Black Ops Will Be Brutal, But Not Gratuitous, Says Treyarch

[GideonB]

So they got rid of the useless and pointless missions like shooting a bunch of civilians? THANK GOD. I thought No Russian was useless. And pointless. And FUCKING STUPID.

 

[Kelethor]

Im sorry, but when I read a comment like this I get so....frustrated. If your viewing the innocent people gunned down in a Russian air port as one's and zero's....then your not playing the game right. either the game has not immersed you into it's world (which does happen, A lot) , or you yourself have refused to become immersed into the game, and in doing so, have caused the game to have far, far less of an impact than it would. the people in that Air-port all had families, friends, husbands, wives, daughters, children, parents...all of whom are now dead, at your hand, all for the sake of a cover up, that will inevitably fail. playing through No Russian twice is heart-breaking. because you know your going to murder all these innocent people...for nothing.

I hope you aren't simply posting this out of a desire to look "tough" on the internet. and I do hope that in the next gaming narrative you experience, you try and look at it as more than just one's and zero's. you'll have a lot more fun that way.

No, they don't have families. They are all digital representations of humans with no real emotion. They follow a predetermined path and sound files are played to make them seem human, but they are not and they never will be.

Morality is subjective. What is wrong to someone is right to someone else. You may think that No Russian is wrong, I see nothing controversial about it. There is nothing more than a few blood splatter textures and the people fall into ragdoll mode. Compare that to any of the kills in God of War 3, like Hermes, Helios, Kronos, Hades, etc. All of those are MUCH more graphic and brutal but No Russian is worse just because the "people" "dying" are meant to be civilians?

The reason No Russian is deemed controversial is because of the fact that it hit's rather close to home. at the time of CoD's conception, America (along with the majority of the western world) was afraid of terrorism. now, for the most part we still are, but why No Russian is deemed controversial, was because gamers are put in the position of the terrorist. you play the part of someone that the world both fears and hates. Gaming has always been something of a touchy subject among certain...groups. (Fox news, Politicians, Etc) The fact that these same groups of people are now seeing gaming portray you, the player, as the greatest threat to national security, is what made No Russian controversial. Kratos killing off the Greek Pantheon, while far more Graphic and violent, has little precedence in the modern world.

But im not talking about the Controversy (or lack there of) Of No Russian. im talking about your flat out refusal to immerse yourself. You can tell yourself that what your killing are polygons and pixels, but in doing so, aren't you only making the game that much less fun? Gaming, at it's core, is about escapism. its about allowing you, the player, too do things you never could do in the real world. by constantly telling yourself that what your doing is nothing but pushing buttons and watching a series of pixels react to one another, your only denying yourself the key element in what makes gaming so enjoyable. immersion. to convince yourself that what your doing here matters, that it will have some sort of effect in the world.

If I may use Dragon Age as an example, The Grey Warden's saved millions of lives due to their sacrifice, your sacrifice as a player. by putting yourself in the shoes of a grey warden, Ferelden and the people who inhabit it become real. Weather they live or die lies in your hands as a player. without immersing yourself into the world, gaming will lose it's appeal.

 

[demoman_chaos]

The reason No Russian is deemed controversial is because of the fact that it hit's rather close to home. at the time of CoD's conception, America (along with the majority of the western world) was afraid of terrorism. now, for the most part we still are, but why No Russian is deemed controversial, was because gamers are put in the position of the terrorist. you play the part of someone that the world both fears and hates. Gaming has always been something of a touchy subject among certain...groups. (Fox news, Politicians, Etc) The fact that these same groups of people are now seeing gaming portray you, the player, as the greatest threat to national security, is what made No Russian controversial. Kratos killing off the Greek Pantheon, while far more Graphic and violent, has little precedence in the modern world.

