playerbase aren't xenophobic, racist, republicans. They are frat boys who wouldn't see the sinking of a ship called the USS Barack Obama as an attack on his presidency, but prideful that he's such a significant president would get an Aircraft Carrier named after him.

 

[Kopikatsu]

My background is largely in film, and I find setpieces tiring for that very reason. A lot of writing lately has moved from careful character development to be about moving characters from setpiece to setpiece without regard to motivation. Just go from A to B and let the explosions happen. It's entertaining in the moment, but it really loses a lot. In a game, you're subjected to many more hours of it. And it really just fatigues the eyes, and oversaturates the senses. You can't appreciate the quiet moments. Because there aren't any.

While I do understand that point of view (Wanting more out of media than superficial action), I think the subject is a bit...weird.

James Bond, for instance. I don't expect there to be any character development in a James Bond film- not because he's mostly about explosions, sex, and gadgets; but because...there are probably like a hundred different books/films/video games about James Bond's whole shtick. Why would his character develop any from doing something that he's done a million times previously?

Conan is another one. Even within the native narrative, Conan has done it all and seen it all. There just isn't much room for his character to be fleshed out any more than it has been.

Which leads to my next point! New IP's are less risky for films than for video games, but they're still usually not looked highly upon. James Bond XXX (30, not porn. But also porn.) will probably sell better than, I don't know, that movie about Benjamen Button. But after so many adventures, there comes a point where a character bottoms out and becomes static. Basically, I'm saying that franchises and playing it safe is what led to the proliferation of mindless action movies.

However, that's not to say the solution is to produce a new IP. It's all been done before and everyone has seen it already. I'm not a big movie person, so I can't come up with a huge list of similar characters/plots, but even 'new' ideas are something people have seen before. Why spend time developing a movie based on the Hero's Journey or Journey to the West when it will be interchangeable with the thousands of other IP's following that set up that have come before it?

...If that makes sense. I'm not great at explaining things.

 

[Treblaine]

That source cites his dislike for the particulars of World Of Warcraft and doesn't get into anything inherent. There is one general dismissal of multiplayer

"I who have dismissed multiplayer as a mere dalliance on the edge of gaming's true potential"

Posted this review on 12th of September 2012.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6276-DayZ

Multiplayer online-only zombie game.

He reviewed it barley 2 months ago. HE commented on interacting with other players.

Yet he doesn't have anything to say about Black Ops 2's multiplayer OR Zombies games.

At the very least he could have played the combat training which was against bots but frankly he's being churlish to object to any possibility of human interaction with online multiplayer, it's not like there is much awkward broken teamwork or trust, it's mainly a way of getting player intelligence to be an effective and natural AI opponent.

It's an utter myth that Yahtzee "doesn't do multiplayer" he does, for reviews as well.

And even if was so adamant about not reviewing multiplayer games, then that is grounds for him NOT REVIEWING BLACK OPS 2 AT ALL! As he should recognise that's what Black Ops 2 mainly is.

Because if there was a critic who only reviewed multiplayer games, then he shouldn't call System Shock 2 a shit game because it has a tacked on co-op mode that isn't well balanced.

Right, so now either you didn't read it all the way through or you didn't catch on to what really was the reason, so I'll just put it in this spoiler-box:

Spoiler

"There was a common thread here that made me realize something about myself, and it caused a lot of things to fall into place. I can't possibly hate multiplayer blanketly because that's the kind of thing that would characterise a total saddo with no friends, which I'm clearly not. I've enjoyed playing games like Left 4 Dead and Little Big Planet and System Shock 2 with the co-op patch, which sparked an enjoyable evening of yelling instructions to my partner in the next room. But I rarely play the competitive games available in the Mana Bar, getting exhausted by them very fast and preferring to stand by the bar glowering at everyone else's fun. I liked the jib of the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood multiplayer but could only tolerate actually playing it for short bursts. And I hate watching or participating in team sports, which dates back to being forced to play high school rugby in my shorts in weather so cold you'd have to run your hands under the hot tap in the changing room afterwards because your fingers were too numb to do your shirt buttons up.

