Blops 2

[Stark]

Another minor release slips under the radar ! ?

The game is pretty bog standard and amazingly ugly (not surprising given the engine) and the 'new' stuff boils down to config and load out. The story is (if possible) even more offensive than usual, with what I imagine is the core theme relegated to maybe three lines in cutscenes. It receives less time than the gratuitous torture the player engages in, lol.

On the other hand, I can't believe they put enough effort into SP to have a fairly granular branching story. The story itself is mindblowingly awful, but the way it handles plot flags is relatively interesting and allows the player to avoid repeating too much interminable 'run down corridor with spawning racial minorities shooting everyone in sight' action sequences.

Sadly, for all the times they mention the plot to the first game, it's barely a sequel. The characters could have been basically anyone. Except Secretary of Defence Petreus. He stars in 'best timed future story 2012'. Well, so long as you think 'in 2025 we live in a Ghost Recon book' is good. :v

I'm not sure if anyone has heard of this game, but if none else has played it lets try to raise the profile a bit, get the word out.

[Alkaloid]

Except Secretary of Defence Petreus. He stars in 'best timed future story 2012'.

Really? That is brilliant.

[CaptHawkeye]

I'm not sure if anyone has heard of this game, but if none else has played it lets try to raise the profile a bit, get the word out.

No, this is brilliant.

[weemadando]

I hear that if you bought it on PC you got a free copy of ME2 with it.

Sounds like a deal.

[Crazedwraith]

*spends post saying how terrible game is, wonders why no-one else has bought it*

Brilliant.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I hear that if you bought it on PC you got a free copy of ME2 with it.

Sounds like a deal.

Actually, only the first 50 copies. And you get ALL the Mass Effect games .

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/26738/bio ... index.html

Also, Is the game worth playing for a bit of mindless fun/single playthrough when rented? (AKA - How BLOPS one and the modern warfare games were).
It's kinda ridicolous how they're steamrolling most other games while using what's effectively a rewritten Quake 3 engine. (No?).
The games would be awesomeish if they had something a bit more beefy running things. (Say, the Crysis/Far Cry engine). No chance of that happening though anytime soon.

[White Haven]

Amusingly, they managed to cock that one up too. According to Joystiq, a bunch of the PC retail versions came with a Disc 2 that was printed with the Blops 2 logo, but was actually a Mass Effect 2 disc. Yeah, about that...

I mean, you can just toss the key into Steam and download it, but that does rather defeat the purpose of buying a retail box.

[Losonti Tokash]

Not sure which of these is worse:
1) you were so excited to tell everybody that you just ran in and posted without reading the most recent post, or
2) you read the last post and decided to say the exact same thing

Anyway, I'm told that the bad guys' plan is to make America look bad, which they do by not actually doing anything at all and just letting America go about its usual activities. Confirm/deny?

[White Haven]

Didn't click through the link, as I foolishly thought that Death would have actually mentioned the content of the article.

[Stark]

*spends post saying how terrible game is, wonders why no-one else has bought it*

Brilliant.

Can you fucking read? Regardless, you should probably develop the ability to understand what other people like so you don't mistake your own likes for truth. Too hard for the rocket scientists who thinks nobody has played Blops 2, certainly the biggest release of the year in gaming!

For everyone else who CAN read, I think it's worth a rent just to experience the story. COD has always had its own special relationship with logic, but Blops 2 is simultaneously the most extreme and offensive story, as well as the most effort put into it. Sherry was so offended she was laughing out loud the whole time, and insists I try to find the plot triggers to save the Obama.

And y'know, that's putting aside the multi... Which is the real reason 90% of people buy the game.

[Crazedwraith]

*spends post saying how terrible game is, wonders why no-one else has bought it*

Brilliant.

Can you fucking read? Regardless, you should probably develop the ability to understand what other people like so you don't mistake your own likes for truth. Too hard for the rocket scientists who thinks nobody has played Blops 2, certainly the biggest release of the year in gaming!

