Zero Punctuation: Medal of Honor Warfighter & Doom 3 BFG Edition

[BrionJames]

It's funny how people accuse him of not liking shooter when some of the games he give the most praise (Half-Life and Painkiller) are shooters.

I'm going to accuse him of not liking survival horror games for the bad review he gave Resident Evil 5.

I guess none of the titles he reviewed seems appealing to me. I guess I like modern shooters a tad more than he does, but only because he really, really hates them. Hilarious as always though.

He doesn't like dudebro-shooters where you, as a player, are largely unnecessary. Doom 3, Painkiller and Serious Sam were made for people who want to play shooters. COD and BF and MOHFloorfighter were made for people who want to hide behind sacks of sand and scream racist terms in to their head-sets.

Everything he said about RE5 was correct. They only made it worse with RE6, which basically plays like L4D. Hopefully, Capcom will pull its head out of its ass and go back to either the basics or at least returning to RE4 which is the best title in the series aside from Resident Evil 2.

 

[Markunator]

Well gargle something else!

This was a great review, glad he brought back the whole "Spec Ops killed your entire genre, what the FUCK are you doing, EA?" thing.

...shoot all the brown people talking foreign. I didn't know who they were or why they deserved it.

A form of white privilege right there: "I can be sure that generic 'Rooty Tooty Point and Shootys' will not be filled with snuffing out persons of my own ethnicity."

Is my whiteness showing? I tried to show it.

You really need to play Spec Ops: The Line.

So because Spec Ops: The Line was apparently a good game, we should never even try to make another military shooter ever again? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I'm not so sure that the people eagerly anticipating ArmA III or Battlefield 4 are going to want that, buddy. Everything doesn't have to cater to what you want.

 

[Kapol]

I was one of the few people (at least it seems like there's few of us) who actually liked the fact you couldn't use a light and a gun at the same time. The expansion's pistol with a light was alright too, since you couldn't just use any weapon that way.

Having said that, I do have to ask if you can turn the light off. I'd much rather play it the original Doom 3 way given the choice. That's actually something that might decide if I buy it or not.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Legitimately laughed my ass off for once.

The comment about glowing "go this way" markers on levels that are strictly linear anyway brought to mind one (of many) problems I had with Duke Nukem Forever. All the pinball tables and urinals and writable white boards and what-have-you stop being verisimilitude-enhancing touches and become obvious petty distractions when they exist in the middle of narrow, linear levels with glowing "go here now" signs.

Some people call them "breadcrumbs".
I prefer "idiot lights", because it takes an especially potent idiot to get lost IN A LINEAR FUCKING CORRIDOR.

Perhaps most depressing: This was a punchline back in 8-bit theater.
Instead of a farce becoming comedy, it's farce becoming reality.
Weep with me fellow gamers. Weep for the future if this is the sort of shit that passes for the gold standard in gaming.

If there's nothing else to say about the sad, pathetic state of level design in current shooters, it's this: Why stop at Doom 3's linear corridors sans idiot lights? Why not take us back to Doom 1 which featured "semi-linear" corridors with new encounters, and sometimes even new traps?

Oh right. Backtracking is a deadly sin and nobody could possibly make use of it in good level design.

We've got an Iraq invasion without UN approval for the purpose of changing a dictator the U.S. didn't like. A murdering, brutal dictator, but still an illegal invasion.

It never fails to make me laugh when people try to civilize war.
The words "Illegal Invasion" in particular make me giggle.

EDIT: This has gone on for several pages, but I'm adding this to point out how stupid it is.

Illegal Invasion:
US: "Hey Iraq, mind if we invade by force?"
Iraq: "Not without permission!"
US: "Whose permission?"
Iraq: "Well..."

If the UN:
US: "We're going to invade Iraq. We're told we need your permission."
UN: "You may not. We do not grant you your warrant permission."

If Iraq:
Iraq: "No, we do not grant you our permission. Go away."

Do I have to point out how fucking retarded this is?

The Nazis didn't ask France or Poland if they could invade. Alexander the Great did not ask for permission, neither did Attila the Hun, Napolean, Richard the Lionhearted, or HUNDREDS of other figures and forces throughout the entire history of war.

Trying to change the definition of war to fit our modern day squabbles is dangerous and fallacious thinking. It understates the severity of the mistakes we made in the past, and in doing so, increases the likelihood someone will inflict those horrors on us again.

It's changing the foot to fit the shoe.

