Zero Punctuation: Call of Duty: Ghosts

[warpoetry]

holy shit he made a Ghost Dog reference. I love Yahtzee.

 

[Dalisclock]

The Wolf Among Us next plz? Also he gave Cod a right good bashing now maybe people will stop buying that crap for good.

He's bashed every COD with the exception of 4. In the past, this was one of the few things I disagreed with Yathzee on(he hated the games, I generally liked them). Though this one sounds idiotic enough to make me not want to bother.

I still think they should have focused on the 141 and covered (part of) the 5 year gap between MW and MW2. But apparently I'm not smart enough to be a game developer.

 

[Raiha]

i get the feeling yahtzee wrote the bulk of this script while reviewing black ops 2 last year. i kinda hope he skips COD next year, it must be tough to review the same game 4 times

 

[RicoADF]

Wait a minute WHAT!? Orbital missile platforms? Did Activision miss the part where those were outlawed by the Geneva Convention? That's a freaking war crime waiting to happen right there! And who exactly is the US going to nuke? This all coming from a freaking American!

Correction, it's not the geneva convention that bans WMD's from space (that was drafted before World War One, well before such things existed), it's the Outer Space Treaty drafted in 1967 between the US, UK and Soviet Union. Other nations have since joined currently sitting at over 100 nations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

OT: Latest CoD game has gotten worse, suprise suprise, I haven't bought a CoD since MW1 and even that was when it was on sale, the others I have only due to friends gifting them to play coop (I refuse to waste my money on the series).

 

[Razorback0z]

Get the Foreigner song "Dirty White Boy" in your head then replace the lyrics with "Burley White Dewd"

Oh well it was funny when I thought of it

 

[Da Orky Man]

Wait a minute WHAT!? Orbital missile platforms? Did Activision miss the part where those were outlawed by the Geneva Convention? That's a freaking war crime waiting to happen right there! And who exactly is the US going to nuke? This all coming from a freaking American!

To my knowledge, only WMDs is space are outlawed. If I remember rightly, the weapon in Ghosts is more akin to the Rods From God weapon, which though massively more expensive and equally as effective as ground-launcher missiles, are allowed under the Space Treaty.

The Geneva Convention was negotiated before the first man-made satellite, and was largely about human rights during warfare.

 

[IrisNetwork]

Anyone else unable to shake the feeling the Spec Ops: The Line may have warned us about the orbital space cannon bit?

Seriously, someone please acknowledge this, it's driving me crazy.

Well, the white phosphorus in Spec Ops was used in a similar way to the orbital laser. Only Spec Ops made you look at what the blipping lights were later.

 

[blackrave]

CoD needs futuristic US civil war setting
But not the lazy scenario (copying past North vs. South war, but with lasers)
Something more interesting- maybe conglomerate of companies vs. government?

I hope they didn't give all the villians Mexican accents (please, please tell me they didn't).

You know what? At least this would make the game somewhat entertaining
Imagine if every enemy character sounded like stereotypical latinos gang member
Or even better- make them sound like characters from AliG Indahouse
Then at least we would know that it is a parody
But noooo, everything is so goddamn serious, so straightfaced it becomes creepy

 

[blackrave]

Wait a minute WHAT!? Orbital missile platforms? Did Activision miss the part where those were outlawed by the Geneva Convention? That's a freaking war crime waiting to happen right there! And who exactly is the US going to nuke? This all coming from a freaking American!

.
.
.
O_O

I just realized something
What if player never receives full story
And the full story is
US spat on international agreements and started to launch WMD platforms into space
Rest of the world tried diplomatic approach, but it failed
Then UN was threatening US with economic blockade (how long US could stand with oil supplies?)
US threatened back with said WMD platforms
As a response teams of russian and chinese hackers hacked these satellites
Next step would be military enforcement
South America invading US was only the first wave (being relatively close to US)
Second wave of attack would be united front of European, Asian and African forces
That would be sequel to Ghosts (in the end player blasts all of remaining world- as the response nuclear superpowers launch missiles towards US)
In the end it would be US vs. World
And nobody wins

Captcha: what if?
Exactly captcha- what if?