But im not talking about the Controversy (or lack there of) Of No Russian. im talking about your flat out refusal to immerse yourself. You can tell yourself that what your killing are polygons and pixels, but in doing so, aren't you only making the game that much less fun? Gaming, at it's core, is about escapism. its about allowing you, the player, too do things you never could do in the real world. by constantly telling yourself that what your doing is nothing but pushing buttons and watching a series of pixels react to one another, your only denying yourself the key element in what makes gaming so enjoyable. immersion. to convince yourself that what your doing here matters, that it will have some sort of effect in the world.

If I may use Dragon Age as an example, The Grey Warden's saved millions of lives due to their sacrifice, your sacrifice as a player. by putting yourself in the shoes of a grey warden, Ferelden and the people who inhabit it become real. Weather they live or die lies in your hands as a player. without immersing yourself into the world, gaming will lose it's appeal.

Terrorists are the biggest threat? I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that. The peopel labled as terrorists are not the real biggest threat. The real biggest threat comes from within our borders, corruption. I won't dive into details because I could talk for days about it, but a handful of Muslim extremists trying to drive and foreign occupying force out of their lands is hardly a threat. If a middle-eastern profressional army attempted to overtake America, they would be thoroughly decimated in minutes, let alone a few rebel militia killing more of their own people than anything.

MW2 was not immersive because the game loved switching between perspectives and throwing you all around. An immmersive game doesn't kill your character multiple times during cutscenes. Doom 2 with its pixel monsters was more immersive because you didn't have to stop every few seconds to let your mutant regen powers take over. Mutant health regen is helpful, but breaks the immersion when every few seconds because your screen turns red all the time.
Realizing exactl what is happening does more good than wrong. If you think you are actually butchering innocents, it will screw with your mind. Once you realize exactly what is going on, you aren't effected by any on the many moments in games that could tramuatize the unprepared minds. Plus breaking it down like that when someone argues games are bad will throw them off.

 

[Kelethor]

The reason No Russian is deemed controversial is because of the fact that it hit's rather close to home. at the time of CoD's conception, America (along with the majority of the western world) was afraid of terrorism. now, for the most part we still are, but why No Russian is deemed controversial, was because gamers are put in the position of the terrorist. you play the part of someone that the world both fears and hates. Gaming has always been something of a touchy subject among certain...groups. (Fox news, Politicians, Etc) The fact that these same groups of people are now seeing gaming portray you, the player, as the greatest threat to national security, is what made No Russian controversial. Kratos killing off the Greek Pantheon, while far more Graphic and violent, has little precedence in the modern world.

But im not talking about the Controversy (or lack there of) Of No Russian. im talking about your flat out refusal to immerse yourself. You can tell yourself that what your killing are polygons and pixels, but in doing so, aren't you only making the game that much less fun? Gaming, at it's core, is about escapism. its about allowing you, the player, too do things you never could do in the real world. by constantly telling yourself that what your doing is nothing but pushing buttons and watching a series of pixels react to one another, your only denying yourself the key element in what makes gaming so enjoyable. immersion. to convince yourself that what your doing here matters, that it will have some sort of effect in the world.

If I may use Dragon Age as an example, The Grey Warden's saved millions of lives due to their sacrifice, your sacrifice as a player. by putting yourself in the shoes of a grey warden, Ferelden and the people who inhabit it become real. Weather they live or die lies in your hands as a player. without immersing yourself into the world, gaming will lose it's appeal.

Terrorists are the biggest threat? I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that. The peopel labled as terrorists are not the real biggest threat. The real biggest threat comes from within our borders, corruption. I won't dive into details because I could talk for days about it, but a handful of Muslim extremists trying to drive and foreign occupying force out of their lands is hardly a threat. If a middle-eastern profressional army attempted to overtake America, they would be thoroughly decimated in minutes, let alone a few rebel militia killing more of their own people than anything.

