Call of Duty Thread - Potential return to form? Or nothing but cope on the horizon? You decide!

[Jewthulhu]

Black Ops 3 honestly at times feels like an FPS take on Neon Genesis Evangelion, at least in terms of themes and style.

While I don't always agree with the creator of this analysis, this does bring a lot of the story's more muddled aspects into light.

Huh. Honestly had mixed feelings about the BO3 campaign. I loved it during my first and second playthrough. Then I saw a video "explaining" it which had a completely different take and it kind of poisoned my opinion.

I like this interpretation. It's much closer to what I took away from the story when I played through it myself. I think perhaps the main difference is that I took the story a little more literally, with CORVUS as an actual rogue AI and the only thing different from Taylor's memories is the substitution of the characters. But the idea of the frozen forest as a pseudo-afterlife, where dying or traumatized soldiers could be at peace in their memories, was what I took away from the story and was my favorite part of it. I think the one thing I prefer about my initial interpretation was the idea of Taylor's original crew actually becoming obsessed with this idea, given to them through CORVUS, and hopelessly trying to chase it but getting nowhere until death.

Hearing my initial interpretation at least somewhat confirmed reinvigorated my love for the campaign. Probably my favorite of the series.

*EDIT*
Looks like the animation team of MWIII is slipping

 

[30+GameOvers]

Huh. Honestly had mixed feelings about the BO3 campaign. I loved it during my first and second playthrough. Then I saw a video "explaining" it which had a completely different take and it kind of poisoned my opinion.

I like this interpretation. It's much closer to what I took away from the story when I played through it myself. I think perhaps the main difference is that I took the story a little more literally, with CORVUS as an actual rogue AI and the only thing different from Taylor's memories is the substitution of the characters. But the idea of the frozen forest as a pseudo-afterlife, where dying or traumatized soldiers could be at peace in their memories, was what I took away from the story and was my favorite part of it. I think the one thing I prefer about my initial interpretation was the idea of Taylor's original crew actually becoming obsessed with this idea, given to them through CORVUS, and hopelessly trying to chase it but getting nowhere until death.

Hearing my initial interpretation at least somewhat confirmed reinvigorated my love for the campaign. Probably my favorite of the series.

*EDIT*
Looks like the animation team of MWIII is slipping

Agree, interpreting a story like this yourself is the best part. That's why I never watch any of these ding dongs that try to spoonfeed it to me, or worse give their own retarded interpretation that would poison the whole thing for me. I think the game is best taken at face value, with the player and Taylor's crew slowly going insane due to DNI Aids. The other one, with the loading screens and all, just seems like tryhard last minute ragpull "GOTCHA!" so that Treyarch could pat themselves on the back and reminiscence about Black Ops 1.

That animation of Kiparis is FINE. MWIII one, on the other hand...

 

[TVB]

Looks like the animation team of MWIII is slipping

Sounds like they really cut the budget on this one

 

[Jewthulhu]

That animation of Kiparis is FINE. MWIII one, on the other hand...

Sounds like they really cut the budget on this one

The audio seems a bit off and the animation isn't as nice as it could be for the Kiparis. But I'll agree it isn't "bad." There's been worse in Call of Duty.

But I have no clue what happened with the MWIII animation. MW and MWII have some of the best attention to detail when it came to videogame firearms and the only things that were ever "off" were the ironsights (which would be unusable in real life), weird attachment additions/choices, and pointless changes to the look of the gun (most notably with the PDWs). This is just lazy and sloppy.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

Looks like the animation team of MWIII is slipping

I'd tolerate if a reload animation had minor clipping for a few frames, but an inspect animation with glaring clipping? The whole point of the inspect animations is to see the fucking animation.

 

[The Ugly One]

IW was underrated as fuck, and the fans being bitches basically killed the chance of them exploring that route more. Ghosts was just silly.

BO3 had potential to be something surrealist and interesting but they kind of muddled it. Haven't played Cold War yet, heard it's fairly good. Nu-MW had potential to be something topical but they're too pussy to push the envelope anymore.

CoD should really experiment more, but once something backfires they seem to pussy out and never touch it again.

MW 2019's plot was Dept of State Propaganda: The Game.

The only time MoH was a competitor in any sense after that was when it rebooted as a Modern Day Shooter, and by then it was mostly just laughed at. I can't remember a single thing about it, other than the fact that it had actual Mujahadeen instead of "OpFor" and that the sequel(that bombed) had the most generic possible subtitle: Warfighter.

It was fine, but a little dull, and the multiplayer engine was really targeted at much more powerful PCs and looked it. COD, by contrast, was not trying to bite off more than the hardware could chew and looked about as good as any PS3/360 shooter could. Also it just violated a fundamental principle of entertainment, which is that nobody likes a copycat. Goldeneye didn't copy Doom. Halo didn't copy Goldeneye. COD4 didn't copy Halo. Fortnite didn't copy COD.

