Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Call of Duty: WW2 Games Retrospective
292 Plays3 years ago
In this episode, Satsunami and Adam take on the nostalgic roots of gaming's FPS giant Call of Duty. From it's beginnings to it's recent entry Vanguard, the duo take a deep dive into this series and how each entry accomplishes this. So let's get those boots on the ground and take on this mammoth topic!
NOTE: This episode will delve into sensitive topics regarding the Second World War.
For more Satsunami content, please click here!
For more Chatsunami content, please click here!
--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chatsunami/message
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Co-host Introduction
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Chad Tsunami. I'm Sad Tsunami and storming the discussions with me today is my very good friend Adam. Adam, welcome back.
Excitement for Historical Discussion
00:00:30
Speaker
We shall fight them in the podcasts and we shall fight them on the streams. Hello hello it is good to be back for an episode that I am very excited for.
00:00:40
Speaker
Well, you and me both, because, you know, the slight spoilers slash chats and I'm exclusive, we are indeed tested at buffs, aren't we?
Call of Duty Franchise Overview
00:00:49
Speaker
I do have the business cards that list that as my occupation.
00:00:52
Speaker
Yep, I've seen them. Yeah, they're very nice. I like the phone especially. Very, very neat touch. So yeah, as you can see today, we are going to be diving into, quite frankly, a very historical subject. Not just for general history of the world, but of course history in gaming.
00:01:13
Speaker
That, of course, being the Call of Duty franchise. Now, we have talked about Call of Duty in the past, haven't we? We've discussed Modern Warfare and we've also discussed the Black Ops series, which I think was our first Call of Duty episode. That was like episode four, I think, maybe? Yeah, it was something like that. It was one of the early ones. It was just pops.
00:01:36
Speaker
Back when we were, you know, greenhorn recruits getting fresh off the boat, you know. Now we record on veteran. Yeah, now we're... Oh, don't you start. We try our best. We try to record on veteran. I put it down to regular.
00:01:53
Speaker
Yeah, I put it down to recruit for tonight. I'm just letting you run the podcast tonight.
Origins of Call of Duty as a WWII Shooter
00:01:59
Speaker
So if you're longtime fans of the Call of Duty series, you may know that it actually began as a World War II shooter. Something that I have to admit, you wouldn't really know nowadays, would you?
00:02:12
Speaker
no it's been all over the shop now so because initially it did indeed start from Call of Duty 1 to 3 and feel free to jump in and correct me Adam because I gotta get the feeling I'm gonna get something wrong here but it was Call of Duty 1 to 3 began the you know the big massive franchise that is Call of Duty off on the right foot with its fans whether the games have been good or bad they have just continued haven't they it's just rolled on like a like a steamroller yeah
00:02:41
Speaker
and then of course by I want to say oh god when did Modern Warfare come out? 2007. Yeah and by 2007 we got introduced to Call of Duty moving into the modern age and then it moved into the future and then it moved back to World of War 2 it's exactly as you said it has been all over the place but I'm quite curious to know you actually started with this era like Call of Duty 1 to 3 you started with this era of Call of Games didn't you?
00:03:11
Speaker
I did. So my first Call of Duty game was one called Finest Hour, which was released for Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube 2004. So that was the year after the Call of Duty franchise began. Yeah, this was right. This was in the height of when basically most, well not
00:03:27
Speaker
but like lots of shooters were set in
Personal Histories with Call of Duty
00:03:29
Speaker
World War Two. This was like the height, getting towards the tail end of it, of that kind of phase of it. And yeah, like at the time, so I was getting towards the end of primary school at that time. And this is when I was getting really interested in history and in especially the history of the Second World War. And so, you know, I was loving to read books about it. I love to watch films and I especially love to play games about World War Two.
00:03:49
Speaker
And so that's how I fell into the Call of Duty series. I mean, it's a great way to start the series, to be fair. Yeah, back in it. It was not quite at its peak, but on its right, on the ascent. Yeah, alongside Metal Warner, which I know we'll get to that episode one day, Adam. One day! One day! That was a loving middle of every one day. You're looking for Lauren at the Wonder Blake one day.
00:04:11
Speaker
We joke about the one Atari fan, I think I'm the one Medal of Honor fan. He's like, keep it alive! As long as you talk about it, it won't go away. I'm sure there's like a Sundance film about that somewhere. If not, I'm gonna make it. Game of Honor or something.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah, don't worry, we'll 3D print you a Medal of Honor badge or something. Yay, the fan club. I was going to say with our Chatsunami 3D printer, we don't have that yet. One of these days. That's what we're saving up for. If you hear in the background the rattling of a tin can, that'll be us.
Interest in History and Historical Events
00:04:48
Speaker
should say that because in terms of having like an interest in history I was also the same where I was really interested in periods of time and this is gonna make me sound terrible but you know like periods of time where things were going on you know like I remember studying like a lot of really boring subjects in school like the locomotives and farming in Scotland and things like that and you think oh god I'm gonna fall asleep
00:05:15
Speaker
Did you ever do that? We didn't do farming in Scotland. We did the liberal welfare reforms of the 1900s, which weren't the most stimulating topic I have to admit. Oh yeah, I remember. I remember that. I don't remember it well. I think that's kind of a testament to how well I remember when the welfare state began.
00:05:37
Speaker
It was back in 1992. But yeah, when we got to things like learning about the Jacobites, the First World War, you know, the kind of action set pieces of history, that's where. Exactly. I was really fascinated because you think, like, what caused these events and everything?
Gaming Restrictions in Childhood
00:05:57
Speaker
And you know, it was really interesting to me. So that's like what sparked my interest in history. But
00:06:02
Speaker
Then there's kind of a conflict here though because you were saying you were in primary school when you got the game. Yeah yeah towards the end, last few years. So I think I've mentioned this in past episodes but my parents were very strict about what I could and couldn't play.
00:06:18
Speaker
you know, as all parents should do. And they wouldn't let me play any games that were over my age. So like if I was 13 and the game was a 15, which most Call of Duty games were, I wasn't allowed to touch them. So it wasn't until I turned 15 years old that like a switch flipped inside my head and I was like,
00:06:37
Speaker
Oh god, I'm gonna buy all the 15 rated games. So I bought like Halo 3 and of course Call of Duty 3 was my first one. I absolutely loved it. I'm not gonna lie, I loved Call of Duty 3. I remember playing it and going back to it now is dated.
Impact of Call of Duty 3
00:06:55
Speaker
Don't get me wrong, it's really, really dated. But back then,
00:07:00
Speaker
it was so realistic. You could hear the bullets whizzing over your head and you were dropping down and you had the soldiers coming out of nowhere and grabbing your gun and you had to wrestle them. Did you feel the same way as well when you played Final Stiver? Yeah, no, definitely. The scale of it was really impressive to me at the time. Final Stiver was one that we're not going to talk about it on this one because it's not part of the main series of Call of Duty games. It was more of a side one.
00:07:28
Speaker
It's one that's probably aged the worst with Call of Duty games. I wouldn't recommend playing it now unless you've got nostalgia for it. But yeah, certainly that scale. And that's something we'll come to talk about when we talk about the other Call of Duty. So that's what kind of sets these games apart from some of their competitors. What's that sense of scale? So I was very impressed.
00:07:46
Speaker
I mean, I have to admit, I'm just trying to think back to that time in my life, you know, and this is me showing my age, where I'm like, ah, I remember those days when my hips didn't hurt, kids weren't running across my lawn, you know, kids weren't teabagging me and shit-talking me and Xbox Live, you know, the usual things you expect.
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, I remember it being popular. I remember it being popular and I remember people talking about call of duty, wanting to know when the next one was coming out, but it was always the same with Halo. Like, I knew all of it, but I never got to interact with it. I think I maybe played a little bit of it at a friend's. Ironically enough, I think it must have been either the second one or Finest Hour, but that was a flash in the pan in terms of exposure.
00:08:36
Speaker
Yeah, so I genuinely couldn't experience the full game or put myself in the shoes of the characters and everything. Unfortunately I didn't get that exposure until I was 15 and then I loved it.
00:08:51
Speaker
that's what kind of turned me into a Call of Duty fan. First it was Call of Duty 3, then it was, yeah, it was Modern Warfare 2, I think a couple of years later after that.
Nostalgia and Importance of WWII Setting
00:09:03
Speaker
And then, yeah, it was just down the rabbit hole of Call of Duty games. But the World of War 2 setting in Call of Duty has always been like a very important one.