MW2 was not immersive because the game loved switching between perspectives and throwing you all around. An immmersive game doesn't kill your character multiple times during cutscenes. Doom 2 with its pixel monsters was more immersive because you didn't have to stop every few seconds to let your mutant regen powers take over. Mutant health regen is helpful, but breaks the immersion when every few seconds because your screen turns red all the time.
Realizing exactl what is happening does more good than wrong. If you think you are actually butchering innocents, it will screw with your mind. Once you realize exactly what is going on, you aren't effected by any on the many moments in games that could tramuatize the unprepared minds. Plus breaking it down like that when someone argues games are bad will throw them off.

the level of threat that a Terrorist can bring aside, you do make some good points. MW2 is hardly what I would call an opus of gaming, but it knew how to pull at the heartstrings of the public. at the time, terrorism was considered (and, still is) a very sensitive topic. to put you, the gamer, into that position, when no other game had done such a thing before, was...well, new. gunning down hopeless civilians as they scream in fear for there "pixelated" lives was an interesting experience, one that I think gaming as an idea will be better off for.

Health bars are of course not realistic, but they are useful than the traditional "Screen turning red" shtick that seems to be present in most next gen shooters. weather or not immersion and escapism can "Screw with your mind" is up for debate. now, obviously playing CoD to the point that you think your a real solider and should join the military is a horrible idea, but I like to think that most sane individuals can recognize the difference between escaping the real world too fight of the Russians, and the "real" real world, where the Russian's would never invade the U.S. (or at least haven't yet) the same argument was used In DnD, where angry and controlling parental figures claimed that the people who played DnD couldn't tell the difference between the characters they are role-playing and reality. they were wrong then, too.

There's nothing wrong with letting the pixels affect your lifestyle. your game will become a lot more fun, and when someone thinks back on that game, weather it be damning the soul of an unborn baby to save your own life, or fighting back the Russian invasion and staging a coup d'eta against a power hungry and insane General, I can only hope they remember the game as more than Pixels reacting to one another due to a push of a button.

 

[Lunar Shadow]

Interest rising. As the son of a Black ops Vet I have heard stories of the kind of thing that goes on (also the reason fro my great respect of SEALS. Weren't for them I would not have been born)so I am glad they are going with "brutal but not gratuitous". Black Ops are messy, and that's what I want over some Bay-esque explosion fest.

 

[demoman_chaos]

the level of threat that a Terrorist can bring aside, you do make some good points. MW2 is hardly what I would call an opus of gaming, but it knew how to pull at the heartstrings of the public. at the time, terrorism was considered (and, still is) a very sensitive topic. to put you, the gamer, into that position, when no other game had done such a thing before, was...well, new. gunning down hopeless civilians as they scream in fear for there "pixelated" lives was an interesting experience, one that I think gaming as an idea will be better off for.

Health bars are of course not realistic, but they are useful than the traditional "Screen turning red" shtick that seems to be present in most next gen shooters. weather or not immersion and escapism can "Screw with your mind" is up for debate. now, obviously playing CoD to the point that you think your a real solider and should join the military is a horrible idea, but I like to think that most sane individuals can recognize the difference between escaping the real world too fight of the Russians, and the "real" real world, where the Russian's would never invade the U.S. (or at least haven't yet) the same argument was used In DnD, where angry and controlling parental figures claimed that the people who played DnD couldn't tell the difference between the characters they are role-playing and reality. they were wrong then, too.

There's nothing wrong with letting the pixels affect your lifestyle. your game will become a lot more fun, and when someone thinks back on that game, weather it be damning the soul of an unborn baby to save your own life, or fighting back the Russian invasion and staging a coup d'eta against a power hungry and insane General, I can only hope they remember the game as more than Pixels reacting to one another due to a push of a button.

So a rampage of mass murder in GTA or Saints Row is not terrorist like? Postal 2's madness is not terrorist like? MW2 was far from the first game to include terrorism. Only reason I see that people seem to think that it is because it is stupidly popular and has terrorism that calls itself terrorism. Most other games have it but don't call it anything besides just another gameplay hour.

All the politicians and church people say video games can make you violent, but they are living in their own reality outside of the rest of us.

Letting games effect your lifestyle can be a bad thing, like letting God of war convince you murdering hordes of dogs is alright (dogs are one of the few things besides people GoW has for you to kill that exists in reality).
Getting immersed is another story. Immersion is good, but only when you realize when the game is turned off and you should snap back to reality.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Black Ops is sounding better and better. Here's hoping Treyarch delivers. I'm rooting for oyu guys!