And this all paints a picture of one thing: that I don't hate multiplayer in itself, I just hate competitive multiplayer. I'm fine until I'm expected to pit my skills against those of another and then I just get edgy. And I think I have a good grasp on why. It's because I have half of a competitive streak. When I say "half" I mean that a full competitive streak means that you love winning and hate losing, whereas I just hate losing and aren't particularly fussed about winning. So on the whole, from an accounting standpoint, it makes more sense just to not play at all. I play games to escape from the misery of daily life, not to feel all pressured from having to prove I'm better at some small meaningless task than some **** in Illinois."

Did you even read the column's second page?

No, I didn't read the second page of the post. The new page layout since I was last on this site I didn't recognise the page-2 button being where it usually was.

I suppose that makes me the worst person in the world. Or maybe it was a relatable mistake.

But there were no buttons to click to read MY POST. Did you just get to the first sentence of mine, find an inconsistency and think "AH HA! I now can formulate a gotcha response and be snide about it rather than have a respectful discussion"? Well?

I'd like to know WHY you have ignored all I've said since then, particularly this part that is very pertinent:

And even if was so adamant about not reviewing multiplayer games, then that is grounds for him NOT REVIEWING BLACK OPS 2 AT ALL! As he should recognise that's what Black Ops 2 mainly is.

Anyway, now I've read it this just shows that yahtzee doesn't LIKE playing multiplayer... well I'm sorry that a small part of his job may involve doing something he doesn't like, but it's not like he has the worst job in the world. That is still not any sort of excuse for his poor journalism of reviewing Black Ops 2 as if it only consisted of the single-player campaign and drawing conclusions of the industry and playerbase from the success of the game on that assertion it was mainly singleplayer.

And Zombies as well. He skipped that as well even though it's such a major feature it can be a default launch option.

He says he doesn't want to be political, no I think he want to be political, he just doesn't want to deal with the consequences of being political. Kind of like wanting to eat a cake yet still have the cake after he's eaten it... so to speak.

 

[Darth_Payn]

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.

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.

You both hit the nail on the head with what's wrong with CoD & the other spunkgargleweewee games. The lack of change to the core of CoD's SP mode has caused it to stagnate and take wildly insane directions and not care about narrative logic or allow the player to do much to drive the story, often snatching control away for a set-piece cutscene. A waste of resources is what it is! OK, that's the end of my old man rant.

 

[DataSnake]

Doom had quite a few of them. Introducing the Cyberdemon is one that immediately comes to mind. But it leads up to it. You spend some time fighting zombies than imps, then pinkies and eventually this hulking minotaur is introduced on an elevator ride. It's dark, you can't see, and then - there he is - in shadow. it isn't easy to get away. \

I don't remember an elevator ride leading up to the big Cybie encounter in Doom 1. Are you talking about Doom 3 or something?

 

[hermes]

Honestly, the whole "OHH, The enemies are Black/Asians/Muslim, this game is so racist!!" argument is getting really old. He uses it in almost every single game at this point... I get it, you play as an American, and the other characters are not. That is not racism (although it might be jingoism depending of the context); and playing the racist card doesn't automatically makes any other point that you make (or don't) more valid.

The worst offender is still Uncharted. Its funny how he keeps attacking every game in the franchise with the same joke, and by the time he reaches 3, he says "the enemies are white, rich British, this game is so racist!"

Also, I agree with the people that says complaining about the quality of a game and never touching the very reason those games are made and sold is retarded. Its like buying X-Com and never playing anything but the multiplayer.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

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.

That's apples and bananas if you ask me. It's two different genres with different target audiences, goals and design philosophies; one focuses on multiplayer and the other doesn't have multiplayer at all, and one is part of a brand whereas the other is a new upstart. If you want to talk numbers, you may also want to take into consideration the CoD games have brought in less and less money recently. BLOPS2 is estimated to bring in 15% less than MW3, which in turn brought in 5% less than BLOPS1. Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/29/analyst-black-ops-2-sales-a-cause-for-concern-downgrades-act/
Meanwhile Dishonored did better than expected: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2012/11/28/dishonored-sales-exceed-expectations-could-become-new-franchise/

CoD's popularity stems from multiple sources. Especially as a multiplayer title: I'm fairly certain a good portion of purchases were made out of habit, to keep up with the latest trends, or in order not to lag behind your friends. Were this pull, that has nothing to do with BLOPS2's actual content, to be given to Dishonored, we'd probably looking at very different results.

 

[Lunar Templar]

snip

Know what? you should have gone with that rant for the Blops review over the one you used. I'd have actually enjoyed it.