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah, certainly. I mean, as you say, this was the setting that, like, kick-started this whole franchise. And, you know, I think still a lot of people might say some of the best games, like, in the Call of Duty series are still ones that were in the World War II setting. So it is incredibly important to the franchise, as much as the franchise then transcended and moved beyond, you know, and did, like, sprawl out into all these different kind of phases of, you know, history and also, like, the future and everything. Like, the World War II setting is really important to its growth.
00:09:42
Speaker
It is certainly like a nostalgic hotbed of, you know, every single Call of Duty fan at some point has played one of the games in the World War II setting, whether it's the originals, whether it's World War or the rest of them, which we will get on to.
00:10:00
Speaker
And kind of one of the reasons we are talking about this today is because Call of Duty Vanguard as of yesterday when we started recording this has just hit the shelves and it is I want to say it's like huge successful sales and everything which probably is. There's probably like record breaking you know pre-orders and things even though you know
00:10:24
Speaker
even though like our opinions might be different about it. Yeah because of that we thought this would be the perfect time just to go back to that setting of World of War 2 and the Call of Duty games that spawned out of that setting really. So what we're going to do today is we're going to go through the main Call of Duty games set in World of War 2. So we're going to be covering Call of Duty 1-3. We're going to be tackling World at War, World of War 2 and
00:10:52
Speaker
We will also be tackling a little bit of
Sensitive Topics and Episode Focus
00:10:55
Speaker
Vanguard. Now, please note there are going to be spoilers in this podcast episode, except for Vanguard. I mean, I'm halfway through it just now. And I know, Adam, you finished it last night, didn't you? Yeah, I did. I blitzed it all night. I know. You absolute mad lad.
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah, I salute my helmet to you. That's what we're going to do. So we're going to go into spoilers for all of these games, except for Vanguard. Vanguard is going to be a completely spoiler free zone, so if you're worried about listening to this episode and you still haven't played Vanguard, don't worry, you can still listen. Spoiler free for that.
00:11:30
Speaker
One thing I want to mention as well is this episode will be going into some very sensitive topics. Of course, we are going to be talking about themes relating to the Second World War, so just a heads up for that in just a warning in case that is something you might feel uncomfortable with or you just want preparation before we dive into that, just in case we're letting you know just now. Without any further ado, will we just jump into
00:11:55
Speaker
Let's get going, get parachutes on and bail out this aircraft. Yes. And before we do, we just have to listen to a couple of transmissions coming up from our HQ. So bear with us and we will be right back.
00:12:09
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety podcast that talks about topics from gaming and films to streaming in general interest. Previously on Chatsunami, we discussed Game of the Decade, Deadly Premonition, the romantic thriller, Birdemic, and listen to us get all sappy as we discuss our top five Christmas films. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can find us an anchor, Spotify, YouTube, and all good podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:12:40
Speaker
We are Beer and Chill Podcast. Podcast where we review TV shows, games, movies and whatever else takes our fancy. So what are you waiting for? If you're a cool kid like us, you're gonna listen to the Beer and Chill Podcast. You can get anywhere from Spotify all the way to your grandma's radio. My name is Jan. And I'm Craig Yisi. And we are Beer and Chill.
00:13:15
Speaker
And that is affirmative. We will indeed be following those messages while we dive into the main discussion. Let's go for it. I'm ready. OK, so I will let you lead the charge for, well, for quite possibly the most nostalgic era of Call of Duty. So the floor's all yours.
00:13:33
Speaker
So we go all the way back to 2003, which I don't know, don't know about you, but to me seems like, I don't know, millennia ago now. I think back to that. But so 2003 was when the first Call of Duty was released. And like, I didn't play it at the time. I played it, I played it about, I must have been a year later after I played finest hour in a bit and I got a laptop that could actually run it. But yeah, I really, really enjoyed the original Call of Duty.
00:13:58
Speaker
And I think there are two things that are really, really fascinating, really interesting and really important about the first Call of Duty game, like comparing it to what other World War Two games that were on the market at the time. So the main competitor at the time, the kind of big dog in the World War Two FPS genre, was the Medal of Honor series.
00:14:16
Speaker
And I really don't get it wrong, you know, I love the Medal of Honor series. I am a fan. But it was starting to slightly kind of run its course a bit by the kind of early 2000s. I think people were looking for something quite fresh and different. And that's what Call of Duty provided. Most of the Medal of Honor games, they're very American centric kind of views of the war. And really, a lot of the stories, it's like you're the kind of, you know, classic one man army, like taking down like the Nazi war machine, you know, single handedly, basically.
00:14:44
Speaker
And Call of Duty, like, as much as it was still, like, you know, had these kind of, like, big kind of fights and big action set pieces and kind of was Hollywood-esque at points, it was different from that kind of Medal of Honor, like, format in that there was a lot of... Well, first of all, for a start, it wasn't just an American-centric thing, you know, in the original game you play as an American soldier, but also a British and a Soviet soldier. So you got an expanded view of the war, and that was something that was quite different, and I don't think...
00:15:08
Speaker
many other games had done that at all. So it was really refreshing to go to places like the Eastern Front. As much as places like Stalingrad now have become like World War and territory in World War 2 games, that was still quite novel and fresh in 2003 to get that kind of international perspective.
00:15:25
Speaker
And as well, the big focus on Call of Duty was that you were fighting alongside your allies and stuff. For most levels, you had fellow soldiers with you and stuff, and it was more like these larger scale battles, and you felt like you were part of something bigger, which was something the Medal of Honor wasn't really doing, and so it really differentiated itself, and I think that's
00:15:44
Speaker
Why? Those two reasons were why the game, and plus the game was just fun to play as well. It was really good at really good levels. It was really robust. I had a good multiplayer. I didn't play any of it, but I know it was very popular at the time. So that's kind of the reasons why it really caught fire. People really, really were excited about it. As crazy as it is now as a series, which is so maybe makes people lethargic and roll their eyes as Call of Duty, this was really fresh and exciting in 2003. People were really excited about it.
00:16:12
Speaker
I say, I still like this first game, I still go back and play it every now and then, I think it's held up pretty well. If there's, I don't know if you've never played it before, I don't know what the experience would be like now, you might find it quite dated. So I would, if you want to play it, I would say maybe urge a bit of caution, you know, just in case perhaps it has dated more now. But like, certainly if you have nostalgia for it and you haven't played it in a while, I'd recommend it. And if you can, fire it back up again, because it still holds up really well and yeah.
00:16:38
Speaker
I still really like it. But as much as I loved the first one, let me tell you, my mind was blown by a sequel, Call of Duty 2, which came out in 2005 and was a launch title for the Xbox 360. It also came out on PC. And this was the first game that I got with my Xbox 360 and the game that I played. And this, Call of Duty 2, is probably one of the games I've played the most in my life. And I love this game. I think it's an absolute masterpiece.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, just like the scale of it again and just the graphics for the time were just mind blowing. I've never seen anything like it and I couldn't believe it and it was just so engaging. It drew me in. And it's that same style again. It was, you know, you have your American campaign, your British campaign and your Soviet campaign, but they were all, all three of them were pretty distinct from each other. So it was, you got a good variety there. The levels were basically great all across the board. Like the gameplay was solid. The shooting was great.
00:17:29
Speaker
It's funny looking at it now. It's such a simplified experience compared to what Call of Duty is now. It's very much like there's no real filler at all. It was like, here's what we do. We're a first-person shooter, and this is why we're going to make it the best one that we can.
00:17:45
Speaker
And I still think it's great. I would highly recommend, like, if you played it before and loved it, go back and play it. It's still great. And honestly, I think as well that you haven't played this one. I don't think this is age that badly. I think you could go back and you'd still really enjoy this. And you might actually find it a really refreshing pace as well. A really kind of refreshing change from what Call of Duty is now. So I really urge if you can get it, go play it. Because to me, it's near flawless. Like, I think Call of Duty 4 is probably still the best of the Call of Duty's, but 2 is really, really close to me. I just think it's spectacular.
00:18:13
Speaker
That's actually quite interesting. So would you like suggest that if there was any game that people should try out in this series of World War 2 Call of Duty games it should be the second one?
00:18:25
Speaker
For me, certainly, it's my second favorite out of the whole series. I would recommend that. I would say it would be one to check out because I just think it's fascinating now to look at and see what Call of Duty once was and to kind of see how it's changed now, but to go back to that very kind of like simple and robust experience that it was. And so, yeah, like I would recommend checking out because I still think it's great.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, this is going to sound terrible for your podcast episodes about this topic. But I haven't, as I said, I haven't had much exposure to those games. So it is quite interesting hearing your take on them, because as I said, mines was the third one, which correct me if I'm wrong, but was Call of Duty 3 the first one they started introducing the regeneration health system? No, that was actually Call of Duty 2. Call of Duty 2 was the first one to bring that one in.
