Zero Punctuation: Call of Duty: Ghosts

[Muspelheim]

So... You don't play as a dog much, then? And your only interaction with people is biting them to death?

Right, no sale, Activision. I was looking forward to being all soft and lovely, wooing Brazilian stormtroopers to make them pet me and give me their meat rations.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

But what about the multiplayer, Yahtzee?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say; same as last but with a dog.

OT: yeah, thats a lot of vitriol. Well deserved I'd say. I really...uff...nevermind. I cant even muster being exasperated with people for buying this stuff.

Edit:

As a Canadian, I have this to say.

Why the hell have we not been cast as evil supervillains with a long range Freeze Ray superweapon yet?! It would be so much better than "random nearby continent in trouble hijacks US superweapons!".

Think about it! That would be a hilarious plot! It might actually get me to BUY one of these games, even though I loathe the modern military genre (outside of Spec Ops).

Captha: Forget this.

NO I WILL NOT FORGET THIS CAPTCHA! THIS IS A BRILLIANT AND AWESOME IDEA! >: o

I think it might be because;

1: You're mostly white? (I guess? Dont really know)

2: You're too nice. As far as I know Canada has a reputation of being extremely friendly. I really couldn't picture you invading anything. This might be just american "propaganda" though, I dont really know that much about Canada.

I think everyone only thinks well of us because we're less assholish than our southerly brothers. In reality, we're effectively, as the wise Homer Simpson said, America Junior. You'd be surprised how bad we can be.

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.

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

 

[Zeraki]

So, this dog that they made such a huge deal about at the Xbone event was barely even in the game? That's kind of hilarious.

Spoiler

Although I'm surprised they didn't kill the dog for the cheap emotional manipulation.

 

[Vegosiux]

So, next one is CoD: Blackadder's Travels to Mboto Gorge?

That was one sharp mango...

So, this dog that they made such a huge deal about at the Xbone event was barely even in the game? That's kind of hilarious.

Well, you see, that's because emotion. That dog is "someone you care about". And taking it away after two missions invokes emotions because...I dunno, it had many polygons?

 

[panzertank83]

But what about the multiplayer, Yahtzee?

Dear Strongbad,
How do you type with boxing gloves on?

 

[azriel2422]

My favorite part of this review was the "Jam" audiobook plug, since I have that book and I can't help but hear Yahtzee's voice as every character in it anyway

 

[jmarquiso]

Can't say enough to agree with the problems of the premise. I can't shake the feeling that these games, whse crazy, rampant xenophobia seem to be excused as weakly written 'plots', are going to be our generation's blackface minstrel shows.

I loved the stinger, particularly the bit about the most which could be hoped for in death was to be found in a pose which confused archeologists.

You know how zombies were originally an analogue for black people? Well, maybe you don't, but early zombies, before they were a commentary on commercialism or republicans or whatever else the writer wants to call mindless, they were an analgoe for black people. There was this fear that black people were going to take us by storm in the US, and America would be ruined by having....Slightly higher melanin in the skin? I don't know.

Source(s), please? I'm not arguing zombies haven't been a metaphorical stand-in for racial tension from time to time but I am curious what works you're referencing with this timeline.

Well they come from Voodoo mythology, so that already makes them a stand in for black people or at least fear of it from a colonialists perspective. However people forget that Golems were also once a thing (guess what, Jewish mysticism there) in Medieval paranoia and stories. It goes really far back. Really only modern versions introduced the idea of disease or pandemic, even though the Romero movies rarely gave an explanation, just drew the metaphors. Hope this helps.

 

[jmarquiso]

But what about the multiplayer, Yahtzee?

Dear Strongbad,
How do you type with boxing gloves on?

Yahtzee totally needs to be in Poker Night at the Inventory 3.

 

[In Search of Username]

This is possibly my favourite episode ever of this.

 

[jmarquiso]

As a Canadian, I have this to say.

Why the hell have we not been cast as evil supervillains with a long range Freeze Ray superweapon yet?! It would be so much better than "random nearby continent in trouble hijacks US superweapons!".

Think about it! That would be a hilarious plot! It might actually get me to BUY one of these games, even though I loathe the modern military genre (outside of Spec Ops).

Captha: Forget this.

