What’s Going On With Call of Duty?

So the new Call of Duty is out, huh?

Hmmm.  Hmmm.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The Overwatch Salt Mine Report -- August 2018

It seems like the only time I consistently play Overwatch is when there’s an event that gives me a chance to deck out my girl Mercy with some stylin’ new threads.  Most of the time my chances are non-existent, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying.  And failing.  And trying again.  So it goes that, in the wake of the 2018 Summer Games event, I’m back in and grinding it out to try and get my hands on the Winged Victory skin.

I’ve failed.  Triumphantly.  I might have a chance to grab one or two more loot boxes, but by the time you read this, I’ll probably have thrown in the towel by virtue of the event’s end.  Still, I’ve been grinding it out before I miss the Winged Victory costume again, so you know what that means.  Time for me to start a new, off-and-on series on Overwatch.  So let the salt flow through you as I talk about Blizzard’s beloved (?) shooter.  Starting with…

RE: Fortnite

Oh yeah, I played Fortnite that one time.  Guess it’s time to do a post on it.

Overwatch, 1.29 Years Later

There was a time when I was able to accurately tell my teacher that The Sims was the best-selling PC game of all time.  Near as I can tell, that’s no longer the case.  I would’ve thought that Overwatch had taken the crown by now, but I forgot we live in a world where Minecraft exists.  That’s not to say that Blizzard’s big shooter hasn’t done well on the charts; there’s a damn good reason why fanart for it has clogged the internet, and it’s not just because Tracer’s spandex-clad caboose.

Because as you know, Mercy is literally the best.

And man, Overwatch has seriously been on a tear recently, hasn’t it?  Junkertown announced with a goofy new short!  Then you get a REAL short starring everyone’s favorite character, Mei!  Deathmatch incoming!  New ult for Mercy, because the best must keep getting better!  And of course, Doomfist came out not too long ago -- sans Terry Crews, but I think we can live with that given the nature of the character.  So, how’s the game doing overall?  What’s the hot take on it well after its release?

Probably pretty good.  But I can only speak for myself, and that’s exactly what I plan to do.  Here’s what I think.

On Overwatch and a Call for Elegance

This would normally be the part where I launch into a paragraphs-long tangent only slightly related to the topic at hand, but I think I’d better get straight to the point.  I’m taking a hardline stance on this and saying what I’ve had in mind for years now: video games need more elegance.  Or, if not that, then video games need more elegant characters.  Or just elegance in general.

I’ve got no problems admitting Overwatch is the catalyst for this post.  Really, it’s my sincere hope that it’s the catalyst for changes throughout the industry as well as the gamer zeitgeist; it’s one thing to beg and plead for change in posts and articles and videos, but it’s another thing entirely to have it subtly suggested by the media we consume.  That is to say, Overwatch isn’t directly asking for diversity in games.  It’s just doing its best to prove how freakin’ cool it is when you have a cast that mixes it up.  Given the choice (and the resources), it’s always best to offer more options and means of expression.  That way, everyone can be happy.

And you know who makes me happy in this game?  Mercy.  Because she’s literally the best.

RE: Overwatch

So you know what I realized?  Overwatch is the first game I’ve ever bought for the PC.

No, really.

No, really.

No, really.

Let’s “discuss” Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Part 3).

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.”
--Jeremiah 29:11-12

All right.  One for the road.

Don’t worry.  We’ll get through the campaign together.  Or...part of it at least.  So let's go ahead and get bloppy one last time.

Let’s “discuss” Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Part 2).

Jesus wept.

…I know I said that I’d find another long Bible verse for this intro, but there’s something that’s been on my mind.  I have a question that needs answering.

Is Call of Duty terrible?  I know that question’s as loaded as a Gatling gun the size of Montana, but let’s work through it, shall we?

Let’s “discuss” Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Part 1).

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

--Romans 3:23-26

*sigh*

Shit.

Let’s discuss Splatoon (Part 2).

So I have a theory that everyone in Splatoon is secretly a cannibal.

Okay, maybe not everyone -- because I have my doubts that shopkeepers like Sheldon and Crusty Sean could even take a good bite out of someone.  But you’ve seen the Inklings by now, right?  Every time they open their mouths, they show off some seriously sharp chompers.  TV personalities Callie and Marie casually talk about eating seafood, and both of them wear sushi-style hats.  Chalk this up to headcanon, but are we 100% sure that Inklings that lose an Ink Battle aren’t eaten alive as punishment?

