Black Ops 2 Is Like A Rich Jerk
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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Considering I'm actually talking about reducing COD's attempt at cinematic experiences (sensation to sensation to sensation), I think you should really read the content before going off on it. I'm actually damning both mediums for finding themselves doing the same thing.Treblaine said:
And you know what, it's largely due to similar problems with high budget titles. Producers have certain scenes in mind, and they have to get there - somehow.
And yes, I do think games are SUPERIOR when they have a good narrative framing around it. Not necessarily a plausible or logical one, but a good one. Super Mario Bros has a spartan narrative, but uses it well. It's a classic Road Movie / Hero's Journey structure - rescue the princess from a giant lizard creature, there's a ton of obstacles on the way. Whole early romantic stories were written with this very plot. It's the Odyssey with interactive buttons. And it's great because LESS is definitely more in this case.
Doom has an incredibly small plot, but it's a elegantly rendered narrative - mainly because you don't notice it. I'm sort of a minimalist when it comes to narrative.
I agree, gameplay comes first. CoD - in its quest for Michael Bay like sensationalism - has sacrificed gameplay for something inferior to narrative - sensationalism.
The James Bond franchise was floundering, and the needed some reinvigoration. Eon Productions - the company behind James Bond - was even dealing with losing sales and interest into their pet franchise. Indeed, they were seriously in trouble, believe it or not. So they made a deeper action movie... out of poker.Kopikatsu said:
Casino Royale was an attempt to deepen and develop James Bond by creating - essentially - a prequel. It took him to Skyfall to become the Bond we all know, but now with a deeper understanding of the character. Audiences are more taken with the Craig Bond for this very reason. They still manage to have the beautiful and amazing setpieces and stunts, but they're grounded in character.
While with film, the addage is show don't tell. With games it's Do, don't say. In games like Call of Duty, they barely let you DO and affect the game in any way. This isn't inherently wrong, it's simply shallow. And while that's what people want from the franchise, it'll continue to sell well for a time.
What Yahtzee was saying - and I obviously agree - is that it seems like a waste of riches. Other games take singular or limited mechanics and develop around them. COD simply uses and discards them. I don't like shallow gameplay beyond saying, "it's fun" in short bursts. But afterwards experiences like this leave me hollow. By contrast, Hotline: Miami has incredibly limited mechanics, but I'm incredibly compelled by that game and its use of level design. Mark of the Ninja was one of the best games I played this year, certainly up there in the Stealth genre. Even Deus Ex: Human Revolution felt like more of a game - which has its share of setpieces - that stuck with me for a long time. Or Portal 2 - an on rails First Person Puzzler - plays with the mechanics just enough to keep things interesting, and cuts off just before it gets repetitive (for me, at least - though I agree with Yahtzee's assessment that it's a sight-seeing tour with puzzles in it). Left 4 Dead is - like Call of Duty - about going from point A to B, but gameplay is expressed in how you treat the rest of your team, and how you play. You aren't guaranteed a certain amount of success or seeing a decent amount of effects. The game just let's you DO.
Have you played Black Ops 2? This isn't a negative comment directed at you, because Yahtzee didn't even mention it either.jmarquiso said:
If not, I'd strongly recommend that you look at one of my earlier threads, especially the post by Tippy. I think his was number 4-ish? (You'll understand why when you get there): http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.394298-Choices-of-Black-Ops-2
You're absolutely correct here. Perhaps it's more the military fetishization that Michael Bay has brought to the table (other filmmakers have done this with more respect - from Oliver Stone to John Ford). This sort of interest in military tech is 100% fantasy and 100% superficial. It's looking at a gun and seeing potential to look cool, not dangerous potential to be respected. So yeah, I agree, new tech means a superficial showcase of stuff that - as you say - is complete fantasy, and not that interesting beyond its surface.Treblaine said:
It's like watching John Voigt stand during Pearl Harbor, complete and utter fantasy and sensationalism used over any kind of deeper understanding.
So you're right, CoD has as much interest in military tech as Armageddon had with NASA. Let's make it LOOK stunning and interesting, but let's not make it anything more that plot contrivance or convenience.
Wow. That's really fascinating. I guess we didn't expect it from previous experience with COD, so yeah, no, I hadn't played or noticed that. I'm really just trying to explain what I understood from the review. You're right, I may have misjudged it. This is just something about the franchise that has bugged me for awhile. Good on Treyarch.Kopikatsu said:
Now I haven't played Black Ops, so I'm not going to comment directly on it. I'm glad to see that such choices exist.
Spec Ops: The Line did this. It gave you obvious binary choices, and then players managed to find third or fourth choices, and things got built up from there. For example:
There's a point where you could choose to shoot a water thief or your own squadmate, with snipers ready to take you out if you don't do it. Players discovered a third choice - shoot the snipers. Or another spot where you aren't obviously given a choice - in which citizens are around you throwing stones, and the only way through is to shoot forward. Players discovered you can shoot into the air.