00:19:12
Speaker
Interestingly, only two Call of Duty games, out of the main canon of games, have the classic bar health in them. Both are set in WW2, but yeah, regeneration health was something that came in quite early, and it was actually Call of Duty on these games that popped
00:19:27
Speaker
popularized it as like a single. Halo had that hybrid, the original Halo had that hybrid system where you had like a regenerating shield and then like kind of like your bar health below that but Call of Duty 2 was the one that kind of popularized this as like the regeneration health as like the soul health mechanic. That's interesting because I wasn't sure whether it was like
00:19:45
Speaker
introduced earlier because I remember, as I said before, I remember playing something like Halo 3 and you know how that's just like the shield system where it's like you know it takes so many hits and you have to hide and wait till it recharges and you know like going back to something earlier like Halo 1 where it's like you've also got health packs and things.
00:20:03
Speaker
and it was the same I remember with. I think it was the first one that I played like years and years ago and what limited exposure I got from that game. There was like a level where you had to run around and you had to grab health packs and compare to like what was out at the time. You know like Modern Warfare 2 and all of those games where it was just the regen health system. Yeah no that's quite interesting though so thank you for clarifying that. I'm happy to wax lyrical and I'm calling you two all day so stop me now.
00:20:31
Speaker
of course. And that of course leads us on to Call of Duty 3. I'm wondering if, because I think during the time this came out, correct me if I'm wrong again, but was the market not like very oversaturated with World War II shooters?
00:21:01
Speaker
tipping point. It felt like every first person's year was getting thrust into WW2. Because I do remember picking up this game, and as I said, because this was my first Call of Duty game, I was absolutely blown away at the time. I mean, this came out in 2006, so yeah, take my opinion with a bunch of salt, but at the time it just looked fantastic.
00:21:22
Speaker
you know you had, as I said before, the bullets wasn't over you, you were like dodging the enemy as they were like shooting at you. I mean going back to, I think I went back to a couple years later since I started like playing it, it didn't age well, no I'm gonna lie, it did not age as well as some of the other games because like I'd been playing like Modern Warfare, Black Ops where it's like you could run about and everything and when you go back to code 3 it's like the strafing mechanics.
00:21:52
Speaker
But it wasn't great, but at the time, as an introduction, I absolutely loved it. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. It kind of was one of the catalysts for my love of FPS games and shooter games as a whole, so I can't take that away from it. One thing I have to admit is the scope in it seems to be quite limited compared to the other games. As you said before, and I think it's the first one that focuses on Stalingrad,
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's the big part of it. Yeah, like so you've got like the, you know, the perspectives on all fronts, whereas in Code 3, for the version I had for the PlayStation 2, you've got the Americans who, you know, Americans being Americans blazing through France and Berlin, trying to liberate it from Germany. And then on the flip side, you've got a like kind of
00:22:43
Speaker
sub-story with the SES trying to sabotage outposts and things. The whole game revolves around the latter half of the breakout from Normandy, which is the period after D-Day when the Allies re-land in France towards
00:23:02
Speaker
end of the war and so like the game like I just say it's a much more confined setting so you it's exclusively in France exclusively on the western front over like basically a period of like two months in the war so it's a much more like it's it like it's all kind of like french villages and french countryside you know for the bulk of and some towns and stuff for the bulk of the game as opposed to like college duty like two and one where you would fight in like the the north african desert
00:23:27
Speaker
in like Russia, in Germany, like across different kind of locations, it was a much more fixed because they wanted to tell like a kind of a kind of narrative. This was one of the this was like really the first Call of Duty to try and have like a kind of unified narrative where you would like you had like character development, you know, and like you got to know characters more than they kind of were in the older games. And so I think they decided to put it in that more kind of like just in one kind of setting to try and aid that.
00:23:52
Speaker
Fair play to them though for actually doing that and I mean would you say they pulled it off? I think they did to an extent like I think it should be loaded for like it's important one because it's the first attempt in this series to create a kind of unified narrative which was something that like became far more important to later games. This was also Treyarch's
00:24:10
Speaker
first main Call of Duty game, the company that would go on to make the Black Ops games, good to do that series. So it's important in that respect. I think the problem with this game is it feels rushed and it was rushed because the Treyarch got a very limited amount of time to make it. And so while I love Call of Duty 2 for how robust it is and how well it's held up,
00:24:30
Speaker
I don't think this one has held up as well because it's a bit more rough around the edges. They also relied quite heavily on quick time events. I think that was, I think, a mistake. Some of them are quite good. There's some quite good ones we have to, like, you kind of mentioned, like, the kind of hand-to-hand fighting that you have to do. But there's too many. Sometimes we have to, like, plant explosives and it takes so long. You have to go through, like, three different, like, things to, like, plant the explosives. And it's just like, oh my God, it got too much from that level.
00:24:56
Speaker
I think it's important for some of the things it introduced, but I don't think it quite pulled it all off, to be honest. I have to admit, I still get jumpscared to the sea. I think there's two instances of it, but it's like when you walk through a door and a German soldier comes out and grabs your rifle and you have to like mash, well for the PlayStation it was Circle, so it would have been like B for the Xbox.
00:25:17
Speaker
be after like mash that constantly to get them off you. I remember jumping at my skin the first time I saw that because I didn't know that was coming. And I was tempted to be like, nope, nope, nope, forget this game. But I'm kind of glad that you're stuck with it and persevered. See, this is a thing that I'm going to touch on for the next game.
00:25:37
Speaker
you know, later on. But for the early games, and I'm emphasising the word game here, but would you agree that these almost feel, they feel more like games than they do like narratives? Oh definitely, like especially for like one and two, like it is a pure like quote unquote game.
00:25:57
Speaker
you know these aren't like narrative experiences in any way shape or form and that wasn't really like that wasn't what they were trying to do like that's why they're kind of so refreshing in a way as well and that it was just like the story was the war and that was kind of like it was it was the story but it was the backdrop you know you weren't like expecting your your site your allies to like grow and change you know and develop personalities and stuff because that's not what it was it was a game
00:26:20
Speaker
I mean, that is definitely the thing that separates it, I want to say. It separates these like trilogy and you know, finest hour to an extent, but you know, for the main series, it separates this trilogy from basically what was to come really for the World War II games because it wouldn't be until two years later. So the next year for College of Two Games, and I can't believe it was 2007 that
00:26:45
Speaker
modern warfare came out. But then in 2008 we of course got Call of Duty World at War, which again it's a Treyarch production. It is quite possibly one of the, is it right to say it's one of the most well received Call of Duty games of all time?
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah, I would definitely say so. I think its reputation has also grown retroactively in a way from like after the time, because there was, I remember the time when it was announced, a lot of people were like, oh, World War II again, you know, because we'd had modern warfare, and that had been like just blown people away. And so I remember the time people would be like, oh, man, don't want to go back, you know, don't want to go back in time, want to stay in the modern setting. But I think it's definitely one that like, as the years have gone by, looking back at it, its reputation has just grown.
00:27:28
Speaker
It was definitely worth going back to though. I think I was in a similar boat. I think I got into getting an Xbox 360 really late because of the whole Red Ring of Death thing.
00:27:44
Speaker
you know, all of those lovely shenanigans. And I remember one of the first games I actually got, other than Halo 3 of course, was Modern Warfare 2. Absolutely loved that game of course. So, when the announced that, you know, all were going back to World War 2, I was kind of an assembler but I was like, eh, do I really want to go back to this? And it was like definitely going through the grapevine where people were saying, oh this is a great game and you know, oh you should try it. And
00:28:10
Speaker
And funny enough, this would sound like a weird story, but I remember there was one day where I had to go to like a university open day. Have I told you this story? Carry on! So basically I went to this university open day with a couple of friends and we went to the city and
00:28:28
Speaker
we did what we were supposed to do there. And then we ended up going into this massive store here called HMV. We went upstairs and I remember I was looking for my friends and I was like, where are you guys? And I saw one of them sitting at, it was like, you know the TVs they used to put out so you could try the games? Yeah. Yeah, just a heads up to all those future kids out there. Yeah, in the past they actually put out the games with a controller you could use.