Maybe death just has no meaning for these undersea people (who live on the surface for some reason).  They reincarnate endlessly during an Ink Battle, after all.  But it may go further than that; lose a battle and go back to the lobby, and you’re a different color than when you started -- so maybe the losing Inkling got devoured, and you start playing as a substitute.  Or if you win and go back to the lobby, you play as an Inkling who dug your original Inkling’s fresh styles, and adopted his/her outfit to pay tribute (and try to look cool).  That’s probably not the case, but hey.  It gets the gears going.

In some ways, that might be what makes Splatoon secretly great -- because even in the absence of an hours-long narrative, I can’t help but feel excited by the game’s world.    Learning more about it?  That’d be preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty coooooooooooooooooool.

Let’s discuss Splatoon (Part 1).

Really?  Are you actually reading this?  Like, you’re seriously ready to read a post on Splatoon?

You know I could pretty much say #GoodGuyNintendo and end things right here, right?  Is there anything more that needs to be said?  Is there?

*sigh* All right, let’s do this.

ShootStravaganza!! THE FINALE!

So, let’s talk about shooters one last time.  Because I thought about giving Destiny another shot, but decided against it; I made a cat robot in the beta, but now I want to make a female avatar.

If the game industry won’t put women in, then the duty falls to us.  #ForJusticeOrSomething

ShootStravaganza!! Battlefield 4

“The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.”

--Psalm 103:8-12

*sigh*

So.  You knew this one was coming, didn’t you?

ShootStravaganza!! MGS5: Ground Zeroes

Cripes.  How do you even talk about this game?

The only way you can is the obvious way -- by bringing up the fact that it’s a forty dollar demo.  And it IS a forty dollar demo, without question.  That’s literally the only reason it exists, even if it’s got a spiffy title independent of the upcoming The Phantom Pain.  And it’s not a justified existence by any means, believe you me.  Remember, I’m the guy who raised a stink over The Last of Us and its DLC -- fifteen dollars for maybe an hour and a half of cutscenes, and maybe thirty minutes of gameplay.  So I can’t in good faith recommend Ground Zeroes to anyone.

And jeez, does this set one hell of a bad precedent.  Konami and crew likely only did it because they needed to restock the war chest, and they figured with the MGS name attached, they could get away with it.  And they did.  Even if some people raised complaints, others -- and plenty of them, by the sound of it -- spoke with the one thing that mattered: their wallets.  So I guess this is the new standard now.  I take issues with games like Destiny offering access to its beta demo solely by preordering the game (and “subtly” pushing a thought-free purchase under the idea that “eh, I already preordered it, so I might as well keep it”), but that’s a saintly practice compared to Ground Zeroes. 

Now.  Let’s talk about the actual game.

ShootStravaganza!! Mercenary Kings

You might think it’s a little unfair of me to add a game like Mercenary Kings to this miniseries, by way of it being a shooter in the sole sense that “it has guns”.  But then again, I could counter that by saying there was never any exact definition as to what sort of shooter would appear in the ShootStravaganza.  Given that there’s a third-person shooter coming up, is it really so far-fetched to have a game that leans hard toward being an old-school 2D platformer?

No.  No it is not, good sir or madam.

Moving on to more pertinent matters -- this game has sprites, and that makes me happy.  I agree with the sentiment of a lot of gamers, and think that sprites are cool…and on top of that, something precious ended up being lost in the transition from 2D to 3D.  I’ve got one of the later Breath of Fire games on my PS3, and the animations there make me lament that that didn’t become the future of gaming.  Same goes for Street Fighter; I like (and still play) IV, but there’s just no beating the marvel of Alex tearing his shirt, Sean’s two-fisted dragon punch, and pretty much everything about Makoto and Elena.  A well-made sprite leads to a level of artistic expression that 3D can’t always match.  Or if not that, then it at least offers something friggin’ cool.

So the same applies to Mercenary Kings, as you’d expect.  I just wish there was more to it than that.

ShootStravaganza!! Wolfenstein: The New Order

Video games may be an art form, but it’s hard to separate them from the mechanical underpinnings.  Yeah, that’s probably true of every art form, but given that games are built on technology, it’s more than a little pronounced.  So while in a lot of ways, it’s easy to understand why there are so many shooters (even if you’re not willing to welcome them): the mechanics are the simplest way to create a relationship between a real player and a virtual world.  Take aim, pull a trigger button, and things happen.  It’s a hard formula to screw up, even if it is less than preferable to others.

I’m not even going to pretend like I know everything/anything about shooters, but I can do something like that for fighting games.  Even if you don’t have any skill with them, it only takes a glance to realize that there are systems and particulars that go into each one, making them different across the board.  True, there are lessons and concepts that carry over from game-to-game, but Street Fighter 4 is not the same game as, say, Street Fighter X Tekken. 