 

[Therumancer]

Well when you do anything set in Vietnam, and try to make it realistic, I imagine it would be hard not to make it dark, gritty and controversial to someone. When I watch gameplay, I think I'm looking forward to the quiet stuff more than the crazy, whiz-bang shooting and chaotic battles. I would like to see missions where there's little fighting in them at all. It's been done before but it always ends the mission with a mandatory 'things go tits up' part.

One of the reasons why I think Vietnam will be shied away from for some time is that it's too much of a defining event for the "Baby Boomers" and since it's actually likely to make them and their politics look bad if done correctly, it would be asking for trouble since they seem to still have their hands on the reins of most power in the US.

I say this because Veitnam was a good war in principle, bad bad in reality largely because the forces we came to support were not actually the pro-democracy group that they claimed to be. In order to "win" we would have had to pretty much wipe out both sides nearly to a man, and then rebuild the survivors from the ground up into a whole new society in order to complete our objectives. The problem mostly being that we committed to intervene in a civil war we did not understand.

That said there aren't many ways one can make a bunch of draft dodging hippies, the way the troops were treated by their own people, and the efforts of people like Jane Fonda to undermine the war our own people were fighting look good.

When you consider that a lot of the current morality was defined by those hippies, who are a lot of the same people working against the current war, a game about a bunch of soldiers trying to resolve a civil war where both sides are actually evil, while their own people ridicule them as freaks, and baby killers, and actively work to undermine them is going to PO some people. Maybe in another 10 or 20 years when there are less boomers in power it will become more practical.

The Veitnam experience would probably involve moments like experiencing the war through the eyes of a soldier who is wounded, taken to the medical tent, and then ooops a bunch of hippies replaced the morphine and saline solutions in the IV bags with salt water and nobody caught it....

I'm sure they will try, but I expect they will be walking on eggshells for those parts so they won't really get it right. Part of the whole "fun" is not just gritty jungle warfare but the whole domestic situation making life peachy for those fighting for their country.

 

[Marathax]

I want to believe that this will be a good game, but after Call of duty Modern Warfare 2 came out and i played it, i was let down. The astounding amount of hackers and general lack of gameplay really left me out and now, even though there may be a lot more changes to this game makes me not want to play it, especially if there's going to be a nuke involved in this game. Call of duty has started to lose its shine and i've only played one of its many games, so i guess thats just like destroying a whole tree because only one of it's fruits were rotten.

Back to the point, i think that this will be another disappointing epilogue in the series that is just a money grab, although that could be me.

 

[MarsProbe]

Clicking a button labled fire and making a batch of polygons and pixels recieve damage, eventually falling over when their damage limit is reached and they are labeled as dead is the same no matter what the arrangement of polygons is supposed to look like (terrorist, civilian, alien, Spiderman, etc.).

Simple fact is killing anything in any game is exactly the same, it is all a hodgepodge of little triangles covered in little squares processed by something tha tonly reads in 1's and 0's.

Okay, so this is an interesting theory. So, you basically view all NPCs in games as nothing more than arrangements of polygons/pixels (which in technical terms is what they are, granted) but in the context of the game, that's not really how it works.

But as this is how you see things, let's try an example. On the one hand, you have a fairly standard FPS situation : a whole horde of big ugly aliens to kill. These aliens will most likely have 7 legs & arms, more than one head each and generally look as inhuman as possible. You wouldn't have a problem killing them, I'm sure.

On the other hand, you have a game that takes you through a hospital and incidentally into a maternity ward of sorts. In there, you also have a gun, so you would of course have the option to open fire on the people there, which would be likely to include a fair number of newly born children. It may be an extreme example to use, but given your rather cold view of things, it would be interesting to know if you would be able to act in the same way in both situations.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Okay, so this is an interesting theory. So, you basically view all NPCs in games as nothing more than arrangements of polygons/pixels (which in technical terms is what they are, granted) but in the context of the game, that's not really how it works.

