Zero Punctuation: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

[Akimoto]

I found myself laughing more than I should in BLOPs 2, especially when the protagonist goes on a rampage (pity about his sister though). But I'm very sad about the chicken. One bite was simply not enough and the puppy's eyes are haunting my dreams.

From the looks of it, I suspect Yahtzee is tired of reviewing spunkgargleweewee games. Hang in there man!

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Why would you be so vain to think I am directly blaming you? Even with those words why would you think that? Is it ego mania?

No I assume you're talking to me because you're talking to me. If you said something that wasn't directed at me you should have put it in a different post to avoid confusion. It doesn't make me vain it makes you lazy.

Very well. If you don't want to get impeached don't have your staff break into the Watergate or get blowjobs from interns.

This has nothing to do with anything we were talking about. Making it stupid and pointless, like most of what you have been saying if it hasn't been related to our conversation.

Clearly I'm talking about you directly right? I quoted your post so I must be talking about you.

It implies that you are, and if you aren't then quoting my damn post is completly irrelevant.

 

[taltamir]

I haven't played this game so I don't know if its as racist as yahtzee claims... So lets give the benefit of the doubt and put that point aside for the purpose of this post

1. This "review" starts off by claiming only "whites" and "right wingers" like spunkgargleweewee games in general (which are clarified as games for really stupid people). There are stupid people of all colors and creeds.

Of course he later claims racist white people are liking it because the game itself is racist, that is a different thing and not an issue if true (I have no idea, didn't play game).

2. Yahtzee spews a torrent of racism on this "review". And justifies it by saying its ok to be bigoted towards men, white people, americans, and christians. On occasion justifying that justification with horrible generalizations (eg, all Christians are bigots and deserve to be mistreated). Offensive doesn't begin to describe it. There is no such thing as "acceptable" bigotry.

 

[lord.jeff]

I have a theory that Yahtzee just got really tired of all the sexism threads and this is his attempt to shift the bulk of the discussion on the forums.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Honestly, this whole thread has made me severely uncomfortable with all the seething going on.

For a little bit, I think I'm going to feel uncomfortable being a non-white escapist member. There's just... a lot of anger here.

Speaking as a young white somewhat wealthy heterosexual male gamer, I assure you that we aren't all racist entitled little shits.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

I think a lot of you are missing the point. Yahtzee implied that if someone like Menendez were actually trying to destroy the US military, he would be justified in doing so by sheer virtue of being nonwhite, non-American and from a poor country. That's where the review got disturbing and borderline racist, at least to me. Isn't that pretty much like saying that America deserved 9/11 because Bin Laden is nonwhite and non-American?

Either that or he was insinuating the writers were being paranoid to even imagine said scenario in the first place. But Treyarch was ordered to make a war game involving America and not set in World War II. There's not much leeway there; it's either someone nonwhite or the bloody Russians again, and we already knows how he feels about that. Painting the Americans involved, at least the ones in the past, as assholes and showing that there was no right side to take in the conflicts involved is both pretty accurate and rather progressive, considering. Even Spec Ops: the Line is about a minor conflict caused by a single looney who mostly only slaughters fellow Americans.

(Full disclosure: My understanding of this game is based on an incomplete playthrough I've been watching lately. Feel free to correct me if some deus ex machina shows up later in the game revealing how, no really, everything the Americans did the entire time really was justified.)

 

[dystopiaINC]

The game even has the Contras "rape and murder" Menendez's people.... And then the CIA assassinates his father and later some of the game's protagonists fuck up and kill his sister. But no, he's totally the bad guy not the product of botched American interventions.

did you play the game? did Menedez ever do anything that might warrant anything that ever happened to him? The CIA assassinated his father because he was a major Nicaraguan cartel leader. i can think off the top of my head a few things his father would have had to do TOO GET in the position never mind stay in power. not very savory things. ok so the CIA killed a drug lord.

to go further and the actual events of the story mendez is just as guilty as the rest

Spoiler

Woods did kill his sister. why? well maybe because he lost his shit and tried to throw a freaking grenade at the dude that bounced into the wrong room accident. but it's a cycle of revenge here Woods freaked out, why? because when he was POW Menedez tortured and killed his whole squad and left him to starve to death i a shipping container for weeks with the rotting corpses of his dead friends. So the next time he runs into him he looses his shit and an accident happened.

Menedez got revenge for that when he kidnapped Mason's son, tricked Woods into shooting Mason, Shot woods in the Kneecaps with a combat shot gun, did the same to Hudson before slashing his throat. and then tried to destabilize and over throw America and china and kill millions of people by taking control of an army of attack drones and sicking them on American and Chinese citizens.

Spoiler

yes he is such a sympathetic freedom fighter. yes he never hurt anybody big bad 'merica just had it out for him.