00:28:53
Speaker
probably not now because of Covid but back then they used to and I remember he was playing like I think it was the demo for World at War and I was like what's that because he was holding the I can't remember what the guns called but it looks like the Starship Enterprise oh yeah the big Russian light machine gun yeah and it's got like the big disk on top that's like the magazine that's or DPK I think or something yeah yeah
00:29:17
Speaker
It's an iconic gun, but I remember seeing that and being like, what is this game? And you know, he was like, oh, it's the new Call of Duty game. And I was like, what? This is a new gun? I was like, nah, I don't think I'll get it. And I think, like, I did wait. I didn't get it on release, but I think I waited and then got it like pre-owned or something. And I love it, but it is an intense game. Just to kind of explain what this game is about. Like, obviously it's about the Second World War, but it takes
00:29:44
Speaker
such an interesting perspective. Up until this point, the majority of the College of Games focused on Europe. Is that right in saying that the majority are set in Europe? Yeah, it was majoritivly Europe and kind of like the Western theatre. Yeah.
00:29:59
Speaker
So yeah, you've got the British, as you said, the British, the Americans, the Russians against the Germans and everything. Don't get me wrong, you do get Soviet Union versus Germany in this period, but you also get the Pacific Theater, which correct me if I'm wrong again, but you're going to be hearing that a lot, Adam, so apologies. But I think this is the first time we actually see this in the series.
00:30:24
Speaker
in a Call of Duty game it certainly was. What kind of sets this game apart is how brutal it is. See, compared to the other games, even Modern Warfare, I would go as far as to say that this is still one of the most brutal Call of Duty games. See, before they started doing Controversay for the sake of Controversay and like, oh look, we're going to blow up a child. You know, I'm looking at you, Modern Warfare 3. You think I forgot? No.
00:30:50
Speaker
No, I still remember. But with World War I mean we are introduced to like a savage, you know, American troops that have been captured by the Japanese. You see one of your comrades get his throat slit. This is like in the first five minutes. You see the blood pouring out, you're about to get your slit but you get rescued at the last minute. And
00:31:11
Speaker
This is something I feel as if elevates it further up than some of the other games, because as I said, Call of Duty 1 to 3, although they were good experiences at the time when you go back to revisit them, they still feel like video games. And I know that sounds like a weird thing to say because they are video games, but there was more of like a visceral experience for World at War because some of the things that happened in this game are absolutely brutal. There's one particular level that I know Adam Yule
00:31:39
Speaker
I absolutely love this one, the Vendetta level. So usually in these games, you're like a fresh private or something like that, you're fresh off the boat, you've got your shiny M1 Garand, or your Tommy gun or whatever, and you're like, oh, I'm gonna fight the Germans, I'm gonna fight the Japanese Empire. And it's like,
00:32:04
Speaker
No, no, in this one, you're just thrown right into the thick of it. You're having to like, trudge through jungles in the Pacific theatre. You know, every time something blows up or goes wrong, you have to brace for an ambush. It puts you on the edge of your seat. But the introduction to the Russian campaign is nothing short of absolutely stellar. It actually starts off on the, I think it's the aftermath of Stalingrad, isn't it?
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's during the battle. Oh, during the battle, thank you. Yeah, during the battle, you wake up as basically a defeated Soviet soldier. You're lying in this fountain and you're watching as all of these German soldiers come through and they start shooting, you know, people who are still alive and you start crawling on your belly through all these dead bodies, trying to figure out what the hell's going on, where you're supposed to go. And that's when you meet Viktor Reznov, who is your commissar?
00:32:59
Speaker
is it? Or like you're a captain? I think he's a sergeant. I can't remember but yeah and he basically like leads you through Stalingrad and what follows is just this intense game of cat and mouse where he gives you a rifle you know and you have to like pick off
00:33:18
Speaker
the German soldiers just at the right time like when the bombers are flying overhead so your shots get drowned out by the sound of the engines just fantastic little tidbits like that and then you get into like a sniper battle later on which is one of the hardest things to do in veteran and overall like
00:33:39
Speaker
Don't get me wrong, it's not a perfect game. It's got its kind of low points and high points, but overall I think that it definitely explores the themes of World War II. I would say probably it's the best one out of all of them in this list that we're going to talk about because it doesn't glorify the lore.
00:33:57
Speaker
and it shows that even though obviously the regime that we're fighting against, the Nazi regime is abhorrent, it's despicable, you don't have to have me telling you that, that it's like one of the worst regimes in history. But at the same time, we see some of the things that the Red Army gets up to, like burning unarmed soldiers alive, we see just all of these horrible, horrible moments
00:34:22
Speaker
like on either side. It's not a cheery World War II game though is it? No, not at all. It's like even in College of Duty 3, I remember at the very end you have to hold off against like a German, I think not an ambush, but it's like they start trying to invade the city and you have to hold out until reinforcements arrive and it's like when you're fighting and that you know you've got the swelling music and the bombastic you know.
00:34:47
Speaker
everything's blowing up and there's the bullets going by and you know you've got the Americans yelling, we've got to hold this position and you know they're shitting and you know eventually the... I kind of remember if they had planes that come in at that point but you know like eventually you know the Americans won the day spoilers and that's it you know like it is very triumphant. In this one though there's only one moment I can think of
00:35:12
Speaker
that's triumphant at the very end where you storm the Reichstag as a private in the Red Army and you manage to plant the Soviet Union flag.
00:35:24
Speaker
on the Reichstag, which is like a very famous picture in history of course, but they make it dramatic don't they, where you get shot and you're limping, but again that's a similar thing where the music swells there because you get shot and you think, oh no I'm gonna die, and Resinov, who of course is voiced by Gary Oldman, so that just makes it 10 times better, but he comes out of nowhere and slashes and
00:35:49
Speaker
German soldier and he helps you, and you know, it honestly like Resinov should have his own line of motivational posters.
00:35:58
Speaker
I'm saying that now, but, you know, when they help you and then you stab the flag into the Reichstag and that's it, it kind of signifies the end, or not the end of the war, but you know what I mean, like a kind of definitive conclusion. Whereas the American side is a lot more like somber, like you lose a lot of men and you lose like a lot of your comrades, even though, you know, you managed to fight your way through.
00:36:21
Speaker
It's an experience, I would say. It's definitely one of the best. In terms of gameplay, I'm gonna be honest, see playing this in veteran. It's the same with modern warfare, but playing this in veteran is terrible. It's brutal.
00:36:34
Speaker
because it's like you can't camp in it because people throw grenades at you. You're surrounded by them and you're like, well, shit. I've done it. I have completed it in veteran, but never again. Absolutely. 110% never again. Not doing it. No way Jose. Maybe for charity, but no. Other than that, no. But what were your thoughts on it? Sorry, that was a massive ramble from my end.
00:36:57
Speaker
No, no, it's a game that deserves to be discussed, to be honest, because I think it is one of the standout titles in the whole of the Call of Duty series. I agree with basically everything you were saying there, and I think what makes this game so excellent for me, as you were talking about the themes, that it's not
00:37:15
Speaker
it's not so much a narrative experience, it's more like the themes of how horrific the war was in general, but particularly how horrific the fighting in the Pacific and on the Eastern Front was. And honestly, I think this game has one of the best bits of role-playing, one of the best bits of role-playing in a Call of Duty game, certainly. Maybe as well in a lot of other, maybe one of the best in gaming that I can think of, certainly when it comes to the Soviet campaign,
00:37:41
Speaker
because it really doesn't explicitly ask you, but it kind of subconsciously asks you to put yourself in the shoes of a Soviet soldier entering Germany and entering Berlin at the end of the war, and having seen what the German army has done to the Soviet Union and the atrocities that it's committed in that country and against those people.
00:38:04
Speaker
And it asks you to sympathise with this army of revenge. Basically, this avenging angel that's gonna come and reap havoc on Germany for all that it's done. And that's where you get a lot of moral choices in the Soviet campaign about, as you say, what do you do with unarmed German soldiers?
00:38:20
Speaker
spoiler alert like it doesn't end well for them either way but you know it kind of asks you to be like what would you do in that situation you know and it you almost like almost I think the way to properly play it as a Soviet character is to like play it as this like hate-filled person who doesn't view like these Germans as like fellow humans you know just views them as like kind of like demons and whatever like to basically be like destroyed and I think on that level it's actually a really important like form of media examining the war because I think it really taps into those kind of like those emotions
00:38:50
Speaker
behind it. And I can't think of many other games like World War II games that have done it that well, have done it well or have done it that well at all. So I think it's a really, really, it's a really excellent game. And I would reckon, I mean, it's not for the faint of heart. As you say, it is a brutal game. I think it's worth like stressing that again, like that there is a lot of like, you know, there's a lot of stuff in here that isn't like, you know, it's not fun at all, you know, and it's quite harrowing. So like, but if you're okay, if you're like, if that doesn't put you off, then I would recommend checking this game out. It's great.
