But seriously what was up with that prison level in Advanced Warfare?

Bram Mcalmont

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Did anyone else feel a bit uncomfortable during that later level where you get captured and brought to the prison. I gave me a big concentration camp vibe especially with the body incinerator and the corpses in the labs like jesus christ. It's even worse when you remember that Manticore thing can "effect people of certain ethnic groups"
 

Elfgore

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Ever since "No Russian" was created, COD always tries a "shock" event in their games. Something to make the gamer uncomfortable or just so shocked they did that. Black Ops 2 had that container filled with bodies, Modern Warfare 3 had the child being killed, I can't recall Black Ops 1 and what it had. But I'm pretty sure it had one. Sounds like they don't plan on letting that feature drop.
 

MysticSlayer

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Elfgore said:
Ever since "No Russian" was created, COD always tries a "shock" event in their games. Something to make the gamer uncomfortable or just so shocked they did that. Black Ops 2 had that container filled with bodies, Modern Warfare 3 had the child being killed, I can't recall Black Ops 1 and what it had. But I'm pretty sure it had one. Sounds like they don't plan on letting that feature drop.
I think you can go back further than "No Russian" and look at the ending of CoD4's "Shock and Awe"/"Aftermath" level. It just didn't generate a lot of controversy like "No Russian", but considering everyone made a big deal of how powerful looking at the gritty aftermath of a nuclear explosion while you slowly die was, I think CoD has sort of just picked up on needing to throw in a few shocking scenes to try to recapture that effect.
 

RJ 17

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Elfgore said:
I can't recall Black Ops 1 and what it had.
I'd imagine the "Big Shocker" in BlOps was when you get to see up-close-and-personal what Nova 6 does to people. What with the face melting and all that. :p
 

sextus the crazy

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Elfgore said:
Ever since "No Russian" was created, COD always tries a "shock" event in their games. Something to make the gamer uncomfortable or just so shocked they did that. Black Ops 2 had that container filled with bodies, Modern Warfare 3 had the child being killed, I can't recall Black Ops 1 and what it had. But I'm pretty sure it had one. Sounds like they don't plan on letting that feature drop.
I was under the impression that Treyarch didn't do shockers, as that was IW's Shtick. To be fair I've only played the games from CoD4 to MW3, so I haven't seen any Treyarch shockers.
 

Tanis

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I'm more 'shocked' that this series has lasted as long as it has.

The SP has never risen above mediocre, and the MP just isn't as fun to me as some older games.
 

Sniper Team 4

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I felt extremely uncomfortable going through that place. So uncomfortable actually, that once you broke free, I shot the two scientists that you come across without a second thought. Anyone who was willing taking part in that place--and mass genocide--needed to be put in the ground. Apparently the game disagrees, as I was given a "Game Over" screen because I shot a surrendering enemy.
I think they put it in to show what happens when you don't have to answer to a higher power. ATLAS is a privately own business with so much power that they don't have to worry about international laws and stuff like that. I mean, did you see the part where they were walking through the dead and wounded U.S. troops and executing the survivors? That's pretty messed up.
 

XMark

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RJ 17 said:
Elfgore said:
I can't recall Black Ops 1 and what it had.
I'd imagine the "Big Shocker" in BlOps was when you get to see up-close-and-personal what Nova 6 does to people. What with the face melting and all that. :p
When I got to that point in Black Ops, I actually thought for a moment that the Nova 6 virus was going to turn them into zombies, and that the rest of the game from that point would be fighting hordes of zombies after a big Nova 6 attack in America somewhere.

I still wish the game went that way, it would have been a pretty sweet twist.
 

Sniper Team 4

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XMark said:
RJ 17 said:
Elfgore said:
I can't recall Black Ops 1 and what it had.
I'd imagine the "Big Shocker" in BlOps was when you get to see up-close-and-personal what Nova 6 does to people. What with the face melting and all that. :p
When I got to that point in Black Ops, I actually thought for a moment that the Nova 6 virus was going to turn them into zombies, and that the rest of the game from that point would be fighting hordes of zombies after a big Nova 6 attack in America somewhere.

I still wish the game went that way, it would have been a pretty sweet twist.
I know what you mean. I'm a huge fan of the zombie mode and story in those games. While I wasn't expecting it to turn people into zombies at that point, I was expecting something zombie-like to happen when you were going through the ship as Reznov. Why else would you give the player a pistol and have all those dead bodies hanging everywhere.
 