 

[blackrave]

Hasn't there been nuclear war yet in the Call of Duty series? Why not just have an old fashioned resource war as the setup for a game? The United States can still have the killbots and high tech stuff, but lack of resources to maintain the high tech gear makes them very valuable but only as an ace up the sleeve when the situation is dire. It also justifies people we normally wouldn't think of as threats being antagonists, they're the strongest simply because they were the least f-ed up by the previous war. Further, with the simple goal of getting the resources to keep their own civilization going, it would set up moral ambiguity which would come across as more genuine.

Because the it would make too much sense
And that would make US bad guys (and we can't have it right?)
And it would remind story of Fronlines

Spoiler: extremely short recap of Frontlines:Fuel of War story

Energy resources are scarce, Coalition (US+NATO+others) tries to takes over oil rich country of Alliance (Russia+China+others), Alliance retaliates, global hijinks ensues

And even in Frontlines Alliance was presented as villains ("They shoot first, who stabbed who prior to that doesn't matter, now stop thinking and be all patriotic'n'shit!")
Tradition I guess :/

P.S. I just posted 3 times in a row- maybe I should stop for a moment.

 

[DataSnake]

For example; I don't remember the exact details, but I think there was a paratrooper unit that was disbanded because they were torturing prisoners for shits and giggles. This was only a decade or two ago.

We blamed "a few bad apples" and then tried to change the subject, you guys actually disbanded the unit. Therein lies the difference.

Then we have Mayor Rob Ford representing the largest metropolis in our nation and the people who refuse to stop supporting him.

You think that guy's bad? How quaint. Here's a small sample of the idiocy produced by the US political process:

Spoiler: Ted Cruz

Spoiler: Louie Gohmert

Spoiler: Hank Johnson

Spoiler: Rick Santorm

Spoiler: Rick Perry

Spoiler: Paul Broun

Spoiler: Michele Bachmann

EDIT: on a different note:

The weapons in Ghosts are inspired by Project ODIN, which uses kinect kill weapons dropped from orbit. These are perfectly legal as they are not classified as WMDs due to not being "Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical" which is how the treaties define WMDs. The only reason we havent built a real version is that the cost of getting the tungsten poles from earth to orbit is so costly that it would out weigh its strategic value.

Best. Typo. Ever.

 

[lickilax]

Wait a minute WHAT!? Orbital missile platforms? Did Activision miss the part where those were outlawed by the Geneva Convention? That's a freaking war crime waiting to happen right there! And who exactly is the US going to nuke? This all coming from a freaking American!

.
.
.
O_O

I just realized something
What if player never receives full story
And the full story is
US spat on international agreements and started to launch WMD platforms into space
Rest of the world tried diplomatic approach, but it failed
Then UN was threatening US with economic blockade (how long US could stand with oil supplies?)
US threatened back with said WMD platforms
As a response teams of russian and chinese hackers hacked these satellites
Next step would be military enforcement
South America invading US was only the first wave (being relatively close to US)
Second wave of attack would be united front of European, Asian and African forces
That would be sequel to Ghosts (in the end player blasts all of remaining world- as the response nuclear superpowers launch missiles towards US)
In the end it would be US vs. World
And nobody wins

Captcha: what if?
Exactly captcha- what if?

If only activision had the testicles but this is not spec ops
I`m sad that these games can`t just go the saits row route already, its nuts just admit it Activision cod is nuts, stop pretending to be serious its really jarring.
Or what you are suggesting with the whole no one wins route, where the whole thing is designed to make war look like shit, which you SHOULD do because war is in fact pretty shitty.
I want either the next game to be over the top and not vaguely realistic or a game that goes back to its roots but they are not going to do that.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

For example; I don't remember the exact details, but I think there was a paratrooper unit that was disbanded because they were torturing prisoners for shits and giggles. This was only a decade or two ago.

We blamed "a few bad apples" and then tried to change the subject, you guys actually disbanded the unit. Therein lies the difference.

Then we have Mayor Rob Ford representing the largest metropolis in our nation and the people who refuse to stop supporting him.

You think that guy's bad? How quaint. Here's a small sample of the idiocy produced by the US political process:

Spoiler: Ted Cruz

Spoiler: Louie Gohmert

Spoiler: Hank Johnson

Spoiler: Rick Santorm

Spoiler: Rick Perry

Spoiler: Paul Broun

Spoiler: Michele Bachmann

EDIT: on a different note:

The weapons in Ghosts are inspired by Project ODIN, which uses kinect kill weapons dropped from orbit. These are perfectly legal as they are not classified as WMDs due to not being "Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical" which is how the treaties define WMDs. The only reason we havent built a real version is that the cost of getting the tungsten poles from earth to orbit is so costly that it would out weigh its strategic value.