Oh geez. I'm quite aware you comments were sarcastic. I should have said 'wonder why no-one is talking about' rather than bought it.

Regardless. Your 'woe is me, GEC is dead. How sad it is we're not all obsessed gamers' shite gets old.

[Stark]

Thanks for responding to the poster, rather than the content of the post! Time to move on from you B&W stuff though, perhaps.

From an investment perspective the game must be amazing. An ancient engine and a few tweaks to multi (for competitive and config stuff as far as I can tell) and they're probably guaranteed to sell ten million. Maybe they made a surprisingly robust SP simply because they knew it wouldn't hurt their profits.

Maybe you can outline what about Blops makes it the domain of 'obsessed gamers'? It appears to be a pretty accessible, almost casual game.

[Vendetta]

By "surprisingly robust" do you mean "checkpointed at a position where you instantly lost repeatedly and returned the game because it was annoying?"

Anyway. We are all obsessed gamers, it's just that we're obsessed with silly tank game that Stark doesn't like.

[Stark]

I did wince get check pointed during a death animation, but that's hardly a new thing. :v

But it appears (I've only tested a few things) that some of the plot divergence is based on non-obvious choices and non-fail conditions. Some later missions have half a dozen plot points, only some of which are driven by press a to go one way, b to go another.

I'm pretty sure the Obama sunk because I was poops at eavesdropping on Mexicans and shot Admiral Ghetto, for instance, I think the setup will make your average player actually do more than blow through the story once then play MP forever.

[Tasoth]

I'm still early on in the SP, but I like it. Not because it's high writing, but because I find it fun. I'm a little worried that it will start to blur together since it's all about big things happening in Mason/Wood's history while the son focuses more on snooping and eavesdropping. The whole "ASIA AM BAAAAAAAD!" is a bit much, but I honestly have no suggestions for a big bad that could cast an imposing shadow against unfazed America's dominance of the international scene.

MP is better than MW3, but that's like saying your average person is better with money than a small, delightfully cheerful chickadee. Still has some launch bugs that need to be fixed, but over all I like it.

Also, needs more stages of Menendez's DOOM berzerker pack charges.

[Stark]

I think the story had a few writers, because tonally it's all over the place, The past stuff is typical COD historical revisionism and jingoistic chestbeating, the future stuff swings between AMERICA C.O.R.P.S. STRONG and 'we need to be friends with everyone', and the motive and agenda of the villain is revealed in literally a single line that other people talk over and which is never referred to again. It's a shame, because there was an interesting story buried under all the torture and racism.

And PS maybe they should stop writing stupid stories about America In Peril if they're so hard to write. As interesting as it is to constantly reenact the fevered dreams of Americans terrified that one day some one will do to them what they do to uncounted others is, it's a bit old hat.

[Tasoth]

I agree completely. Although, I saw it brought up that Rahmaan was referencing the 9/11 attacks/current political environment of the world with the ending of the Afghan level, I think people might be reading to far into it. The impression I get, and it's only because they fuck up and dump Zhao with you, is that 'their true enemies' are all outsiders, all the time. But, again, there really isn't much to back it up.

I also would love to see stories where the main actors aren't all Americans. Obviously, you can't cut out American characters totally as the US is the biggest market for the game, but having two of three viewpoint characters be a combination of local government soldiers and freedom fighters on the US MARINE WHOOWAAAH! side is something I would like to see. It also opens the option to have the story take place in a set part of the world and deal with something that isn't so apocalyptic. Which is a CoD hallmark. I think Spec Ops: The Line did this from a single character's point of view, but I don't know, I didn't play it.

