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

[Arren Kae]

I thought "Warfighter" was a joke when I read it in this episode's title. Guess the sequel will be "Gunshooter".

Doom 3 wasn't much of a circle-strafing type of game with its' tight corridors. It wanted to be closer to survival horror with every encounter as a jump scare.

It's a shame Id, the original standard-bearers of shooters, have been surpassed by stuff like Human Revolution and Bioshock. Rage did some cool things with its' simple classes, item creation, and minigames. Hopefully Doom 4 will have some new mechanics to make it an experience different from other shooters rather than a slightly prettier version of games you've already played.

Much of Yahtzee's complaint about this game (and others) was that you play a white man killing non-whites. He needs to grow out of his white guilt.

 

[Tony2077]

3 types of shooters modern ww2 and fun aka sci fi ones

 

[Markunator]

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.

You don't really know what you're talking about. The Battlefield fanbase is by and large far more mature than the Call of Duty fanbase - not surprising, since the Battlefield franchise has always demanded more skill from its players. I would recommend anyone to try out Battlefield 2 and its realism mod Project Reality - then you'll find out just how different they are from Call of Duty. (I do wish that Battlefield 3 could have been a lot more like Battlefield 2, though - maybe that'll be fixed with Battlefield 4?)

While I don't agree that "realistic shooters" need to go away completely, I absolutely agree that developers need to stop it with regenerating health, extremely linear level design, stupid AI and 4-5 hour campaigns. True, the Battlefield series didn't even have campaigns until the first Bad Company, but if you're going to put a campaign in your game, it should probably be better. As for the regenerating health, it takes away a lot of the tactical thinking (and a lot of the teamwork in multiplayer). I'd like to see a military shooter whose health system is based not on taking cover to regenerate health or even on finding health packs, but on not ever getting shot AT ALL.

I've got some awesome ideas for a military shooter! I just wish there was a way for me to implement them in an actual game ...

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.

Oh dear. Someone believes Fox News, don't they?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

However "good" the reasons for the U.S. to enter these countries, they've lost the moral high ground by now.

Oh, I do love it whenever someone is accused of watching Fox News just because they don't despise the US military.

Also, I'm willing to bet that you couldn't be arsed to look into which side has caused the majority of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, huh? I'll give you a hint: it's not the Americans!

 

[Thaedius]

I just came to say I loved the use of the Golden Axe "Go" marker

 

[nodlimax]

Well Yathzee you could call Doom, Painkiller, Team Fortress and all those games >>>FUN<<< Shooters and the rest is just .........unrealistic realism crap or whatever you called it.

I like fun shooters as well, because I like having fun....

Great how that fits together huh?

 

[Frission]

Also, I'm willing to bet that you couldn't be arsed to look into which side has caused the majority of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, huh? I'll give you a hint: it's not the Americans!

Congratulations you're marginally better for not killing as much as the fucking radicals on the ground! Let's disregard the torture and all the things done during the last few unjustified wars. One the greatest sacrileges seems to be to say that Americans aren't liked, no matter what they're doing, no matter where they are.

The shooter genre gets flack for almost always being some paranoid American power fantasy. The cold war is over and it's actually sickening for something which encourages a Calvinistic us vs them, black and white view of the world.

I though the Vietnam war would be a lesson to how pointless and bloody military action without justification is.

Shooters can be good fun I guess, but I would like it if was something else then some American soldier committing genocide, while you're called a hero for it. At least be more self aware, or just go the team fortress route and be silly.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

This is why I love the Crysis series as a whole, it mixes the best aspects of MMS with the best aspects of FPS. And Crysis 3 is looking damn promising judging by what I've seen in the alpha.

 

[Geisterkarle]

Why did I know that this review will get many comments???
Sooo... it was a little bit unclear: Doom 3 BFG is actually good? Nice!

 

[General Vagueness]

It's not just a communications network, people (mostly the US military it seems) are calling some soldiers "warfighters" now, and it showed up as such on several dictionaries' web sites.

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.

You have a point, but to hear him tell it your side had robots and their side had rocks, not AK-47s. He's probably exaggerating a little, and if it's more than a little then there's a problem here. Also some of the leaders of Al-Qaeda were pretty rich and could've had Armani suits and plenty of coffee from Starbucks if they wanted-- I don't know if that's still the case, but it was not too long ago.

Now, Yahtzee's criticism of the pro-U.S. military feel of these games. Oh please, give me a [snip]

Oh dear. Someone believes Fox News, don't they?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

However "good" the reasons for the U.S. to enter these countries, they've lost the moral high ground by now.

We left Iraq* some time ago and we're scheduled to leave Afghanistan in two years, and anyway that's real life, we're talking about a fictional conflict. ...It is fictional, right? If they're using the current ones that seems... tacky.

I think Yahtzee's problem is mostly that a lot of recent games have you fighting only "non-whites", and after doing that all game for several games, well, there might not be racist intent, but it gets easier to believe there is or could be racist intent or some kind of subconscious racism, and anyway if all your enemies look the same it's kind of bland.

Also, I'm willing to bet that you couldn't be arsed to look into which side has caused the majority of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, huh? I'll give you a hint: it's not the Americans!

I though the Vietnam war would be a lesson to how pointless and bloody military action without justification is.

I'm pretty sure most people alive today were born after the Vietnam conflict ended.