"War is hell." is scarily accurate. It's an exaggeration, but not by much.

The combat and conflict in Iraq is not without bloodshed. I've lost friends and classmates to Afghanistan and Iraq. But I also recognize that it's less bloodied overall than traditional open warfare.
However, the actions we take in Iraq are restrained and targeted; far more akin to an aggressive militarized police force than soldiers, and a fact that goes repeatedly ignored by first world society.

Soldiers fight, kill and occupy. Those are, historically, their fundamental traits.
What we ask our soldier to do today is more than that, and in doing so, we are shifting from what our grandfathers and ancestors knew as "war" to something different. Brutal, but less brutal. Violent, but more controlled.

And at that point, it ceases being "war" as we knew it. So why do some insist on changing the definition of war to fit this when war has proven its brutality across history to before the written word?

So, if you decide to start foaming at the mouth to call me out on this, I want to see proof that YOU READ THIS FIRST.

I've already had one person repeatedly put words into my mouth, project their naive babble all over the place and then insult my intelligence on top of that. Don't follow their example.

Don't spout pretentious bullshit like you know what you're talking about, or try to insinuate that I'm "confused" or "brainwashed". The matter is perfectly clear in my mind.

This weekend was (in the United States) Veteran's Day. I write this in part out of respect for the living veterans, and of greater respect for the dead; both those that I knew and those I never met.

 

[charge52]

Also would someone please tell me what the 7th bloke down on page 1 did to receive a warning? I'm not trying to be a %^$& I really don't know.

He promoted Ad blocker(he said a certain add on, so it's either that or something similar). The use of and promotion of Ad blocker or similar programs is against the rules.

 

[Delicious Anathema]

Not that Doom 3 is a great game (it drags on and on and it doesn't have enough substance for that) but it's better than most shooters released nowadays.

I hope Doom 4 has a less serious tone, but not like the first two. No more audio logs too please.

 

[Cobalt Lion]

So I'm getting the overall impression that he did not like Warfighter. *snerk* Sorry, I can't take that name seriously either.

 

[Juan Regular]

So who else is going to try their hardest to make sure that spunkgargleweewee catches on?

Now here's a serious question though...

Bioshock = Shooter, right? But would Bioshock 2 = Spunkgargleweewee

And from what I've seen the next Bioshock will be back up to Shooter.

Bioshock 2 sure as hell is no Spunkgargleweewee. Yeah, it wasn´t quite up there with the holy grail that is the original Bioshock but it was still very far away from Spunkgargleweewee territory.
Why people consider that game to be bad is confusing as hell to me.

 

[Doclector]

Here's the thing about Doom 3 BFG. it's easy to laugh at from the outside. I did, I even got a bit angry that amongst all ID's hinting and teasing about doom 4, it dared to pull such as a stunt as unveiling "DOOM 3! AGAIN!".

But then eventually, I played it. Simply because I'm a sucker for Doom.

And honestly...it fits. The changes are fairly minor but make for a vastly different game with a flow much closer to the classic titles. The shoulder mounted flashlight means you can always have a gun equipped, allowing you to react quickly to enemies, and keep the game fast paced. The increased amount of ammo means you can fire away without too much concern for what locker your next load of shotgun shells is coming from, and what poor sod's PDA you have to look through to get the combination.

It isn't classic doom, but if Doom 4 is to return to that style fully, Doom 3 BFG truly is Doom 3.5, a stopgap on the way back to classic Doom.

It's by no means a must buy, I'd say it's definitely one for hardcore Doom fans, but it's pretty good.

Nice review and all, hilarious as usual.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

M'kay, Yahtzee's criticism of how games like these are dull and boring due to regenerating health taking about a huge chunk of the challenge and cover mechanics making the fights tedious, this I can get behind (no pun intended). I can definitely see how having to fight while wounded helps ramp up challenge for a game and taking that away makes it less of a challenging game and more of a chore to do between cutscenes. Cover mechanics make good sense, especially if they were PAIRED with non-regenerating health, because in the event you're bleeding out you'd like the option to be more cautious I'd bet, but you need a smarter AI that will do stuff like try to flank you when you duck behind cover or will attack you with weapons that get around the cover, like grenades. Otherwise if you keep using the same brain dead kamikazi troop AI's that seem to plan to just move slowly towards you in the hopes their dead bodies will give you some kind of fatal illness, there's no challenge at all.