When I'm talking about agency though - I'm not simply talking about narrative choice. It's more - is there strategy involved. Is there something deeper than "headshot here". When you're strapped to the back of a jeep, these are standard practices of a shooting gallery type game - a game that hasn't evolved much past the carnival guns showcases of yesteryear. Again - not a BAD thing in any way. Just shallow gameplay so one could have the sensation of being nearly blown to bits.
That's the point I was making earlier, though. It doesn't matter what Call of Duty does by this point, those who have already written off the series will most likely continue to decry it (as Yahtzee has). So why try to pander to those people when they already have a huge, well established market? Treyarch responded to some criticisms of the game and got multiple page fulls of 0's on Metacritic for the effort.jmarquiso said:
The people who decry Call of Duty from the onset are just as guilty (if not moreso) of the stagnation of the industry than the people who buy into it without a second thought.
Anyway, I'm glad you brought up Spec Ops. Games like Spec Ops have been and are being made. If you want a deep, thought provoking experience on the theme of war, you have those games to satisfy that itch. Call of Duty is made for an entirely different crowd who like to shoot through walls with x-ray scopes and rain death on (monetarily) poor brown people with advanced jets. Do games that are mostly for mindless fun not have a right to exist as well? Must every game about war be either ARMA 2 or Spec Ops: The Line in order to be not universally derided as shit on every gaming forum ever?
Sterling is a populist. The only time he touches on anything remotely controversial, it's usually in dealing with sexism or homophobia in gaming. Otherwise it's always on the consumers side stuff, and it's really very shallow without much investigation into things like DRM and the like that he's crusaded against. Not to say I disagree, but his arguments to straw-men industry people are usually "No, don't buy it, fuck off". I prefer deeper discussion.BarbaricGoose said:
Yahtzee's entire shtick is to tear down a game - whether he likes it or not. He tore down Just Cause 2, which made his top game of that year. He tore down Arkham Asylum, and it was his top game THAT year. He'll say whether he liked it in the end, but after tearing it a new one each time. We also know - especially from his Extra Punctuation columns - what his personal preferences are. He hates:
1) Multiplayer
2) Regenerating Health
3) Knee High Walls
4) Linearity
And yet, if those games do those things well, he'll be sure to mention it, as he had done with TF2 and Portal (in the same review!). So yes - he's harsh when those things show up. Sometimes he'll warm up to it if it's done well.
Part of following critics is knowing their biases and whether they match your own. Follow these personalities. I know what Jim Sterling likes and dislikes. I know what Yahtzee likes and dislikes. The same with Susan Arendt, Tom Chick, and Jeff Gerstmann. This would give me a better idea of whether I'd like a game than anything else.
That's certainly a fair point. Up until this review, the reviews I read of Black Ops 2 has been largely positive. Honestly what had me write off this game were the trailers, the plot, my history with the franchise, and hiring Ollie North as a spokesman. This might have been unfair, but every step in their marketing told me that this game is simply not for me.Kopikatsu said:
A quick glance at metacritic show 6 positive reviews, 2 mixed, 0 negative. 78 out of 100, so the positive was at the low end of the positive. As Yahtzee gives no score, he isn't counted among them.
Out of the military shooters this year (Medal of Honor, etc) Spec Ops is the only "deeper" military shooter. The majority will be the thrill-seeking style games that they are.
But let's go to COD4: Modern Warfare. It was a brilliant game (Yahtzee even liked it). But then it grew to become a sensation seeking thrill-seeking game with Modern Warfare 3. Part of this issue is the need to have the game come out every year, gaming innovation is incremental at best. There isn't enough time to come up with greater, deeper gameplay, and really test it. What I got out of the modern warfare games - gameplay wise - was not new ways to frame and vary shooting (and shooting down sites), but rather more shooting (and occasional stabbing) from different corridors. Nothing wrong with it, but not my type of game.
I don't see how my demand for varied gameplay and different settings is stifling innovation. I just don't buy the games that don't appeal to me. I'll give a franchise a fair shot, here and there.
Edit:
And also my desire for these games shouldn't take away from the fact that general audiences obviously LIKE Call of Duty.
However, it should be taken as a warning sign that they're actually downgrading Activision due to Black Ops II's performance.
Those are the 'professional' reviews, which is why I specifically mentioned it as being universally derided on gaming forums, not by the gaming community as a whole.jmarquiso said:
I wasn't referring to you when I was talking about people who decry it without giving it a chance though. I meant people like this [http://www.destructoid.com/metacritic-user-reviews-do-the-usual-poop-on-black-ops-ii-238504.phtml]
I've never played COD 4, to be honest. I really only 'started' the series with Black Ops 2, specifically because I was so sick of literally everything being blamed on the series, I had to go see what was so horrible and soul-ruining about the franchise myself.