But as this is how you see things, let's try an example. On the one hand, you have a fairly standard FPS situation : a whole horde of big ugly aliens to kill. These aliens will most likely have 7 legs & arms, more than one head each and generally look as inhuman as possible. You wouldn't have a problem killing them, I'm sure.

On the other hand, you have a game that takes you through a hospital and incidentally into a maternity ward of sorts. In there, you also have a gun, so you would of course have the option to open fire on the people there, which would be likely to include a fair number of newly born children. It may be an extreme example to use, but given your rather cold view of things, it would be interesting to know if you would be able to act in the same way in both situations.

Depends, are they hostile? If they aliens aren't hostile, I wouldn't bother wasting ammo. If they were hostile I'd blast them to bits. Just like the babies. If they aren't doing anything to bother me because crying loudly, I'd leave them alone. If they came at me with an assault rifle and knew how to use it, then I'd take them out.

Were you expecting me to say, "Sure I'd kill the babies for the sake of it because they will turn into enemy soldiers if I let them live so better to take them out before they learn how to kill me?" What it boils down to is the situation. Sure the civilians in No Russian weren't firing back but neither are 70% of the people you kill in games like Saints Row. No Russian was pretty much a training level, teaching you how to fire at moving enemies and easing you into learning to take cover when people shoot back.

 

[Nouw]

Sounds good. Hopefully I get to see something similar to Saving Private Ryan's Beachhead. See people picking up arms, guts spilling. And maybe an epic knife fight like at the end.

 

[KaiRai]

"He said that the game would get under people's skin and make them feel 'angry or righteous or sad,'"

I sure did get angry at Treyarch's last COD game, because it was terrible.

Dunno about you, but I'd take WaW over MW2 any day.

Pretty much agree with you there.

I loved WaW because it was so much more realistic. Made you feel like you were there. Stood out among all the other WW2 shooters there is.

 

[guntotingtomcat]

Got to say, you didn't actually have to kill the civillians in that level. It's more like you're an observer, rather than a participant. The mission doesn't end if you don't kill any civillians.

Killed a lot of police and lightly armed airport security in that level though, but apparently that's okay.

 

[Kelethor]

the level of threat that a Terrorist can bring aside, you do make some good points. MW2 is hardly what I would call an opus of gaming, but it knew how to pull at the heartstrings of the public. at the time, terrorism was considered (and, still is) a very sensitive topic. to put you, the gamer, into that position, when no other game had done such a thing before, was...well, new. gunning down hopeless civilians as they scream in fear for there "pixelated" lives was an interesting experience, one that I think gaming as an idea will be better off for.

Health bars are of course not realistic, but they are useful than the traditional "Screen turning red" shtick that seems to be present in most next gen shooters. weather or not immersion and escapism can "Screw with your mind" is up for debate. now, obviously playing CoD to the point that you think your a real solider and should join the military is a horrible idea, but I like to think that most sane individuals can recognize the difference between escaping the real world too fight of the Russians, and the "real" real world, where the Russian's would never invade the U.S. (or at least haven't yet) the same argument was used In DnD, where angry and controlling parental figures claimed that the people who played DnD couldn't tell the difference between the characters they are role-playing and reality. they were wrong then, too.

There's nothing wrong with letting the pixels affect your lifestyle. your game will become a lot more fun, and when someone thinks back on that game, weather it be damning the soul of an unborn baby to save your own life, or fighting back the Russian invasion and staging a coup d'eta against a power hungry and insane General, I can only hope they remember the game as more than Pixels reacting to one another due to a push of a button.

So a rampage of mass murder in GTA or Saints Row is not terrorist like? Postal 2's madness is not terrorist like? MW2 was far from the first game to include terrorism. Only reason I see that people seem to think that it is because it is stupidly popular and has terrorism that calls itself terrorism. Most other games have it but don't call it anything besides just another gameplay hour.

All the politicians and church people say video games can make you violent, but they are living in their own reality outside of the rest of us.