00:39:18
Speaker
It is definitely the most brutal because I think, and I could be wrong in saying this, but I think this was the first Call of Duty game where limbs actually came off when you shot them. I think it might have been the first 18 I think as well. Was it? Oh, wow. Maybe it was a 15 still, but yeah, certainly I think you're right with the kind of the delimbing and everything.
00:39:37
Speaker
Yeah, there was definitely a lot of controversial stuff in this game. But what I think is good about it for the most part is it's not so much, well, maybe it's a bit over the top and maybe it's a little bit gratuitous, you know, where you get like limbs flying off and you know, blood pouring out. But it's not a glorification. That's the thing I want to stress here. I never felt, other than the very end of course, I never felt like, you know, they were saying
00:40:05
Speaker
oh we're gonna win the war and oh we did the best because we are the good guys and things and obviously you know the allies are the better half of this war but it's as you said before as well it's like the soviet side is a revenge fantasy as it were and that scene in particular where you corner those and i don't keep going back to this apologies but where you go to these um unarmed german soldiers and
00:40:29
Speaker
there's one particular private called Private Chernov who throughout the story he writes in his diary and it's quite interesting because Reznov always berates him. Like if you notice this like for Dimitri the character you play as in this like campaign he always praises him because obviously you're the player, you're the pragmatic one, you're the one that does everything gets the job done and you know he even says that throughout the game he's like
00:40:56
Speaker
long as Dimitri lives, the heart of the Red Army will go on. And you know, you're kind of like, ah, stop it, you resnov. You know, ah, stop it resnov, you big suck, you know. Whereas Chernov is like, Chernov, can you stop breathing?
00:41:11
Speaker
it's like you're really getting on my nerves and he actually reads excerpts of his diary and depending on the choices you make in the game it's quite interesting because they can change. It doesn't make a huge difference to the game but it's quite interesting because he comments back to the unarmed prisoners, he comments like if you shoot them he says at least it was merciful whereas if you leave them then the
00:41:34
Speaker
raid army soldiers throw molotovs at them and obviously that causes them to burn alive and you know he says oh it's cruel and everything and it is like just such a really interesting perspective and i know i keep saying that so apologies for repeating myself
00:41:50
Speaker
But I do think it does it really well. There's not really any glorification of the war, which there shouldn't be in the first place. But you know what I mean? There's no right or wrong, but there's no, oh yay, let's go finish the war. Yay, we're coming back to Heroes Welcome. And maybe that says a lot more about me.
00:42:08
Speaker
It's a person to be like, yeah I like my World War 2 stories, measurable and everything but I don't know, I just think overall it does a really good job of that. And kind of just before we move on to the final game, were we touching zombies? I think it's important because obviously this was the game that started it all.
00:42:25
Speaker
yes of course we're referring to the i suppose now infamous but at the time famous game mode nazi zombies and nazi zombies was just like a horde mode where you had to hold or was it horde mode can you call it that yeah it was a horde
00:42:41
Speaker
yeah so it was like where you had to hold out in this like this abandoned building and zombies would climb in and you'd have to like shoot them dead and everything it was like simple but it was so effective and it was a lot of fun to do and because of the popularity they introduced like new characters they introduced a whole story and in world at war i will admit i would say world at war slash black ops one is probably where the height of that would
00:43:10
Speaker
in. That was the height of the series. After that, it just became a world of nonsense. I'm sorry. If there's any zombie fans out there, fair enough. Fill your boots. You enjoy what you want to enjoy. But personally, for me, I didn't like it. I genuinely don't like where zombies is going. It's just over the top, too complicated. I don't care about the ether. I don't care about secret Nazi scientists probing the dead. I genuinely, I don't care. I just want a game mode that I can shoot zombies in. I don't
00:43:40
Speaker
anything else. And I know like we've got a couple of friends don't we that like love this game mode. Yeah. But yeah, no. You know who you are. Yes. You listening to this, you know. Oh you know. But yeah, it didn't really get any better. But that, it has to be credited though. World at War has to be credited for introducing that game mode. And speaking of introductions, will we move on to the final game? Unless you've got any other like final points about World at War.
00:44:07
Speaker
No, let's move on to let's get this next one going. OK. We fast forward to 2017 now and it had been nine years since Call of Duty had been in World War Two. But in 2017, Call of Duty World War Two was released and this was developed by Sledgehammer Games.
00:44:22
Speaker
This was their second full game. Sledgehammer had kind of been drafted in 2011 to help finish off Modern Warfare 3, while one of the main studios Infinity Ward was kind of going through some internal turmoil. And after that, they kind of got they got put into the rotation of being like a main kind of Call of Duty developer by Activision. And so they'd made Advanced Warfare was their first, so Sledgehammer's first kind of standalone Call of Duty game in 2014.
00:44:45
Speaker
if memory serves. But this was our second one, 2017. And this was a big deal. It was that Call of Duty was going back to World War Two. And I remember the marketing for this. It was like one of the famous adverts had basically this person like phoning up his old call, his old friends who used to play Call of Duty with me like Call of Duty is going back to World War Two. And it was almost like this way like we're going back to basics, you know, we're going back to like the kind of the kind of peak, you know, the series where it was like rising in popularity, where everybody loved it. Because this was a series now that it was making people, people were getting lethargic with people
00:45:13
Speaker
were getting kind of fed up with them, so in a way they were trying to go back almost to freshen things up again. And for myself personally, I was so excited when I heard that this game was going back to World War II. I've never been fatigued by the World War II setting, like I still am not, I still really enjoy playing games in it, so I was so excited that Call of Duty was going back.
00:45:31
Speaker
And especially because I'd started to fall away from this series. I mean, I used to get colleges, all the colleges on release day, but for the last couple before World War II, I'd kind of fallen away from that. And I never even got Infinite Warfare, which was the one before, which was the space adventure one. I don't know if we'll ever talk about that game in a future episode, but that was one that that was one that got a lot of backlash when it was when it was announced.
00:45:52
Speaker
But anyway, so it came back to what we were saying. People were people, including myself, were very excited. So we eagerly got the game. And it's a game that I've had lots of mixed feelings about. I remember when I played it first. This was a time as well where Call of Duty campaigns started to get very, very short. This one is 10 missions long. It doesn't take that long to go through.
00:46:08
Speaker
it doesn't take that long to go through at all on like the easier difficulties and I remember being disappointed by that and I was just disappointed as well because I was so I was really wanting a game that went back to that kind of Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 1 like format that's what I was kind of expecting but it wasn't you know as much as there was the world war two setting there this was still very much a game like in the vein of like advanced warfare infinite warfare or kind of what the black ops games had become and
00:46:33
Speaker
it was again like a kind of like a central unified narrative with a very small kind of cast of characters and you were supposed to like the game was really trying to get you to identify with these people and their journey and stuff and it was all the levels are very cinematic and it feels very scripted and you know you feel like you're kind of getting shuttled from like one like set piece to another it doesn't really have the kind of flow that some of the older games had when it wasn't so much like you know set piece to set piece you know it was it was something else like and so I was disappointed by that I have to be honest when I first
00:47:02
Speaker
finished the game. I've gone back and played it a few times now and I've kind of warmed it a bit more. It's not my favorite game but I think there is stuff in it that I like and I think actually it has one of the best levels in any Call of Duty game, which is a level called Liberation, where for the first half of it you take control of a member of the French Resistance and you have to infiltrate the main German headquarters in Paris just before the uprising. It would liberate Paris and you need to kind of find a
00:47:29
Speaker
specific like German officer who's gonna defect in there and you're given like a cover story and you have to remember certain details because other like some of the enemies will question you on things it was just something so fresh and so different and like it was it was always akin to em all ghillied up the kind of like stealth sniper mission from Call of Duty 4 I don't think it's quite as good liberation is quite as good as all ghillied up but it was it was such a breath of fresh air and it felt so different and you're like oh my goodness like you know it really kind of shook you awake from the rest of the game and that was great but a lot of the other levels are
00:47:57
Speaker
don't know it just it felt like that kind of like standard like highly scripted highly cinematic roller coaster and you know like that that's kind of what Call of Duty is now and you know like for good and for bad that's what it is but it's a game yeah like i've got mixed feelings on it i don't i don't hate it but i don't love it i kind of fall like i would probably lean more towards i think it's good but i don't think it's great how do you feel about it that's enough
00:48:20
Speaker
Oh boy. Honestly I am in the same boat because you brought up a very interesting point there that this game came out in a very pivotal point of Call of Duty history. So before that in between World at War and this one we had a spectrum of games didn't we?