Going through this thread just reminds me that what I originally loved about COD was:

1. Partying up with people I met in lobbies after a good game
2. A gameplay style that rewarded positioning & anticipation over acrobatics (never liked Quake III or UT much)
3. Realistic weapons and environments

They've gotten rid of almost all of that. Also, regarding 3, I thought it was cool how COD4 snipers had ghillie suits and were hard to spot in maps like Overgrown. In the modern games, aside from how everyone's wearing hot pink and explodes in blue sparkles when they die, everyone with a 4x or better basically has a flashlight on his gun, and they put red markers over enemies almost immediately. COD's basically evolved into the exact sort of cartoony arena shooter I didn't like to begin with.

 

[Jewthulhu]

MW 2019's plot was Dept of State Propaganda: The Game.

Fuck it, give me some deep state propaganda; but for goodness' sake at least make it good.

 

[30+GameOvers]

The audio seems a bit off and the animation isn't as nice as it could be for the Kiparis. But I'll agree it isn't "bad." There's been worse in Call of Duty.

But I have no clue what happened with the MWIII animation. MW and MWII have some of the best attention to detail when it came to videogame firearms and the only things that were ever "off" were the ironsights (which would be unusable in real life), weird attachment additions/choices, and pointless changes to the look of the gun (most notably with the PDWs). This is just lazy and sloppy.

The problem is that this game was never supposed to have been made. 2023 was going to be the first off year for COD in decades, but MWII, surprise surprise, ended up being shit and making less money than projected. So, Sledghammer has to shit out a glorified expansion pack with the scrapped MW2 Remastered Multiplayer Maps to save the third quarter and make Activision a bit more money.
The game is going to be a disaster of untold proportions that will make the original MW3 with all it's copy and pasting look respectable.

 

[TVB]

The audio seems a bit off and the animation isn't as nice as it could be for the Kiparis. But I'll agree it isn't "bad." There's been worse in Call of Duty.

Much worse coming from ActiBlizz. Still, the visuals look completely jarring, and again this is saying a lot from ActiBlizz

 

[The Last Stand]

Also, regarding 3, I thought it was cool how COD4 snipers had ghillie suits and were hard to spot in maps like Overgrown. In the modern games, aside from how everyone's wearing hot pink and explodes in blue sparkles when they die, everyone with a 4x or better basically has a flashlight on his gun, and they put red markers over enemies almost immediately. COD's basically evolved into the exact sort of cartoony arena shooter I didn't like to begin with.

I miss when CoD character models were consistent with their factions, time periods and locales. It serves a gameplay purpose to differentiate friend from foe. I think it was Battlefield 2042 that received criticism for its specialists because players weren't able to tell friendly from enemy. The immersion of CoD being a military shooter is lost when you immediately deploy with shirtless 21 Savage or Nicki Minaj wearing all pink.

It's not even practical in any sense of the word. You'd think that pink wouldn't be inconspicuous while prone at a high elevation trying to snipe or on grass? Hell, Ghosts of all CoDs did a massively better job depicting a post apocalyptic, war-torn military game through its map design and color tone than MWII does with its supposedly realistic take on modern warfare. And Ghosts had Predator and Mike Myers as scorestreaks.

 

[30+GameOvers]

I miss when CoD character models were consistent with their factions, time periods and locales. It serves a gameplay purpose to differentiate friend from foe. I think it was Battlefield 2042 that received criticism for its specialists because players weren't able to tell friendly from enemy. The immersion of CoD being a military shooter is lost when you immediately deploy with shirtless 21 Savage or Nicki Minaj wearing all pink.

It's not even practical in any sense of the word. You'd think that pink wouldn't be inconspicuous while prone at a high elevation trying to snipe or on grass? Hell, Ghosts of all CoDs did a massively better job depicting a post apocalyptic, war-torn military game through its map design and color tone than MWII does with its supposedly realistic take on modern warfare. And Ghosts had Predator and Mike Myers as scorestreaks.

Ghosts is massively underrated. It was basically the prototype for MW2019 reboot, and the biggest reason I saw people hating on it(aside from them sucking at it) was because it wasn't like BO2. That game was massive, but it also brought in a ton of new players that never played a COD game before, so they figured that every COD game is an arcade 3 lane twitch shooter like BO2. When Ghosts came out, and it was more strategical, slower and more focused, that bored the ADHD Treyarch fanbase and they declared the game to be "shit". That is where vast majority of the hatred for this game came from, that and the pre-release memes which admittedly, did make IW look like jackasses.
If you actually play the game, it's actually got a top notch atmosphere in both Multiplayer and Extinction mode. Single player is take it or leave it, I think not-Bane antagonist and the idea of being a Ghost is what saves it.
BTW they only started doing the silly movie shit with DLCs, base game maps were all about the Federation conflict and are still some of the most bleak maps in a COD game to date, painting a better picture of just how fucked US is in that timeline.
Even microtransactions were better in Ghosts, worst example I can think of is a military uniform covered in weed, where as Advanced Warfare started the trend of everybody looking like a literal clown(even tho, once again, that was only done with DLC and the visuals were top notch at the start)

 

[The Last Stand]

Even microtransactions were better in Ghosts, worst example I can think of is a military uniform covered in weed,

I suspect that Activision knew that the majority of their playerbase liked to smoke, so they add those weed customization anyway they could starting with MW2.