NO I WILL NOT FORGET THIS CAPTCHA! THIS IS A BRILLIANT AND AWESOME IDEA! >: o

Y'all are generally white and not from the opposite side of the Iron Curtain. Same reason any idea of a border fence pretty much focuses on the south.

Funny thing is I heard that Canada was tired of all of the Americans wanting to come and live up there...

 

[Elijah Newton]

Well they come from Voodoo mythology, so that already makes them a stand in for black people or at least fear of it from a colonialists perspective. However people forget that Golems were also once a thing (guess what, Jewish mysticism there) in Medieval paranoia and stories. It goes really far back. Really only modern versions introduced the idea of disease or pandemic, even though the Romero movies rarely gave an explanation, just drew the metaphors. Hope this helps.

I appreciate that you took the time to chime in ( and dig the inclusion of the golem, a too often overlooked trope ) but what I was looking for was specific story titles / authors. Like if someone wanted to know more about where Stoker got his ideas for Dracula from I might cite The Italian by Anne Radcliffe or Polidori's Vampyre instead of just regurgitating Vlad Tepes as an historical figure. FWIW, I know I'm going off on a weird tangent here, but sometimes casting nets in unlikely locations yields good results!

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I think that audiobook ad may be showing that Ben has... well, gone 'round the bend.

...I'll get my coat.

Well give COD Ghost credit, its made millions upon millions on first day, still don't know though how it did that, story was... something. in hind sight the was somehow more interesting, but he only lasted about...a hour or so. everything else it tried to listin to the rest, but all i heard was loud noise, and story that made so predictable yet so vague some point. as for the multiply...well it different from Black ops 2 but not much.

why can't cod games change, my god, the dog would have been better than this.

Because the core playerbase doesn't want the game to change. They don't even care about the story. What they want is a prettier-looking version of the same arenas for them to play in while yelling "BOOM HEADSHOT" into a microphone.

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!!!

Personally, I'm looking suspiciously at Malaysia. Things have been quiet over there... TOO quiet. (Plus they have "mal" in their name. That's Latin for "evil"!)

 

[jmarquiso]

Well they come from Voodoo mythology, so that already makes them a stand in for black people or at least fear of it from a colonialists perspective. However people forget that Golems were also once a thing (guess what, Jewish mysticism there) in Medieval paranoia and stories. It goes really far back. Really only modern versions introduced the idea of disease or pandemic, even though the Romero movies rarely gave an explanation, just drew the metaphors. Hope this helps.

I appreciate that you took the time to chime in ( and dig the inclusion of the golem, a too often overlooked trope ) but what I was looking for was specific story titles / authors. Like if someone wanted to know more about where Stoker got his ideas for Dracula from I might cite The Italian by Anne Radcliffe or Polidori's Vampyre instead of just regurgitating Vlad Tepes as an historical figure. FWIW, I know I'm going off on a weird tangent here, but sometimes casting nets in unlikely locations yields good results!

Actually the Medieval Archives podcast did a whole episode on zombies and zombie type creatures in medieval folklore - http://www.medievalarchives.com/2012/10/30/map-medieval-zombies/ (including the aforementioned Golem myth, which actually evolved into Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, etc)

As for Caribbean and colonial mythology, one look at Baron Samedi, which has had a lot of stories and mythology written about him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Samedi

 

[Lieju]

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.

 

[Zombie Badger]

What we need is a Call of Duty-esque game with America as the villain and some other country's armed forces as the hero.

 

[Evonisia]

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.

In the UK at least Ghosts was just marketed as 'Call of Duty, go buy it'. It's been that way since MW2. They don't really bring up the plot, characters, morales or even the gameplay. No, just have explosions, gunfire and James Bond sequences and then when everyone's all excited slap the "Call of Duty" title on it and you've guaranteed a sale. Well, also jam as many adverts into every place you can and slap a few Ghosts posters on billboards.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

So, this is just a worse version of Dead to Rights: Retribution, which was in turn a worse version of Dead to Rights? At least the dog in that got to be murderous Batman.

 

[Lazule]

When we are going to have a game where you fight against the multicultural forces of America?

Or a game were you finally get to play the story as the Nazis or Russians? This is why I liked Silent Storm but that ain't an FPS.

 

[Hutzpah Chicken]

I remember running around St. Petersburg trying to defend a tank with a machine gun against an entire Panzer Brigade... That really put me off COD.