Fair point. There's a reason I don't stick to gaming forums or user review scores for if I want to buy a game or not. Spec Ops: The Line I didn't want to get due to its marketing. It was all the praise and stuff afterward that had me give it a second look. As mentioned earlier - I find reviewers, find their biases, and go with that.Kopikatsu said:
COD 4 is a defining game in its genre. Modern Warfare 2 and 3 just basically took that and said "more of more of the same". I only played a little of Black Ops 1 off of my roommates Xbox. It seemed to be a more compelling story to me, but according to him it didn't fulfill on the promise. There's a lot of interesting history with military Black Ops, and it had potential - it just didn't go there. I don't know much about Black Ops 2 as much as what the trailers told me, and it told me not to be interested. Specifically in how they used Ollie North. The Iran Contra affair was a dark point in US history, but there were definite reasons for it, whether you agree with them or not (I'm in the "or not" category, if it weren't obvious). \
I'll probably give it a fair shake on a free weekend on Steam or something.
Other games have multiplayer, but COD is almost a whole order of magnitude more popular, consistently, every year. But I dislike the multiplayer, I complain about it and yet at the same time am compelled to play it... yet feel so unsatisfied from it.poiuppx said:
I value Yahtzees insight, with his humerus take he is often able to find simultaneously why something has such strong appeal yet at the same time why it is so awful.
THAT is my burning question! WHY! Why so popular yet so reviled, so loved yet so hated? But I feel he has - how can I put it - unhelpful focus. Focusing his critical eye on the singleplayer he's over-analysing the trivial part and going off in crazy directions.
I want him to make sense of the phenomenal success yet low opinion of COD's multiplayer, why they are the only ones who can do it. I NEED him to do this. I'd honestly feel betrayed if he said it was just a good multiplayer, because it isn't, it's so frustrating and ungratifying.
No, it's not "fighting off the evil foreigners". 50% of the time in Multipalyer you are non-Americans killing Americans. MW2 the final acts was killing nothing but Americans with the explicit intent of killing an American General. The player is REPEATEDLY put into the perspective of non-Americans and non-whites. Enough with the racism and xenophobia jibes, they are factually incorrect.In Search of Username said:
The games does lament the discarded soldier, Woods discarded and forgotten in a retirement home. There is lamenting the lack of recognition for efforts. Hell, the apathy of the American public to soldiers deaths was reason for General Shepard going rogue and is presented as a genuinely sympathetic motivation. It's hackneyed and ineffective, but it's there.
And the game isn't "rich" in gameplay features, COD games are made CHEAPLY. It's not rich to have on rails mechanics, those are far cheaper to develop than smaller games having fully fledged mechanics. The IDEA of a flying suit may be something that other smaller games may long for, but COD doesn't ACTUALLY have that, it has an on the rails mechanic and a character model of a flying suit that is NOT AT ALL an expensively wrought out game mechanic.
You want to know where most of the COD money goes other than to the private bank accounts of the executives of Activision? It goes into marketing.
It's not a rich game, the thoroughbred money-earning horse of rich executives.
1) He attempts to avoid multiplayer unless it is a major part of the game play. He has said this multiple times that he feels that Multiplayer should not be a deciding factor on whether a game is good or not and it shouldn't be a cruch for bad games. So he avoids them unless their necessary. So unless its Super Smash Brawl, Borderlands or Left 4 Dead or anything similar to that, he is most likely not going to "fire up" the multiplayer and personally, I don't think that his refusal to play the multiplayer means that he hasn't played the game.BarbaricGoose said:
2) He's not a critic. He's a satirist and there is a very....VERY...big difference.
Ahh, I think I see your position now. My appologies, but in my defense you had obscured it slightly before. I confess, I wouldn't mind seeing a Yahtzee disection of the MP, why it attracts and repels players, etc. Though I imagine he'd be raked over the coal on a Super Smash Bros. level for doing so. I'd also honestly rather see that as its own seperate video... as I said before, my wonk is single-player. And if there's one thing I love, it's when I get a game he's reviewed to rewatch the old review after playing for a bit, just to add a bit of extra context to the jokes and opinions. A video where he ignored or downplayed the single-player in exchange for the MP would likely be something I myself would be bothered by, unless there was another five-minuter devoted to it. Such is the price of time constraints that to go the road you or I prefer, something must end up on the chopping block.Treblaine said:
Still, that would be interesting. Maybe even as its own seperate encapsulating video where he could examine modern FPS MP as a whole. It'd be absurdly biased and insulting, but it'd be interesting to see him line up the current crop and show their faults and foibles.
Okay, let's calm down a bit.Treblaine said:
I never presumed (and I don't think Yahtzee did either) that CoD fans like the game for its single player or that buying/liking a game for the multiplayer when it has a shit campaign story makes them stupid.
Yahtzee and people with similar gaming tastes (such as myself) judge games primarily based on their single player component because that is what they care about the most.
Millions of people bought Black Ops II for its multiplayer and judge it by its multiplayer because that is what they care about.
Neither group has objectively stronger case. It's all opinion.
The fact that CoD is popular and sells millions? All that means is that the second opinion is the more popular opinion; that is all. It doesn't lend more credence to that opinion and it doesn't mean that Yahtzee, or anyone else, is "missing the point." With CoD, or anything else for that matter, people will judge it for what they care about.
heres the multiplayer review:
its the same as always just reskined.
thas what you want yatzee to say? that you spend 60 dollars for a reskined multiplayer?
its the same as always just reskined.
thas what you want yatzee to say? that you spend 60 dollars for a reskined multiplayer?