 

[Get the rope Macaulay!]

when you immediately deploy with shirtless 21 Savage or Nicki Minaj wearing all pink.

but thats been a good part of modern cod since way before battlefield 2042.

so they add those weed customization

it was part of the "gamer" culture of the time or just youth culture in general. it was still "illegal" but the justice system gave up on that stuff once obama got in office, same thing with "offensive" media. While media depicting a sister fucking her brother got you a federal prison sentence during the bush years, it got you a multiyear development deal on HBO when obama got in office. As much as people might whine, it was the weird time where stoner culture was semi-normalized but the act itself wasn't. a decade later its more normal to see someone vaping weed than nicotine.

 

[Miller]

Hell, Ghosts of all CoDs did a massively better job depicting a post apocalyptic, war-torn military game through its map design and color tone than MWII does with its supposedly realistic take on modern warfare. And Ghosts had Predator and Mike Myers as scorestreaks.

I liked the gimmick of the layout of the map changing during a match. Sure, it didn't look as impressive as the "levolution" on the Shanghai map in BF4 but at least it was less cringe than BF2042 "because we caused Climate Change™ here is a big tornado".

 

[With the actors on it?]

Say what you will about the skins in MW2 but Ash is probably the best skin they’ve ever added to cod, second to Ghostface for the simple reason of Bruce Campbell sounding like he doesn’t give a shit but still putting in major efforts.
As compared to Homelander’s actor Antony Star wishing he was doing literally anything else.
Edit: when I say doesn’t give a shit, I mean Ash’s lines make fun of the retarded military jargon that they made the other licensed operators say, Ash himself is worth it but his finisher and blueprints are lackluster (they some how bothered to make a proper double barrel for the doom bundle yet couldn’t do the boomstick justice for Ash) his finisher would be a lot better if he used the chainsaw y’know his most iconic feature? Instead it’s just a prop on his back and a charm on his gun

 

[TV's Adam West]

Say what you will about the skins in MW2 but Ash is probably the best skin they’ve ever added to cod, second to Ghostface for the simple reason of Bruce Campbell sounding like he doesn’t give a shit but still putting in major efforts.
As compared to Homelander’s actor Antony Star wishing he was doing literally anything else.
Edit: when I say doesn’t give a shit, I mean Ash’s lines make fun of the retarded military jargon that they made the other licensed operators say, Ash himself is worth it but his finisher and blueprints are lackluster (they some how bothered to make a proper double barrel for the doom bundle yet couldn’t do the boomstick justice for Ash) his finisher would be a lot better if he used the chainsaw y’know his most iconic feature? Instead it’s just a prop on his back and a charm on his gun

I really like that Ash when you going a vehicle, hell utterly fuck it up and proudly say "Hey I'm getting the hang of this lingo, right guys?"

 

[30+GameOvers]

Call me old fashioned, but seeing some out of place movie property like Ash or Rambo in a game like COD or Mortal Kombat just makes me cringe. COD is trying to be Fortnite 2.0, at least that game is already cartoony so nobody bats an eye if Naruto or Master Chief is added into it.
Guest crossovers are dead and games like this killed it. I don't care for any of them anymore unless that's their entire appeal, like with Smash Brothers

 

[Miller]

Call me old fashioned, but seeing some out of place movie property like Ash or Rambo in a game like COD or Mortal Kombat just makes me cringe. COD is trying to be Fortnite 2.0, at least that game is already cartoony so nobody bats an eye if Naruto or Master Chief is added into it.
Guest crossovers are dead and games like this killed it. I don't care for any of them anymore unless that's their entire appeal, like with Smash Brothers

Rambo and McClane in CoD CW worked because it was set in the 80s and the multiplayer was all about having fun.
MWII is CoD going full Fortnite.

 

[30+GameOvers]

Rambo and McClane in CoD CW worked because it was set in the 80s and the multiplayer was all about having fun.
MWII is CoD going full Fortnite.

Nah, if it's from another property then it's stupid, even if it "fits the theme". Mind you this was the same game which brought back "Raid", a map that takes place in 2025 not reimagined for the 80s in any capacity. There is so much potential to draw from, but instead they go for memes and memberberries, that's laziness and it's no wonder the franchise is where it's at right now without a cource correction.
This was arguably at it's worse during Vanguard, beating out even Advanced Warfare which had literal clown suits and luchador outfits.

 

[The Last Stand]

Rambo and McClane in CoD CW worked because it was set in the 80s and the multiplayer was all about having fun.
MWII is CoD going full Fortnite.

It also worked because Cold War was an arcade shooter at heart. It was still in MW2019's engine but it did not incorporate its tactical gameplay. I didn't LIKE that expensive bundles or battle passes were in Cold War (or CoD period) but it wasn't as disruptive there as it is now.

Nah, if it's from another property then it's stupid, even if it "fits the theme". Mind you this was the same game which brought back "Raid", a map that takes place in 2025 not reimagined for the 80s in any capacity.

Do you know how many crossovers or futuristic stuff existed in the 80s? The essence of Cold War's MP is a homage of the Black Ops subseries.