On Yahtzee's criticism of the story setting; yes, it's a bit of smaller audience that these games are trying to appeal to, mostly the type that like Tom Clancy novels. The modern military isn't exactly a thrill-a-minute subject because it's largely got to do with modern politics, and virtually everyone these days finds -that- particular subject nauseous. So I can't blame anyone for not finding this particular setting appealing, but neither would I blame other people for liking it; it's all a matter of preference.

Now, Yahtzee's criticism of the pro-U.S. military feel of these games. Oh please, give me a fucking break. It's one thing to criticize a game for failing to explain the reason you have to shoot an enemy (which he did), it's another thing to say the more advanced military force is the bad guy just because the enemies in a game aren't white or members of a 1st world nation (which he also did). Whether a fighting force is using a state-of-the-art, remote controlled kill-bot or a Cold War-era AK-47, if they're using said weapons to enact ethnic cleansing, religious genocide or politically motivated mass murder they're STILL THE FUCKING BAD GUYS. The Al Queda and the Taliban, for example, aren't sitting around in Armani suits, sipping Starbucks and watching flat screen tvs, but that doesn't make them any more justified for bombing department stores and markets or broadcasting videos of cutting kidnap victims' heads off.

Failing to give a proper explanation for player actions is a serious fault in a game. But being poor or a minority doesn't give anyone a free pass, either.

Please tell me exactly why terrorists exist in the first place.

 

[AcidSnow]

After 3 years of watching your shows, I've finally registered I love your show man, I visit your page daily!

 

[OuroborosChoked]

Wonder why he hates Borderlands if he's not into sgww?? Borderlands in the anti-Modern Opsfielder.

Maybe because it's just Diablo 1 with guns?

 

[Evil Smurf]

Oh man, old man Yahtzee being all hipster

 

[PunkRex]

This was a really freaking good video and although im not at all happy that the bombing Warfighter may have done to EA's profit margin, which will proberly cause people to lose their jobs, im glad they may have realised its all pointless and get back to making good games like... erm... what have EA released again that wasn't complete doodie?

 

[PunkRex]

Funny review I admit that, but I am getting a little tired of people who like games like COD being accused of not being "real" shooter fans.

They're not real shooter fans. They're wall-hugging simulator fans and wouldn't survive a single level in a game where they didn't have a barricade of sand to hide behind while waiting for their health to regenerate.

Uh. No.

When I got into the shooter genre, I started out with Call of Duty. Then I went to playing Half Life and Painkiller later on and did just fine.

Each of these types of game are shooters, there is just different tiers of shooter.

Dude please don't say tier, unless you want every shooter snob whipping out their personal chart...

 

[Shadowstar38]

Funny review I admit that, but I am getting a little tired of people who like games like COD being accused of not being "real" shooter fans.

They're not real shooter fans. They're wall-hugging simulator fans and wouldn't survive a single level in a game where they didn't have a barricade of sand to hide behind while waiting for their health to regenerate.

Uh. No.

When I got into the shooter genre, I started out with Call of Duty. Then I went to playing Half Life and Painkiller later on and did just fine.

Each of these types of game are shooters, there is just different tiers of shooter.

Dude please don't say tier, unless you want every shooter snob whipping out their personal chart...

Fine. "Type" of shooter then. The point is, dismissing the people that play COD as not true shooter fans is a retarded statement.

 

[Gone Rampant]

Yahtzee... THAT... was awesome. Seriously, I'm adding that last tirade about how you liked FPSs when CoD fans were even more little screaming brats than they are now straight to the 'Crowning Moment of Awesome' page of your TV Tropes entry.

Yeah, I saw that. Nice job.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

what have EA released again that wasn't complete doodie?

While Mirror's Edge was far from being a perfect game, it's still actually pretty good. And it was a risk. Taken by EA. Then there was all their older stuff - the original Most Wanted was awesome, for instance. [/fanboy]

 

[BishopofAges]

First off, I loved that rant about people attacking his shooter-cred, it seems like the first legit rant he's had in a while, or at least feel like it.

Second, if I am to get this correctly, Spunkgargleweewee (SGWW) is defined as A) Cover-based, B) NPCs can carry you through levels C) You have no personal story and are mindless soldier A. D) The only reason you play it is 'for the multiplayer' and the story means nothing at all

Choose any two from the above, if I am correct, and this makes SGWW?

side note: I am joining to movement to make SGWW a legit or at least modern slang genre name