00:48:38
Speaker
We had the Black Ops series, we had Advanced Warfare and this is the weird thing because people were getting, as you said, they were getting fatigued with the World War II setting. Everyone was going for the Modern Warfare setting and of course after so many games people were getting tired of that. So Activision brought out Advanced Warfare which
00:49:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that one day, don't get me wrong, we'll talk about that. But yeah, we had that, we had ghosts, we had infinite warfare, which I think infinite warfare is the one that broke the camel's back. I think that was the one that there was the tipping point that people were like, oh, call a duty in space, oh, this is dumb. So this is something, and I'm interested to hear what you think about it, but I
00:49:22
Speaker
feel as if this game, and this is gonna sound weird but I don't feel as if compared to the other ones, I don't feel as if this was like a natural progression for like the settings for the future games. I almost feel as if they put it in World War II because they wanted to save their own asses in the company and the only reason they say that, and I know, I know it's a company, you know, they have to do what's best for the brand and all this but one thing that really does annoy me is this whole game does kind
00:49:51
Speaker
kind of feel like it's trying to tap into that nostalgic bone, if you know what I mean. And it really irks me like, you've got the health packs are back, which I was surprised. I was like, what the hell are the health packs back? I was like, we've moved on from that. And some people like that style of gameplay, fair enough, you know? I'm not going to poop on that opinion, but like, you've got the health packs, you've got the cheery sidekicks, which I'm sorry, I absolutely hate.
00:50:19
Speaker
or I hate 90% of the cast because it feels like a channel 5 slash hallmark film set in the Second World War. You know, you've got one or two moments which I absolutely love. Like, as you said, liberation is a great level. It actually reminds me of another level. I can't remember what it's called in Cold War, but there's a similar level for that where you're a Soviet general that has to go through the Kremlin. Thank God I remembered that.
00:50:46
Speaker
Don't worry, it'll be in the test. And yeah, you have to go through the Kremlin and you have to do similar things. You have to talk to people and see what's what kind of thing. And that's the same with this one. And I think that's really well done. The one criticism, I will level against it, and I'm sorry Adam, but I have to.
00:51:04
Speaker
I have to level it, but this game is riddled with cliches, and one of the ones that really annoyed me in this otherwise really good level was when, I think, is it Russo? That's the spy. Yeah, the French. Yeah, so she goes through, she's about to sneak out a window when she comes face to face with this high-ranking German officer who for some reason knows who she is, but plays along with her, you know, and is like, oh, so you went to Cambridge? Oh, we can speak in English, even though they don't speak English.
00:51:34
Speaker
like he still speaks English and everything in German and you know it alternates and then you know it reveals ah I knew it was you along and then she has this big moment of like stabbing him because he killed her like son family that kind of thing and it just
00:51:52
Speaker
kind of fell. I don't know like what did you think of that scene because I don't want to be like oh it shouldn't have been there or anything but it just seemed kind of oh it's there like oh her character arc's done and it's like but they literally just met you one level ago but sorry what did you think?
00:52:08
Speaker
No, I would say that's the exact problem. That's the problem with both this game and with a lot of the recent Call of Duty's. They're trying to tell grand narratives with fleshed out characters, layered characters, and they're trying to get you to care about these people, and they're trying to have character development.
00:52:23
Speaker
But the campaigns are so short, there's not enough time to get invested. And this game is, as you say, cliches, it's filled with stock characters because that's all they can really have time to do. So as you say, we've got the kind of like funny like, you know, the kind of like funny clowning sidekick, there's like, there's like the guy who's racist, who basically then has a complete 180 and goes, Oh, no, being a racist bad by the end of the game.
00:52:45
Speaker
You've got the kind of troubled lieutenant commander in charge and you've got the harsh, gruff, uncaring sergeant at everything who's got a troubled pattern. It's all stock characters because it can't be anything else. They don't have time to flesh these characters out. And the thing with that level of liberation
00:53:04
Speaker
the end of Russo's character art were killing that um that uh Nazi officer and everything like that would have been great if the whole game had been about Russo but as you say like she's introduced to the level before and she's done the in this is the last she's done the in two levels of the game it's so rushed and you just don't get enough you don't have any reason to really care because like you know like it's so she's in the game so fleetingly so it's that way that like i see what they're trying to do but it's that way of like you know you don't have the space to do this so yeah
00:53:31
Speaker
Well I mean that and it's not even like organically brought up in the story because if you remember and just just as a kind of disclaimer I bought this game like ages ago. I played a bit in the multiplayer it was fun enough but I never played the campaign like it's only recently that I've played it so yeah this is all still fresh in my mind but you know the way she tells the audience this information is through a cut scene
00:53:56
Speaker
And I kid you not, you meet her the level before and she guides you to your platoon. This is after the big chase where you have to chase the train and the train goes over you and it blows up. Can I say I hate that level? I hate that level so much.
00:54:13
Speaker
See, this is the thing. In fact, sorry, before I go on, I'll finish my point about Russo and then I'll come back to it. Don't you worry, you just sit there. But yeah, she just like says, I'm, you know, oh, my family's dead and everything because of the Nazis. And it's like,
00:54:29
Speaker
OK, OK, fair enough. I wonder how this is going to come back in the plot. And then, oh, spoilers, it comes back in the plot, which I don't have any trouble for that plot point being there. It just seems strange that they just like rushed that in to obviously make the Nazis worse, which is like, I feel as if the Nazis are like the stock default bad, but you can't get any worse.
00:54:51
Speaker
for the most part. And it's like, oh yeah, by the way, they killed this person's brother and son and family and you should feel bad. And it's like, I'm already feeling bad against them. They're Nazis. It's like, you don't need that extra. They've got all this other stuff going on. And it honestly felt like, this is going to sound terrible, but it almost felt like, you know who framed Roger Rabbit?
00:55:14
Speaker
Yeah. You know at the very end there's that villain that says like, I killed your brother and he sounded just like this, you know. It almost felt like that when the Nazi officer was saying, oh I killed your son and you know he sounded just like this and it's like okay, just do we need this in the game? I don't know.
00:55:33
Speaker
I don't know. I feel as if it could have been in the game but it could have been fleshed out better. That's the main issue I have with this entire game. It's just filled with Hallmark characters and going back to the train. Let's go back to that for a second if that's okay. I hate the way that this game treats the war as a spectacle, as a Michael Bay flute.
00:55:54
Speaker
And that is something that we do, like, we say a lot on this show and we kind of throw around. But I absolutely hate it because there's some really good moments. Like, I love the level, assuming you have to go to the basement to get the ghetto that's ran away, you know, and you have to hide from the German soldiers and everything. And it's like quite tense. I like small moments like that where you kind of peel away and you're like, oh, we're getting to spend time with the actual German civilians that are caught in the crossfire. That's something that's not really explored very much.
00:56:23
Speaker
or oh we're gonna explore the French Resistance but then immediately as soon as like you know we're over with that set piece it's like okay we're done we need the next big set piece oh the person's been shot oh no get these sivvies out of here and it's just it's ridiculous you know and I don't
00:56:43
Speaker
appreciate it. I mean maybe there are people out there who do appreciate it and again I don't want to take away from that. There is one particular scene I really want to talk about again pertaining to the sensitive material that we are going to touch on but I did not appreciate a lot of this game because of just the fact it was over the top and it keeps flashing back to Daniel's character who is like the main guy that you play as you know he's got like a pregnant wife at home and you know it keeps having flashbacks to his brother who
00:57:13
Speaker
You know, spoilers, it turns out he's dead at the end. But let's face it, you could see that a mile off. It's pointless though. Those flashbacks are pointless. They are. They just keep detracting from the actual game. You know, like even if you went, oh, I didn't see that coming. You're like, OK, what does that change? Because like two seconds earlier, Daniels is up like a bell tower and he jumps out as it collapses on top of him. And then later they bring up, oh, the wheel's attacking your brother and I can't shoot them. And you're like, OK.
00:57:43
Speaker
It's funny as well because that flashback is so pointless and I don't get why it's there. But this game was crying out for a flashback mission. So Pearson is the sergeant who's really harsh and uncaring and doesn't seem to give a crap about his soldier's lives, but he's got this really troubled past.
00:58:01
Speaker
And this game was crying out, and I can't believe this isn't the game, it was crying out for a flashback level, where you played as Pearson earlier in the war, and it's discovered that he made this decision, you know, which he thought was like, made this decision to try and save his soldiers' lives, which ended up killing them all, and this is what's completely broken him. And I was like, how is this not a flashback level? How do we not go back, you know, and see this?