Bombiz

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Bram Mcalmont said:
Did anyone else feel a bit uncomfortable during that later level where you get captured and brought to the prison. I gave me a big concentration camp vibe especially with the body incinerator and the corpses in the labs like jesus christ. It's even worse when you remember that Manticore thing can "effect people of certain ethnic groups"
I thought it was supposed to kill who ever wasn't in Atlas database so that they could field the poison with out killing their own troops.
Did I miss something?
 

McGuinty1

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MysticSlayer said:
I think you can go back further than "No Russian" and look at the ending of CoD4's "Shock and Awe"/"Aftermath" level. It just didn't generate a lot of controversy like "No Russian", but considering everyone made a big deal of how powerful looking at the gritty aftermath of a nuclear explosion while you slowly die was, I think CoD has sort of just picked up on needing to throw in a few shocking scenes to try to recapture that effect.
The difference with the nuke in CoD4 was that it was genuinely affecting and worked with the rest of the narrative. Since then, they've been trying to top that moment by upping the shock factor, but forgetting to provide us with the context that made that moment genuinely shocking. They also got off on the wrong foot with "No Russian" because it was genuinely wrong-headed from both a narrative and game design perspective. Contrast that with the white phosphorous scene in Spec Ops, which felt earned and jived well with the tone, narrative and design of the game.
 

Kopikatsu

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McGuinty1 said:
MysticSlayer said:
I think you can go back further than "No Russian" and look at the ending of CoD4's "Shock and Awe"/"Aftermath" level. It just didn't generate a lot of controversy like "No Russian", but considering everyone made a big deal of how powerful looking at the gritty aftermath of a nuclear explosion while you slowly die was, I think CoD has sort of just picked up on needing to throw in a few shocking scenes to try to recapture that effect.
The difference with the nuke in CoD4 was that it was genuinely affecting and worked with the rest of the narrative. Since then, they've been trying to top that moment by upping the shock factor, but forgetting to provide us with the context that made that moment genuinely shocking. They also got off on the wrong foot with "No Russian" because it was genuinely wrong-headed from both a narrative and game design perspective. Contrast that with the white phosphorous scene in Spec Ops, which felt earned and jived well with the tone, narrative and design of the game.
How do you figure that?

In No Russian, you're never required to shoot civilians. If you do, that's on you.

In Spec Ops, you're forced to brutally murder hordes of civilians because reasons, I guess. If it were legitimately an option to kill the civilians to progress, then maybe it would work. As it is, it's just 'How dare you play this game, you monster? I hope you feel terrible for what we made you do!'
 

MysticSlayer

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McGuinty1 said:
MysticSlayer said:
I think you can go back further than "No Russian" and look at the ending of CoD4's "Shock and Awe"/"Aftermath" level. It just didn't generate a lot of controversy like "No Russian", but considering everyone made a big deal of how powerful looking at the gritty aftermath of a nuclear explosion while you slowly die was, I think CoD has sort of just picked up on needing to throw in a few shocking scenes to try to recapture that effect.
The difference with the nuke in CoD4 was that it was genuinely affecting and worked with the rest of the narrative. Since then, they've been trying to top that moment by upping the shock factor, but forgetting to provide us with the context that made that moment genuinely shocking. They also got off on the wrong foot with "No Russian" because it was genuinely wrong-headed from both a narrative and game design perspective. Contrast that with the white phosphorous scene in Spec Ops, which felt earned and jived well with the tone, narrative and design of the game.
I wasn't saying that to criticize CoD4, just to point out that the idea of throwing in some form of shock value has been with the franchise for much longer than MW2.

Also, I don't think "No Russian" was ever meant as just a shock tactic to add an extra edge to the story. That's what it ultimately turned into because information about it got leaked, there was a controversy, and the controversy was a convenient point of criticism from those who dislike violence and/or dislike CoD. But in terms of the narrative, it does a lot. It offers final motivation for the Russians, offers an explanation of how the U.S.'s allies (mostly) abandoned them, and, given final revelations, acts as a decent criticism of just how terrible an effect America's jingoistic nationalism can have on civilians (something CoD rarely addresses). And I seriously doubt that those ideas would have been conveyed nearly as well if the developers had just left it as a piece of news mentioned in radio chatter during a mission. Putting the players in the shoes of an American soldier doing things "to stop terrorism" let us see first-hand how horrible it was while also keeping the presentation very much steeped in the interactive nature of a game. Even if it had less interaction than most of the rest of the game, it still was far more engaging as an interactive experience than watching a cutscene would have been.