Letting games effect your lifestyle can be a bad thing, like letting God of war convince you murdering hordes of dogs is alright (dogs are one of the few things besides people GoW has for you to kill that exists in reality).
Getting immersed is another story. Immersion is good, but only when you realize when the game is turned off and you should snap back to reality.

With your last sentence, I think the immersion debate can safely come to a close. but as for your statements on GTA and Saints Row (haven't played Postal so I cannot make a statement on it) I guess it all comes down to what people think when you say terrorist. sadly, when the word terrorist is brought up, most North Americans will think of the same thing. a male, of middle-eastern decent, with a bomb strapped to his chest is this moral? of course not, but that is what comes to mind to many,if not most people, when someone mention's terrorists. also, I found that Saint's Row had a certain...comedic flare to it. you could certainly butcher thousands of people with a wide variety of weapons, but you could also throw shit at people's house. now, this may be just me, but I don't think I would be afraid of a terrorist who threw poo at my house. Id most likely just laugh.

GTA, while hardly as funny SR 2, suffers from the "terrorist Prejudice". For Example, let's say a white man (Nico Bellic) were to hold someone hostage for ransom. the news headline would be something along the line as "Criminal's kidnap young woman!" were as say a person that the authorities can Identify as middle eastern descent, the headlines would read "Terrorist hold's young girl hostage!" and this is hardly GTA IV fault, as indeed, many of the actions committed in the game (Hijacking, Murder, intimidation, ETC) would qualify as acts of terrorism, but don't because when most people look at Nico Bellic, they don't see a terrorist. they see a Russian immigrant.

 

[Ryley Bonk]

"He said that the game would get under people's skin and make them feel 'angry or righteous or sad,'"

I sure did get angry at Treyarch's last COD game, because it was terrible.

soooooooooooo u like terrible games like mw2?
ok the story was meh and the online was pretty much copied from mw1 WHICH WAS AWEFUL *shudders at OPed guns and noobtubs after 10 kills
i trust treyarch to make another great game and mw2 was VERY lucky that Yatzee did not try the online as he would have tore it to pieces

 

[Ryley Bonk]

and i hate how cod mw and mw2(american made game) portray Russians as evil terrorists
y does america hate Russia???????????????????

 

[Korolev]

Playing it safe, eh? That's fine. That's their decision. I've never really supported gratuitous violence in videogames anyway. Some violence, yeah, but I've never been that much of a fan of over-the-top mayhem.

Well, I mean, hyperviolence can work in some games, but it gets tiring if it's in every game. As good as MW2 was, I did feel a little tired and perplexed at the amount of absurd violence in the game, especially in "No Russian" and "Take Down". I understand that Infinity Ward felt the need to top MW1, but it was a bit too frantic.

If they take a slower, more realistic approach that would be better. I mean, covert-ops is covert-ops, not "Rambo with a Sniper Rifle".

Having said all that I won't be buying black ops unless the price comes down significantly. It's just no longer the game for me. It will probably be good, but well, after MW2, I think I'll stop playing FPS games for a while.

 

[Korolev]

and i hate how cod mw and mw2(american made game) portray Russians as evil terrorists
y does america hate Russia???????????????????

Most Americans don't hate Russians. They're used as a stock villain. They are recognizable, they come from a big country and they are portrayed as being all white (while in reality, the amount of ethnic minorities in Russia is huge, they are certainly not all white) so that means that they can be used as a big evil villain without the accusation of racism being levelled at the director.

In short, because Russians were used as the bad-guys in so many American books, TV shows, films, and videogames, it is a safe choice to use as a villain.

It's also the most realistic. Pretty much no nation in the world can invade the US (due to the US having the world's bes blue-fleet navy by far), but if anyone could even try it would be Russia. Russia is still a strong country. It's no longer a super-power, but it still has thousands of nuclear warheads in bunkers.

So in short: Using Russians as the "bad-guys" is politically safe, easy to do, and familiar to the audience.

 

[Funkiest Monkey]

Treyarch has not failed to impress me. I have high hopes for BlOps.