00:58:21
Speaker
But it's just explained away in some expository lines by other characters. And it's so weird to me that you're so intent on focusing on this story of the wolves, which leads nowhere and is utterly meaningless. And you have this prime opportunity to have an actually great flashback mission where we can uncover, you know, we could actually have some good character development. It's just bizarre to me. Pearson, initially, I got really annoyed with him very fast because you have the
00:58:48
Speaker
kind of duality of officers. You've got Turner who's the goody two shoes of a good soldier never leaves a man behind and all of this and then you've got Pearson who of course as you said is very just rough and nearly just like shoots your character at one point and you're like Jesus Christ. He's just an arsehole throughout the whole thing and then you as you said you realise that it's because he abandons these men
00:59:11
Speaker
and it's something that isn't like it's not explored until the very end of the game and I feel as if that's criminal personally. Would you say as well that this well as you said sorry before it is a missed opportunity it should have been like a flashback it should have been it should have been something but it really amounts to him like getting angry drinking and then as you said like in the other games he does like a 180 doesn't he? He's just like
00:59:39
Speaker
oh you're my friend now and that's a story arc over you know nobody cares and yeah you've got the specky sidekick who I hate his character because he comes back like Daniels comes back into the squad and the specky guy's like oh the gang's all here and then it's like no except the one guy
01:00:01
Speaker
the one guy that I'm here for, the reason I'm still here, instead of in the arms of my loving wife. It's just annoying. But before we jump into some of the more sensitive topics of this game, is there anything else you want to touch on? I think I would just briefly expand on something we were talking about and just the cinematic quote unquote nature of this. I totally agree.
01:00:23
Speaker
it's Michael Bayeska points and it's just it really detracts from it because like it makes the game sit on easily because there are some moments as you said that are like genuinely like quite harrowing and you know there's like um i think actually the first level of the game kind of encapsulates this very well with the first level of the game is the D-Day landings we land on Omaha beach and like the first part of that mission is like
01:00:44
Speaker
It's saving private Ryan-esque. It's utterly brutal and it's unforgiving. You're desperately trying to run up the beach and take cover as guys are getting ripped apart around you. And that feels authentic and real. It's a great opening. But then there's a bit towards the end of the game where your best friend gets wounded and you need to drag him to safety. And the game turns into basically Time Crisis, one of these arcadey shooters.
01:01:09
Speaker
where you drag your soldier for a bit, then you stop, pull out your pistol, shoot a couple of Germans, drag them a bit further, stop, shoot, and it's terrible.
01:01:18
Speaker
hate that because it completely ruins what the game was building. And then you've got some levels that are like, there's a couple of levels later on where you're fighting in what's called the Hartgen Forest, which is this heavily forested area on the German border. And some of those, there's two levels there which are really brutal. There's one where you need to fight your way up this hill where it's raining and it's really brutal. There's the mud everywhere and people and soldiers
01:01:40
Speaker
dying and just planting into this mud and getting torn apart. And it's very visceral and quite harrowing in its own way. But then you have the train level where you're chasing down this armored German train in your Jeep and hijacking it like it's Starsky and Hutch or something. It's ridiculous. It just sits so uneasily. And it's that way that what I really hoped was this game would go back to what Call of Duty was before, but it just didn't. It stayed stuck in what the series has become. And I think that's really the greatest sin of this game.
01:02:10
Speaker
I think this was something that I mentioned to you, see as I was playing through it. Not only do I feel as if this is a massive step backwards for Call of Duty, but you know, as I said with the health packs, with everything else, but the main thing that I really hate about this game is the fact it gamifies the Second World War. And don't get me wrong, you might, like, listeners at home, you might be thinking, what do I mean by that, you know, gamifying the Second World War?
01:02:34
Speaker
Because these are games at the end of the day. They're not really meant to be films or cinematic experiences, but I think that's what they're trying to do here. Because I remember I was playing this and my partner was watching me play this and she was saying,
01:02:50
Speaker
you look like you're watching a film. And that's honestly what it felt like. It felt, because I had to put down the controller and there's this huge CGI cutscene that's going along. And I'm going to backtrack a little bit, but if you look at something like World at War, there's no cutscenes in that game. If you remember back, there's the snippets in between, and it shows you real life footage of the war, and it shows you where they're going and everything. But
01:03:17
Speaker
There's never really... there's scripted scenes. I don't get me wrong, there are scripted scenes, but there's not really many cut scenes, is there? No, there are cut scenes, it's the ones like, you're still in control of the camera. Yeah. You can still have some level of control. Yeah, it's like the in-game cut scenes, whereas... Oh, how do I put this very nicely? At least in the Xbox One version, there is definitely a noticeable difference in the quality.
01:03:46
Speaker
Oh yeah, like when you look around and you see this Hollywood movie of, we won't leave anyone behind, you gotta get out of here. All the cushions. Insert your own here. Pause the episode in here and insert your own here and then play it again.
01:04:02
Speaker
done that? Okay, good. Whereas in this though, there's like, as you said, there's a lot of like moments that just grind the game to a halt. Not just with, you know, the cinematics where it's like you have to jump out like a collapse in charge, the train mission, as I said, the you killed my son prepare to die moment. Like there's quick time events as well, which really that sent me over the edge on like quick time events.
01:04:27
Speaker
really, but it's not even normal QuickTime event. Some of them are, but there's ones where it's like you have to drag your like, not cursor, but you have to drag the thing over to a circle and then you have to press the button that appears inside the circle. I don't know why that was a conscious choice. It just feels as if like between that, between the almost unrealistic aspect of it, it just feels like you're playing a video game
01:04:52
Speaker
Like with World at War obviously you did feel like you were playing a game, but there was so much content within that you could immerse yourself in the experience, you know, you were on the edge of your seat, you know, when you were in the Pacific theatre and like ankle deep in mud and water as you were like going through the jungles and trying to, you know, stave off ambushes and even, you know, with the Russians you had to sneak through Stalingrad, you had to storm
01:05:19
Speaker
you know Berlin. All of these moments are like kind of well-wardented, they all build up somewhere. Whereas with World War II it just felt as if, I don't know, it didn't feel deserved, it just felt as if, oh yeah it's another World War II game. You know, see if this was any other game, if this was like the first entry of a game series, you know, that they did a World War II game, maybe I would give it a bit more slack, maybe I would be like, oh well at least it's the first game.
01:05:45
Speaker
Call of Duty has been running for years now. World War 2 was their first games. This should be their bread and butter. There's no excuse whatsoever as to why this suddenly feels so gamey, so cinematic and not in a good way. It's not cinematic like, wow, look at that train fly over my head, or
01:06:08
Speaker
Wow, look at those buildings collapse. Oh gee whiz, I hope I get across the rain in time. One thing I also want to point out is seeing the level with the planes. Whoever designed that level should have been fired. There, that's all I want to say. I hated that level. It was some of the worst controls, just some of the worst gameplay I've ever played. But anyway sorry, trying to get back on you. Did you feel that way as well?
01:06:29
Speaker
Yeah, I completely say what you mean. It sits on easily for me, this game, because it almost feels odd to itself for what it's trying to do. One thing I'll say is, personally, I don't mind the bar health. I actually find bar health a refreshing change now from constant regeneration, regenerating health. But there are other elements in it where your different members of your squad have different power-ups, basically, and abilities, one of which is the Sergeant Pearson can
01:06:56
Speaker
I can like highlight all the enemies in the nearby area and that kind of feels a bit you know college it gets away with like these kind of cinematic moments and stuff like in the kind of modern and future settings because they're not you know they're not based on real history as you say it feels it feels weird and maybe wrong when it's like historical events you know quote unquote it just yeah
01:07:17
Speaker
But I agree. It feels gamey in all the wrong ways. The ways that you don't want it to feel gamey. Because after a minute I did like the idea of you could ask your teammates for like hell with their ammo. That I'm perfectly fine with. But it was Pearson's x-ray vision.
01:07:33
Speaker
I was like, what was he, an X-Man? What is this? And it just, it completely took me out of the, you know, it completely took me out of the game. And as I said, like, I'm not going to pretend that, you know, World of War was like the perfect flawless game that, you know, it did no wrong or anything, but I don't remember getting the X-ray vision in that.
