CoD: Strange Feels · 2:37am Apr 12th, 2013
So I played a bit of Call of Duty Black Ops the other day. I'm not a fan of the series, since as far as I can tell, it's the same game being re-packaged and sold over and over again to mindless fanboys, but my dad bought it awhile back, and I got a strange impulse to play it.
It actually wasn't too bad. I enjoyed a bit of the campaign (multiplayer is for fagts) for the fast-paced violence, but here and there I got some weird feels. There's something vaguely disturbing about the CoD games. They seem to have a tradition of ineffective storytelling via underdeveloped characters yelling at each other in glitchy-looking cutscenes, which keeps putting me in positions where I'm killing very realistic looking enemies without a clear idea why. It's fun, but every now and then I can't help but be overcome with mortality of it all. That guy I just shot had a life, with friends and hopes and dreams, but his entire life lead up to this moment of him getting shot and dying on some battlefield, and I don't even know why.
At one point, I had an interactive cutscene thing in which I had to put broken glass in a guy's mouth and punch him in the face. Something about a chemical weapon, which isn't a very big deal since both the US and Russia already had nuclear weapons at this point. When you can destroy an entire city with one bomb, other weapons are kind of moot, but i guess chemical weapons are so scurry to the average American, so somebody thought that'd make a good story.
So there I am, torturing somebody I've never met for a cause I don't believe in or fully understand. Later on, during one of the talky parts where there's nothing to shoot at, I pass by a bunch of my allies executing helpless POW's as they beg for mercy, and then a bunch of Vietcong soldiers who couldn't be more than 18 die en masse trying to rush a trench they have little hope of taking, and it all seems pointless.
The game shows war in a very nihilistic light. Just shoot the other guys and follow the little yellow arrow on your HUD. Why? They're the enemy, or something. Everyone does terrible things, but there isn't the justification of a grand goal. All the death and suffering is just squabbling over some redundant weapon which will ultimately have no effect on the events of the Cold War, so whether I win or lose, it doesn't feel like it matters.
That's some profound shit. I bet it was all completely unintentional though.
Oh well. The shooting's still fun.
You should check out Extra Credits video about Spec Ops: The Line. It addresses a lot of what you're talking about. Spec Ops takes the tropes of warfare games and turns them on their head. It's a sobering game, to say the least. It also treats its audience like adults.
But pascal... that IS war...
Soldiers usually end up dehumanizing their enemies so maybe you're just playing it from the psychological point of view of the main character and how he views things. This being an unintended side effect of laziness and lack of skill.
Those feels, Pascal. I get them while playing Mario Kart.
1001286
I've heard lots of good things about spec-ops (it does everything I said in an intentional way), but I'm too cheap to get it at the moment. I've got a friend with it on his steam account, so maybe I'll hit him up.
I liked Black Ops 2. It actually attempted to give a little more depth and non-linearity to the usual bullshit presented in MW.
Also, shooting people is fun.
Also, I cannot afford Battlefield.
I think the president feels the same way
It's not about winning or losing, but apparently getting a high score
While I can't comment on the single player (as I actively avoid the series), I can say I completely agree with you on the series as a whole. Actually let me have this fine gentleman sum up pretty much all my views on CoD in a single, two minute video.
Warning: NSFW language