Zero Punctuation: Call of Duty: Ghosts

[Saika Renegade]

I wonder what it says when the last 60 seconds or so of disjointed observations about a murderous jam apocalypse make more sense than the plot of the triple-A title being reviewed.

That said, Ghosts is really not anything new. The devs claimed it would be, but even the dog thing was done in Dead to Rights Retribution before, and at least there the game shows that Shadow is just as violently inclined on his own as Jack Slate (talk about a match made in heaven there). It's a plot so flimsy and with implications so unfortunate that it's getting rather awkward and uncomfortable to be around, like being in public with an old bigoted aunt with no tact.

I would like to see more games where you play as animals though, and not just of the cartoon woodland or humanoid biped variety. Okay, sure, you're not going to get a lot of deep story out of it, but that just means you save on the writing and voice acting budget, and perhaps a game where you get to play as a wolf keeping your home forest from being bulldozed for a mall parking lot would actually be able to do something innovative.

 

[Remus]

Thanks Yahtzee, now I'm hungry. I think I will have toast with jaaaaaaaaaaaaam.

Captcha: Flo's really selling on that barcode scanner isn't she?

 

[Vault Citizen]

I don't think I've laughed this much at a Zero Punctuation video in ages.

 

[jmarquiso]

What writer in this day and age is still doing the "black guy dies first" thing? :/

Anthony Burch, for one.

Sorry, I had to.

I really like him, too.

 

[MXRom]

This reminds me of an article I read about CoD a while ago.

Basically it lost its steam after it stopped doing WWII. At least when making those games, they had the benefit of talking to retired veterans who saw war for the hell that it really was. And thus when the game was made it did feel like hell. Nowadays the only people they can talk to are people currently enlisted, and do you honestly think they're gonna get the full story? No.

They're gonna get a chest thumping 'MURICA FUCK YEAH!' bravado and that's gonna translate into their games as...well this. Instead of going through the hardships of a faceless grunt among half a dozen other faceless grunts, you now play the elite squad of FLINT IRONSTAG, RIP STEAKFACE, and BULK VANDERHUGE as they single-handedly destroy all the enemies of America, real or made up.

Ghosts is no different. America is in peril...only it sort of isn't as it still has all its tanks and drones and futuristic weaponry, and Flint and his brother Rip go 'round the world fighting people of less than white skin color.

You'd think for a game that had millions poured into it they'd have a story that is more developed than Homefront.

The only thing I do give them credit for is the Tungsten rods thing. That is proper sci-fi. Now if only they did something proper with it like fight aliens. Not those zerg knockoffs in multiplayer, I mean some actual aliens like XCOM or Halo.

 

[DonTsetsi]

Why don't they just cast the US as the villain? Have the player drop bombs on "suspected targets" and then do it again on the people who tried to help, just like in the real world!

 

[Kargathia]

This reminds me of an article I read about CoD a while ago.

Basically it lost its steam after it stopped doing WWII. At least when making those games, they had the benefit of talking to retired veterans who saw war for the hell that it really was. And thus when the game was made it did feel like hell. Nowadays the only people they can talk to are people currently enlisted, and do you honestly think they're gonna get the full story? No.

If I remember correctly, the last time somebody tried to tell the story of actual modern combat veterans, they called it Five days in Fallujah. Went over real well.

 

[Something Amyss]

Its kind of troubling, really, considering how badly this series has evolved. At least in BlOps2 everyone belonged to some species of dick. This plot sounds like it was written by the White Guy Defence Force.

I have to be honest here. By BLOPS2, I didn't even touch the story mode. I can't comment on it, and I don't even have first-hand experience with Ghosts, but it sounds like it really was.

Speaking of Mexicans, what about all those nations (including some small colonies of major European powers) would all be completely happy with South America going through them to send troops to the USA?

Well, obviously. They hate us for our freedoms, don't you know?

Originally no. Originally zombies were a superstition from African voodoo folklore.

....Which is why they were used as a "black people are scary" message in horror.

Thanks for agreeing? I guess?

Don't people generally buy CoD for the multiplayer, though?

Well, yes, but there's always a story mode (I wish their wasn't) and they always seem to use it to market the game. I don't remember Ghosts' marketing very well because it was drowned out by "YOU CAN PLAY AS A DOG," but previous CoD games have played up the 'Murrica, fuck yeah! stuff from the story as selling points.

Like, I know that most people buy CoD for the MP, but I wonder how many would still buy a 60 dollar game if there was none.