Sure, MW2 had problems with its story. But you have to ignore a vast majority of the story to say that "No Russian" was just shock value with no meaningful place in the story. Yes, it was an unnerving part of the game, but that was simply because it was handled so well.
 

Nooners

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Sniper Team 4 said:
XMark said:
RJ 17 said:
Elfgore said:
I can't recall Black Ops 1 and what it had.
I'd imagine the "Big Shocker" in BlOps was when you get to see up-close-and-personal what Nova 6 does to people. What with the face melting and all that. :p
When I got to that point in Black Ops, I actually thought for a moment that the Nova 6 virus was going to turn them into zombies, and that the rest of the game from that point would be fighting hordes of zombies after a big Nova 6 attack in America somewhere.

I still wish the game went that way, it would have been a pretty sweet twist.
I know what you mean. I'm a huge fan of the zombie mode and story in those games. While I wasn't expecting it to turn people into zombies at that point, I was expecting something zombie-like to happen when you were going through the ship as Reznov. Why else would you give the player a pistol and have all those dead bodies hanging everywhere.
I'm reminded of something imagined in another old CoD thread...let me see...

Moloch Sacrifice said:
Nooners said:
This gets me thinking on other ideas. What if the CoD campaign went supernatural? Gave the player all the usual overpowered toys, and then make them almost useless in the face of Cthuluoid abominations or super-advanced aliens? That could be seriously fun. Anyone else on board with this idea? It's not like the controls/gameplay for CoD are bad at all, it's just this overwhelming sameness that's boring us (I think).
That would be amazing. I can imagine our stereotypical CoD player getting into the swing of things, gunning down some mooks, maybe calling in an airstrike or two. He's fist pumping, probably shouting "Hoo-Ra!" every now and then. At this point, the odds are clearly in his favour, and he starts to feel pretty omnipotent.

Eventually, we get to the point where he's marking an enemy position for an airstrike, and he knows the drill; point laser, angry terrorist man goes boom. Except this time, some freakish Abomination pulls the jet out of the air like it was a toy. This Thing is a monstrosity; not even remotely humanoid, there are tentacles, eyes, spines and organic things that look like they should never have evolved. It's so large, and so horrifyingly alien, that the player can't even tell how much of it they can see, and it's already dominating the skyline.

The disciplined radio communication dissolves into panicked wailing and confusion the men around you are dissolved, impaled, and devoured as you watch, and your grizzled-white-man partner is crying on the floor screaming for his mother. CoD fanboy gets given all the toys: airstrikes, orbital weapons, maybe even a tactical nuclear strike. All the while, the thing continues to spread it's horrifying form without so much as a consideration to the firepower being levelled at it.

Eventually, and through his own reasoning, CoD boy realises that, for the first time in his gaming life, he has to run. So he runs. An officer orders him to stop, but he keeps going. Contact with this thing is instant death, and the player is chased and herded by the monstrous appendages growing and spreading around him. Eventually, he makes his way into a basement or subway, holes himself up as best he can, and waits in the darkness, hoping for a reprieve...
 

Diablo1099_v1legacy

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Personally, I hated that level because up until that moment, Irons had kinda sold me over on Atlas being the good guys.
I mean, he basically told the UN to go fuck itself for being lazy enough to outsource all the crisis's they didn't want to deal with to him and for being retarded enough to allow a Corporation to join the UN Security.
Besides, US-style capitalism is most likely what allowed him to basically build what amounts to the Hyperion Corporation from Borderlands.

Personally, after his address to the UN, how I figured it was going to work was that he was going to use Mantacore for Mutual Assured Destruction reasons.
"Alright, you got Nukes, I have a kill switch for everyone who doesn't work for me. How about we talk things out, now that you've basically outsourced all your military to me?"

I think Jim touched on this in his review about the plot, I haven't gotten to the end of it yet (Watching an LP), but I really feel they missed something interesting there by having Irons basically turn into Hitler and shoving people into tiny glass boxes and digging mass graves.
Seriously, I get they have to be edgy and shit, but I honestly don't get how he went from "I want to basically do what the UN can't and end pointless wars like the one my son died in." to "Right, current record holder is Chairman Mao. Lets top that..."

I mean, what exactly does he get out of death camps? How exactly does that help him in any way? I wouldn't mind it as much if they at least explained it instead of "Lol, he's evil!"
I mean, I GUESS they have to make him evil enough to be a villain, but it would have made the plot a lot more interesting if they made it a grey area as well as being a lot true to what I feel Iron's character could have been.