There are surface-level elements, like those unique systems; there are deeper elements, like preparation and tactics; there are elements that you have to learn on the fly, going from one match to another (someday I’ll learn how to fight Chun-Li) -- and then there’s the super-deep stuff like frame data, proration, and more.  Fighters may have seen a renaissance over the past half-decade or so, but that’s partly because they’ve got the depth -- at every level -- that can satisfy a player.  It’s what makes fighters one of the purest game genres out there.

I bring all this up because I think that’s part of the appeal of Wolfenstein: The New Order.  And it’s part of the reason why it’s not only the best game I’ve looked at for the ShootStravaganza, but maybe one of the best next-gen games so far…even though that doesn’t really mean very much at this stage, but whatever.

ShootStravaganza!! Killzone: Shadow Fall

So you know what I just realized?  All the games that are going to pop in for the ShootStravaganza are PS4 games.  Fancy that.

The way things are looking now, I’m not exactly what you’d call excited about the next (technically current) generation of games.  I’m on record here on Cross-Up of being genuinely worried about what the PS4 and Xbox One would bring, and now that they’re getting dangerously close to the one-year mark, I can say that they’re not the doombringers that most would have expected.  Now, mediocrity-bringers, on the other hand?  THAT’S something they can do.  For someone who’s getting into games for the first time with something like Infamous: Second Son, they’ll be fine.  But for someone like me, who’s played the other, better Infamous games?  It’s a step down.  And the less said about Watch Dogs, the better. 

It doesn’t say good things about the state of a console or a game industry when the most compelling argument to even turn the blasted new box are games that not only DON’T take full advantage of the technology, but could conceivably appear on the earlier consoles…not to mention they were likely made for a fraction of the price, yet ended up better regardless.  In all fairness to the PS4 (and the Xbone, to a lesser extent), I’m going to say what I’ve been saying for a while: someday, they’re both going to get the games that justify their existence.  Someday, they’re going to be consoles worth owning.  Someday, they’re going to make big contributions to the gaming canon.

Today is not that day.  And Killzone: Shadow Fall is not that game.

ShootStravaganza!! Destiny (The Beta)

This should go without saying, but you should never take anything I say too seriously.

Holding up someone’s words and opinions as gospel is pretty dangerous, because A) it prevents you from thinking for yourself, B) it hands over a lot of power to some nigh-unseen force, and C) it would imply that the deliverer of gospel is flawless.  They’re not.  And I’m not.  I try to be as fair as I can, and look past my biases.  If I can’t -- which is often, I’d bet -- then I’ll at least try my hardest to support my reasoning…even if that reasoning is just a way to justify shutting my eyes and covering my ears. 

I just thought I’d make all that clear up-front, because this is actually the second post on Destiny that I’ve done.  Granted the first was focused more on the business side of the equation, the dangerous precedent at play, and the potential threat to the gaming canon vis a vis another big push toward mediocrity, but…uh…I don’t have a positive way to end this sentence.  So I’ll just go ahead and say that Destiny was, at the time, innocent until proven guilty.  Until gamers in droves -- myself included -- got to try the game, making any snap judgments would’ve made anyone who slammed the game look like a fool.

But that’s fine.  Because now that the beta is over and done, I get to slam the game all I want.

…I told you I was biased.

Introducing: The Cross-Up ShootStravaganza!

Not too long ago, I took to Reddit’s Truegaming section to pose a question: what kind of lasting effect have guns had on video games?  I think it’s a legitimate question, considering how you pretty much can’t have a game these days without guns.  Okay, maybe not every game has guns (Tokyo Jungle comes to mind, and is stronger because of it), but there are ENOUGH games full of guns to give pause.  It really doesn’t say good things about the state of the industry when I read a GameInformer article about Gearbox’s upcoming game Battleborn, and the first paragraph talks about how the dev established itself as a FPS ace with Halo: Combat Evolved.  And in that very paragraph, it goes on to say that Gearbox left its comfort zone by making Borderlands…another FPS, only with RPG elements, sort of.  And then their new game is -- hold on to something -- another FPS.  Only different!  Somehow.

I’ve gone on about this before, but it bears repeating: guns are a useful tool in-universe and out of it, but they can be limiting in the very same method.  Think about it; a character’s weapon of choice/fighting style says a lot about their personalities, and in a video game it can decide (and jazz up) the mechanics.  Or, to put it a different way, compare a handful of shooters to a handful of fighting games.  There are basic principles that carry over from, say, Street Fighter to BlazBlue, but the varying characters, styles, and mechanics make each fighting game a whole different beast.  Conversely, playing one shooter gives you nearly everything you need to succeed in another.  There are nuances that set them apart, yes, but there’s only so much you can do in terms of deviation.

So the question that’s been on my mind, now more than ever, is simple: what makes a good shooter?  And I intend to find out.