Looking at the Steam achievements, 70% of players have at least cracked open campaign. Now, the number of players who have completed it is a much lower number, about 25%, but I honestly think this indicates there's some appeal to the story either way. Those numbers are pretty good for a supposedly MP only/first game.

Now, it may be different onXBlah and PSN. I mean, I doubt it, but they are discrete populations with different tendencies. On the other hand, I only looked at Steam because Steam actually displays global achievement rates, so it's not bias towards one community so much as it is transparency.

I do sort of wonder how they market it globally, now that you mention it. Hopefully, as satire.

 

[ikoian]

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they had Haiti do something evil in a future CoD game.

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

I'm not saying you have to be a paranoid racist to like Call of Duty games (BLOPS 2 was quite fun, even), but I do think it's marketed to the 'brown people are scary' crowd. Or, I think that's the subtext to a lot of the jingoism we're getting these days.

In short, I think America is sympathetic to the Americans this game is marketed to, at least in sufficient numbers.

Don't people generally buy CoD for the multiplayer, though?

How is CoD marketed, anyway? It would be probably interesting to compare it's marketing in the different countries.

As far as I know, Call Of Duty just has famous actors dressed up as various normal people having big battles. They don't show any gameplay or anything. The tagline I think is 'there's a soldier in all of us.'

 

[PinkiePyro]

*laugh* this makes me feel better I have been dissed over the fact I play FPS games and this proves my thoughts on the genera being a stale puddle of shit

 

[C14N]

Well, who the hell buys CoD for singleplayer anymore?

Please, stand up and say your name, so that we may oggle at the oddity that is you.

So why do they keep putting in a substantial single player mode then?

 

[IrisNetwork]

So much for the hype about the dog. No duck chasing action? I am disappoint.

Oh well, its CoD. Its gonna be the most overrated, overbought game of the year. Looked up reviews on YouTube and the first result was IGN slobbing all over it for its family centered story. You'd think IGN would have lost its credibility after calling Metroid Other M an "Epic Story" or "Amy is like Ico with Zombies and its brilliant".

Nice ad on Jam's audiobook. It made me laugh. Looking forward to buying it.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Ok I know Yahtzee has a tendency to exaggerate, but if the plot of this is anything close to his synopsis than it's ridiculous enough to make one want to put one's head through a desk esp. if it's trying to do it straight faced.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

You have to hand it to Infinity Ward. It takes a certain cocktail of ethnocentric arrogance and jingoistic ignorance to craft a narrative about being invaded by an entire continental bloc when historically YOU have been the ones invading them or sabotaging their democratic institutions.

The only way a future COD can possibly become any less self-aware would be if the US is 'invaded' by a coalition of Iraqis and Iroquois.

 

[JaceArveduin]

Hey, rocket's from space? Now where have I heard that from before...

Spoiler

Oh yeah! Of course, technically it's a gun, but I'm guessing it's still the better super weapon.

 

[Kyle Davis]

This was the weakest of the stories in this game. To be honest I now only buy COD for the multiplayer and I found myself wishing that the multiplayer would be sold as a separate download so you don't waste money on a retarded single player campaign you've lost complete faith in.

 

[MXRom]

If I remember correctly, the last time somebody tried to tell the story of actual modern combat veterans, they called it Five days in Fallujah. Went over real well.

Yeah but that was with normal grunts, the guys who see this kinda crap all the time.

It feels like Activision gets its info from commandos. The ones that aren't allowed to talk about what they did when shipped out. So they make up something that sounds all glorious on paper but is very skewed on what actually happened.

Hey, rocket's from space? Now where have I heard that from before...

Except that this weapon 1) Does not fire rockets. It just fires big blocks of tungsten metal the size of telephone poles. Nothing else. Just a big chunk of superheated metal. That way you just hurl one at an enemy and it'll crash with the force of a meteor/atomic explosion with no worries of radiation. 2)This concept has been on the table with both the U.S and the Soviets since the 1950's. Look up Project Thor

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Sigh...this is the first Call of Duty that I did not like. I didn't hate it, but there was nothing memorable about it all at. Worse, I simply did not care.

When Jackson died in Modern Warfare, I cared. When stuff went down in MW2, I really cared. Blacks Ops, when playing as Reznov? Oh man...and don't even get me started all all the deaths in Black Ops II. And MW3, five character deaths that I cared about. But in this one...I just shrugged me shoulders and went "Meh."
Yahtzee is right when he says this series is on a downhill slope and it's only getting worse. I'll pick up the next installment because I am slightly curious to see how the story plays out (and I do actually like Logan and Keegan, but that's it), but unless Ghosts II blows me away, I think I may finally be done with the Call of Duty series. At least for a while.