[Stark]

I'm pretty sure we can put a level in which Americans make fun of the Afghans fighting Russia as idiots who can't do jack shit by themselves and the Bin Laden stand-in betrays them and cackles maniacally and says AMERICA WILL ALWAYS BE OUR ENEMY HO HO can safely be put in the 'oh dear' basket. Whats striking is that in the future levels, Harper actually says 'oh dear, an old CIA torture room, we used to have these all over the world' and is not cheerleading this idea; so the game is simultaneously hoooahing CIA black ops and murder squads of amazing brutality, and conscious of the negative outcomes this created for America. Its a real shame that the villain's actual agenda is almost cut out of the game; his outrageous plan of silliness to take control of the world's military and destroy it, to encourage the downtrodden and oppressed to rise up and change the system, was way more interesting than SHOT MORE MANS IN ARAB LAND. But holy shit, mad points for Bond villain having his space defence base in fucking Haiti. Fucking Haitians, taking our aid money!

How about the <spoiler warning> traitor to the hispanic army of doom being hispanic? Never saw that coming! The Obama being boarded by hundreds of wingpack wearing soldiers who all speak spanish had my wife in stitches. LATIN AMERICAN GARDENERS UNITE!

And dude Spec Ops is the best ever. It doesn't outline its setup very well which hurts the opening (since you don't really understand the context until later) but it has soldiers in a desperate situation doing crazy shit and this having real and dramatic consequences. Its apocalyptic in an almost entirely personal and internal way.

And not y'know just casually torturing and murdering every racial minority you come across lol. :V

[Ford Prefect]

Blops 2 makes 500 million in one day; death of culture confirmed :v

[Terralthra]

Spec Ops was an excellent game, and I'm not just saying that because I worked on it. The "drop you into the middle and make you figure out what's going on, despite that your character within the game clearly knows much more about what's going on than you do," worked well, in my opinion, because of the later mental developments. To say more would spoil it, I think.

[Lord Relvenous]

Can you fucking read? Regardless, you should probably develop the ability to understand what other people like so you don't mistake your own likes for truth. Too hard for the rocket scientists who thinks nobody has played Blops 2, certainly the biggest release of the year in gaming!

Oh geez. I'm quite aware you comments were sarcastic. I should have said 'wonder why no-one is talking about' rather than bought it.

Regardless. Your 'woe is me, GEC is dead. How sad it is we're not all obsessed gamers' shite gets old.

You really just did not get his post. At all.

It wasn't "spends post saying how terrible game is". It was "here are the game's flaws called z, but it had an interesting aspect x. It is worth talking about this innovative or at least well-executed mechanic and you should check out the game."

To not get that especially when you know Stark's style is just silly.

[Darksider]

Blops 2 makes 500 million in one day; death of culture confirmed :v

500 Million dollars? That's huge even for a CoD launch

[Edward Yee]

And dude Spec Ops is the best ever. It doesn't outline its setup very well which hurts the opening (since you don't really understand the context until later) but it has soldiers in a desperate situation doing crazy shit and this having real and dramatic consequences. Its apocalyptic in an almost entirely personal and internal way.

Doesn't a bunch of the quality come from Spec Ops: The Line basically being "Heart of Darkness: The Video Game"?

I'll agree that the "branching story" aspect was actually interesting to me, and it raised my opinion of the SP to hear that the Strike Force missions were integrated into the SP instead of simply being one-off side missions (like MW2/MW3 Spec Ops).

[Stark]

The Strike Force missions were, however, complete crap. Zero AI guys mean on higher diffs it just boils down to SEND ALL UR MANZ TO POINT A then STAND AT POINT B KILLING EVERYONE EFFORTLESSLY. There's even one you don't get unless you fuck up a plot mission. They're also largely inferior in content to most SP mission stuff in other games, espeically since they boil down to 'stand in room, shot all mans who come in'.

And seriously dude when people make ignorant comments about stuff they haven't played does it make them feel clever? I can rag on COD all day, but at least I actually know what the fuck I'm talking about.

[Ford Prefect]

Doesn't a bunch of the quality come from Spec Ops: The Line basically being "Heart of Darkness: The Video Game"?

It's not Heart of Darkness, it's about a guy who thinks he's in Heart of Darkness.