Best. Typo. Ever.

Found the incident I was talking about; the Canadian Airborne Regiment. Disbanded in 1995 due to the death of a Somali teen at the hands of known white supremacists who also happened to be our most elite soldiers. The commanding officers knew they were white supremacists but sent them anyways. To Somalia.

Shouldn't have happened in the first place.

I'm sure I could find statements just as stupid if I went through the records. No one knows about them because we're just Canada.

I can tell you that the leader of our largest military base, Russell Williams, stalked women, broke into their houses and eventually killed a few.

 

[IPunchWithMyFists]

Anyone else unable to shake the feeling the Spec Ops: The Line may have warned us about the orbital space cannon bit?

Seriously, someone please acknowledge this, it's driving me crazy.

Well, the white phosphorus in Spec Ops was used in a similar way to the orbital laser. Only Spec Ops made you look at what the blipping lights were later.

How beautifully prophetic, I love Spec Ops, goddamn.

 

[KDR_11k]

The weapons in Ghosts are inspired by Project ODIN, which uses kinect kill weapons dropped from orbit. These are perfectly legal as they are not classified as WMDs due to not being "Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical" which is how the treaties define WMDs. The only reason we havent built a real version is that the cost of getting the tungsten poles from earth to orbit is so costly that it would out weigh its strategic value.

Don't they destroy a whole city with that sat in the game? That would make it a WMD regardless of the nature of the payload. Same for the microwave beam cannon in Vanquish though that game is just designed to be 100% ridiculous anyway.

 

[PunkRex]

Fucking South America, are you shitting me!? Christ, lets just drop any semblance of reality COD and have the freaking English do it, thats more plausible than FUCKING SOUTH AMERICA!!!

It's a game, why does it need to be 100% realistic? People complain about them being the same so they try using an enemy that is hardly ever used instead of reusing China or Russia for the millionth time.

Look guy/gal, there's a difference between having fun with an idea and being straight up stupid. From what little I know of South America they can just about cobble together a legitimate political party let alone a unified freaking military force capable of invading the US. What are they gonna invade with, farmers mounted on the backs of drug lord hippos!?

Heres an original premise for game developers, the US aren't the under dogs. There, i'm fairly sure when they've rolled with this idea in the past it's worked well.

Look, i'm not ragging on the actual game. I'm one of those people who thinks the vast gaming media should back off the COD games, it's not their fault every out of touch suit wearing mofo feels the need to try and mimic their stuff.

But if COD really wanna score points with me I wanna see the US invaded by te Clangers.

Look a them... what are they planning up there?

 

[Two-A]

CoD needs futuristic US civil war setting
But not the lazy scenario (copying past North vs. South war, but with lasers)
Something more interesting- maybe conglomerate of companies vs. government?

I hope they didn't give all the villians Mexican accents (please, please tell me they didn't).

You know what? At least this would make the game somewhat entertaining
Imagine if every enemy character sounded like stereotypical latinos gang member
Or even better- make them sound like characters from AliG Indahouse
Then at least we would know that it is a parody
But noooo, everything is so goddamn serious, so straightfaced it becomes creepy

Fair enough.

If I ever make a videogame, I'll make sure to include an option that changes all American accents to Canadian ones.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

I thought this game was going to a prequel be about the guy Ghost from MW2.
Hell, where does Ghosts fit in COD Canon anyway?

I know that:
COD4 > MW2 > MW3
and
Black Ops > Black Ops 2

But unless this is a different timeline...

I know it's nitpicking, but why else would they base the Ghosts off Ghost from MW2?

 

[Triality]

Great video Yahtzee. I bought earlier this year and blew through it quickly. Very funny read. The end left me feeling a little emptier for how many of the cast you killed off whether they deserved it or not. For a comedy story it turned rather depressing in the darkest hour after the climax. I hadn't felt that way since playing Conker's Bad Fur Day. Shame on you, entertaining me.

 

[Spud of Doom]

Very well done this week Yahtzee. You actually took a lot of swings at it that I had not even heard from other sources, but totally made sense. One of the stronger recent episodes.