America was not the big enemy here this was a much closer interplay between Woods, Menedez, the Masons and the CIA. Manendez did things to people in "revenge" for what the CIA did to him people who had no hand in those events. Then that Person (woods) struck back and it had unintended consequences, then Menedez again upped the ante with his whole "destroy America and china for revenge" mission

 

[TAdamson]

-

You do know the real history of that period don't you? The US funded the drug dealers (The Contras) that the game explicitly states were raping and killing his people.

Iran Contra?

....No?....

 

[dystopiaINC]

-

You do know the real history of that period don't you? The US funded the drug dealers that the game explicitly states were raping and killing his people.

Iran Contra?

....No?....

Yes I know about the Iran-Cpntra bullshit I know trust me. that still has nothing to do with the atrocities Manedez directly took part in nor the things he did in the 2025 story arc. The story is about the cycle of revenge that keeps getting upped in scale over the years if anything the Iran-Contra issues are with Manedez's father to say he's sympathetic because his sister was killed by Americans is false when you look at the whole thing, just who killed his sister, why it happened and so on. and i call bull crap on using real history when it was never brought up in game never referenced. it may have been in the back ground but who knows. and besides black ops has not been playing by the same history books, masons shot jfk, the whole nova gas thing, and other weirdness like weapons being in service years before they were invented in the real world (blops1) toss that argument out the window. we don't know how the Iran Contra indecent played out on Black ops

 

[TAdamson]

-

You do know the real history of that period don't you? The US funded the drug dealers that the game explicitly states were raping and killing his people.

Iran Contra?

....No?....

Yes I know about the Iran-Cpntra bullshit I know trust me. that still has nothing to do with the atrocities Manedez directly took part in nor the things he did in the 2025 story arc. The story is about the cycle of revenge that keeps getting upped in scale over the years if anything the Iran-Contra issues are with Manedez's father to say he's sympathetic because his sister was killed by Americans is false when you look at the whole thing, just who killed his sister, why it happened and so on. and i call bull crap on using real history when it was never brought up in game never referenced. it may have been in the back ground but who knows. and besides black ops has not been playing by the same history books, masons shot jfk, the whole nova gas thing, and other weirdness like weapons being in service years before they were invented in the real world (blops1) toss that argument out the window. we don't know how the Iran Contra indecent played out on Black ops

I'm sorry. I have nbo sympathy for anybody in this story.

The only person who is remotely relatable is Menendez. Yes he's a bad guy but his outrage it totally personal and understandable.

"and besides black ops has not been playing by the same history books, masons shot jfk, the whole nova gas thing, and other weirdness like weapons being in service years before they were invented in the real world (blops1) toss that argument out the window. we don't know how the Iran Contra indecent played out on Black ops"

This is completely specious. If you want to write alt-history then you better make it damn obvious that you're writting alt-history.

All I get from the specific dates, people, and places featured in black ops is that the protagonists were probably prime actors in Iran-Contra or at least complicit and that shit happens off screen. It's heavily suggested with the presence of the contras in the dialogue and the fucking appearance of of Oliver North in what can only be called a cameo.

Much like in BlOps 1 the protagonists are the sort of people who were probably actively engineering the sale of cocaine and heroin to sponsor anticommunist activity. But no. In COD world Americans don't do that sort of thing.

 

[YCRanger]

I think the most important issue is that people have chosen to take the term 'spunkgargleweewee' and run with it.

 

[Vault101]

snip

I think you seriously need to calm down...so yahtzee didn't like a game you like....he's done that with my favorite games too, but I don't go off on rants insulting everyone because I'm a bit upset

 

[maninahat]

snip

Problem is, that mindset assumes that people in the most powerful, richest industrialized nation in the world can't ever be victims in the first place. And we can. We're flesh and blood, same as the rest.

Of course they (we) can be victims; but as far as video games are concerned, the US is always the victim. That's the aggravating part. The narrative is always about America being invaded by foreigners. Even when the game takes place in other countries, the emphasis is on how hard it is for American troops, rather than the strife of the locals. The BLOP games are designed to show the darker side of America, but they are still ultimately a story about heroic Americans trying to stop the outsiders.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

snip

Problem is, that mindset assumes that people in the most powerful, richest industrialized nation in the world can't ever be victims in the first place. And we can. We're flesh and blood, same as the rest.

Of course they (we) can be victims; but as far as video games are concerned, the US is always the victim. That's the aggravating part. The narrative is always about America being invaded by foreigners. Even when the game takes place in other countries, the emphasis is on how hard it is for American troops, rather than the strife of the locals. The BLOP games are designed to show the darker side of America, but they are still ultimately a story about heroic Americans trying to stop the outsiders.

Shooters were basically born in the US so is it really a surprise as to what their primary content is?

It's exactly like how the overwhelming majority of game developers are male, so male characters are always vastly more well-developed and characterized compared to female characters (that is, when they even show up).