Shooters can be good fun I guess, but I would like it if was something else then some American soldier committing genocide, while you're called a hero for it. At least be more self aware, or just go the team fortress route and be silly.

Genocide is when you kill people because of their race, and that's not what the US is doing, in real life or in any major games I've heard about.

* we officially left some time ago, before that we drew down troops, and there still are some US troops in Iraq, but there are also troops in Germany and Japan and South Korea, and the number of troops in Iraq now is 10% or less of the amount that were there for most of the last 10 years

 

[Farther than stars]

I'm pretty sure we have a word for 'warfighter'. They're called soldiers. -.-

 

[purf]

Usually I just watch these and write nothing, because whether I agree (mostly) or not (rarely or nitpickingly or Minecraft), I find myself brilliantly entertained so all I can come up with would be "lol".

This time, however, it is the same. Nice

Spoiler: But then I noticed something

2:02 - You flanked an enemy? In a Spunkgargleweewee? The possibilty of that must surely have been an exception, no?

 

[SonOfMethuselah]

The last minute had me in stitches. Spunkgargleweewee...

Not sure that you can really nail a new genre onto games like Call of Duty, Battlefield and Medal of Honour, but they certainly aren't as fun as the shooters I played growing up.

 

[bigdork]

I used to work on an Army base, and "warfighter" was the approved generic term for soldiers, marines, airmen, and seamen in combat. It's a real American DOD neologism.

One time my department got a new Powerpoint template. At the bottom, in a blue underscore bar, was "Our Focus is the Warfighter" (Yes, really. This actually happened). Spotting a factual inaccuracy, I fixed it to "Our Focus is the Bureaucrat" and routed it to a friend for a laugh.

I don't work there anymore.

 

[LazyAza]

Spec Ops is the first game ever to make people (myself included) feel guilty about killing things in a game. No other game in history has accomplished that as far as I'm aware, this alone is reason enough for people to play it.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I don't normally go in for sycophancy, but I'd like to give a slow clap for 4:36 - 5:00.

I'll join. That entire last minute or so was just outstanding. Started the review fairly boring, but damn did it end spectacularly.

 

[Therumancer]

Well, I agree with a lot of it except for the political/racial garbage thrown in. I myself tend to seriously dislike shooters, and don't play much of them as a result. That said, political correctness has gone too far as it is and getting on modern warfare games for portraying things realistically, where most of the bad guys ARE going to be of a differant ethnicity and culture than the good guys is just plain wrong. To be honest these games put a good deal of thought into their plots and why the fighting is going on, well usually, the mismatched power levels are both accurate, and in many cases it's the fault of the idiot bad guys for having provoked this to begin with, and that's kind of the point.

To be honest I think games like "Special Ops. The Line" did represent a differant kind of war experience, showing another side of things. Sort of like how there are differant kinds of war movies. It's the kind of work that speaks to the whole "peace at any price" movement in all it's misguided glory much like the movies that inspired it. Showing that things might not always be quite as straightforward as presented in other modern warfare themed games.

That said, I do very much agree with the genere's failings in of themselves now, lame, linear, tunnel shooting progression, overuse of cover, and too many cinematics that get in the way of actual gameplay. Today there is no real excuse for a single player campaign in an action game being anything other than a fairly open sandbox, to do otherwise is lazy design, but then again I suppose that is the gist of things as shooters are grinded out like crazy and the main idea is to promote the multiplayer so they can demand extra money for unlocks and map packs. I haven't played "Warfighter" but I'm guessing that's pretty much the case, and why the campaign sucks. If it's a game that revolves entirely around it's single player campaign... well, then it's just a sick dog, one that happens to be worse off than a genere that is already populated by ill canines.

 

[cerebus23]

Funny, I just downloaded Painkiller* today and holy hell it is fun. Combine the game with Sepultura/Misfits and you get something better than most realistic shooters combined. The SGWW's are low on all that "fun" thingy anyway so it's not very fair.

It doesn't have to actually be like that all the time but you can expand on it. It's hilarious how games from 8 years ago (or very well 20 years ago, if you count Doom) can kick the crap out of most mainstream FPS that have come out recently. Battlefield 3 may look good, but so does Half-life 2 and at least HL2 has competent design. It's almost as funny as the word Warfighter.


*(I own it, the Triple Dose actually, but my dvd drive's busted and I can't be bothered to buy another one)

blame gears of war for that the game that pretty much single handedly made the wall humping stye of regen play the norm for this gdamn generation.

Cod was never good it was a slowed down version of quake 1 with normal weapons. and its single player campaign were so scripted it took amnesia to replay the thing and not recall every clown car spawn spot and the exact route those guys would take and those guys would take so the whole single player game was a duck shoot once you played a level once.

quake 2 about wrote the book on fun fps, how the hell could id go from near perfection to ruining the whole feel of the game for quake 3 then quake 4. made no sense to me after all that quake 2 got right even hru the accidental bugs inthe code that made double jumping and straif jumping possible but completely changed the level of gameplay.

took mods to get that back in q3.

 

[theultimateend]

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.

Oh dear. Someone believes Fox News, don't they?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

However "good" the reasons for the U.S. to enter these countries, they've lost the moral high ground by now.

I do feel we've stretched into genocide territory and its very awkward.

"So what is your country up to?"
"Culling Iraqi civlians."
"Why?"
"Bringing them Freedom."
"..."