01:07:53
Speaker
anything but unless I'm completely remembering wrong but it's the fact that for these games World War II is very much a real setting as one of the most bloody and brutal conflicts in human history and again you don't have to you don't have to listen to me saying that to you know think oh yeah
01:08:11
Speaker
Yeah, it was, because you're all known from history, the history classes, documentary, that one copy of Daspoot that your granddad keeps in the cupboard. You don't have to have me telling you that this was a bloody conflict. But when you get this retelling of history, as it were, it's one thing to make up your own story, okay? It's one thing to be like, oh, you're just, you know, a soldier and I don't know, bum nowhere. That will postcode a bum nowhere, Paris.
01:08:40
Speaker
It's the fact that you're suddenly one of the most important members of the American army. You've got all these buddies, you think. All the cliches are coming out and everything. You're like, okay, so what's going to happen here?
01:08:56
Speaker
It doesn't sit well with me either, personally. Like, this is something I was talking to you about before we recorded, but there's been a lot of division amongst fans for this, and I'm interested to hear what you say about it. It's this idea that a lot of people complain that it's not realistic enough, or it's not as historically accurate. And don't get me wrong, like, some of them are stupid, like, I'm saying, oh no, a female in World War II!
01:09:22
Speaker
Stop the presses! We can't have that. She's showing her ankles. You know, you get silly things like that and you think, that doesn't matter at all. But when you get things, you know, that are more... How to put this? Like, more serious? You know, as I said, like the X-ray vision and, you know, being like a one-man army against all these people. Like, I mean, it's World War II. It's not exactly the power fantasy era.
01:09:47
Speaker
No. Except for Wolfenstein. Of course, that's a whole different thing. But for World War II, as it is, it seems quite dodgy when they take liberties. There's a particular example I want to touch on, but before we get into that, what are your thoughts on it? Yeah, I think it's a valid... It's an interesting debate, and I think there's valid criticisms to be levelled against. Is it right? Because they are skewing history in a way.
01:10:15
Speaker
in how it's presented in that like you know i suppose it depends on what you how you look at this like if you look at this as purely like a form entertainment i don't think it really matters that much yeah if though you think that if you view it more as like i think that's like a learning material or not i'm not saying that this should like should be put in schools a learning material you
01:10:33
Speaker
But if you look at it as a partial learning material, this game doesn't give you a very good sense of World War II generally, in the way things happen and stuff. It's bad in that way. So I guess it kind of depends where you want to fall on that debate.
01:10:50
Speaker
I don't really know where I've fallen at. I probably fall more on the like, it bothers me a bit as like, as somebody who's really interested in World War Two history. But like, on the other hand, I don't think this is, this should be treated as a learning material. So I'm kind of willing to be like, okay, you know what, fine, you can take the kind of liberties, you know, because it is a for it is an entertainment thing at the end of the day. So
01:11:10
Speaker
I probably more so I probably more fall on that kind of side of it of being like, you know, yeah, OK, it's not it's not maybe accurate, but, you know, I can probably forgive it. No, that's fair enough, because at the end of the day, it is as a video game. It's something something to pass the time as entertainment is because I know there's a flip side of people saying, oh, it's not realistic. And you think, OK, like, what would you do? And, you know, sometimes it's like really stupid suggestions that would just indeed make a terrible video.
01:11:40
Speaker
you know like old one-shot kills or you know if you want to play a game like that usually play something like ARMA. There's a market out there for them but at the same time like it's not
01:11:54
Speaker
how to put this, I have to admit it's not something like agreeing with you and apologies for jumping on your bandwagon, you know, but you know, it is a bit of a mix. It's like, do you do it? You know, do you make it historically accurate and maybe take the risk of making it a bit duller or see, this is the thing as well, because as I say that, I'm just thinking this again, this is like a real life event that even if they're creating a game out of it, you want to you want them to treat it with respect.
01:12:22
Speaker
in a way. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying like 100% all certain issues are taboo. Again, as I've been building up to, there is one particular scene I want to talk about, is that okay? Yeah, I'll go for it. Again, going into kind of sensitive material, I'm of course talking about the very end of the game where you get to walk through a concentration camp. So basically throughout the game you have a friend called, is it Zussman? Yeah, Zussman.
01:12:49
Speaker
Desmond. And he is revealed throughout the game to be half German and he's also Jewish as well. And it ends up he gets captured by the Germans towards the, I think it's like the 8th level, like 7th or 8th level, like really late in the game. And he gets taken to this, you know, he gets lined up with the other POWs and speaks back against the Germans and he's saying, oh you, you know, Nazi bastards and
Criticism of Holocaust Representation
01:13:19
Speaker
everything.
01:13:19
Speaker
as you would expect for that character, to which he gets beaten and then thrown on the train and then sent to the concentration camp. And you don't really see him until the very end of the game, where by coincidence you go through the camp and then you run through a forest and you end up finding him being chased by a German officer, which quite frankly is the biggest kawinky-dink I think I've ever seen in a game.
01:13:45
Speaker
where it's like oh what are the chances the only german in a hundred mile radius running after a prisoner when you think well maybe he should have been running the opposite way and of course you shoot him you save Zussman and you know everything's not okay but you know everything's you've achieved your mission is what i'm trying to get at but in this level you walk through a concentration camp that's empty and you walk through it and you have like
01:14:11
Speaker
your friend who takes the pictures and they're saying like oh we need to let the world know and they're taking pictures of like dead bodies that have been hung up and things. Like there's two kind of tied to a pole and then they kind of say oh this is where they hung them, this is where they put them in as animals. This is my issue with it. The fact that
01:14:33
Speaker
at best it seems kind of lazy to bring it up in the way they did it and at worst it's probably downright insensitive because they just like they kind of walk you through the park almost like an interactive, well not an interactive experience, I don't want to you know give the wrong impression here and be like
01:14:52
Speaker
know like one of those articles that you get where it's like someone who's against video games and they say like in this game you can shoot people and do this and that and you know it's like a misrepresentation so I don't want to give it a misrepresentation but you walk through the camp and then it's really just for the purpose of the allies or the American characters just to say oh this is a terrible place then that seems we're awful people as you know
01:15:16
Speaker
obviously should. But then that's it really. Then you save Zussman outside of the forest. It just doesn't sit well with me I have to say. Being someone who has like visited one of these camps as well, there is something harrowing about going around because I went on a, it was like an organized trip through the school that I used to go to where we went to visit Auschwitz in Poland and you know you go through and you see like
01:15:44
Speaker
the absolutely devastating scenes of this camp and how, you know, like this was obviously like a real thing and just the horrific implications of everything. To kind of have this as a tidbit at the end, like I said this to you kind of half facetiously saying, it almost feels like a do you remember moment at the end of the game.
01:16:06
Speaker
like I wouldn't have too much issues if they had it like in the middle of the game but it's the fact they kind of just throw it at the end of the game but nothing really comes out of it if you know what I mean it just feels as if it's there to say remember the camps I get what they're trying to go for because it is it's a very sensitive topic and
01:16:23
Speaker
I'm not for one minute suggesting oh they should have had you know close-ups and everything and oh look at the horrors of it because I personally don't really know how I would have done it in that situation but it just seems like a very weird choice to just tag it on to the end and have it almost non-consequential like what did you think because sorry for taking up time there to talk about it there but what did you think?
01:16:46
Speaker
I see what you're saying, and I see where you're coming from. I have to disagree, though. I don't want to say I like that they put this in, but like, I think it was a good thing that they put this part of the war in, because this like the Holocaust and
01:17:02
Speaker
you know, like what happened to slave labour in Nazi Germany and concentration camps and all this, but this is not something that you see in most video games. There's one video game which I was going to say the name of and I can't find, it's gone out of my mind and I can't remember what it is, but it's a game that kind of deals with this and I think it's really good. It's a very different game to any kind of Call of Duty game, but it is very good. If I remember the name, I'll say it. It's not something you ever see really in video games, especially in something like a Call of Duty game, and honestly like
01:17:31
Speaker
I think it's a part of the war that you can forget when you're playing these games, you know, like, because they don't touch on it at all. And you kind of, you can kind of forget in a way, like what the Nazi regime was to an extent, because you are just kind of fighting like, you know, faceless like, you know, the enemy German soldiers at the end of the day.
01:17:48
Speaker
So having this moment to go into this camp and to explore it and walk in, I think was important. And I'm glad they did it. I think the problem, and I think there is one thing that I think you're completely right in, and I think they shouldn't have had this bit, is the whole bit at the end. As you say, well, you have to go rescue. It goes back to a game very quickly, and you're charging for it to go rescue Zussman. That was a mistake, and I don't think they should have had that at all. That really doesn't sit well with it, so I think that was a big
01:18:17
Speaker
mistake on that part. But I have to be honest, I thought it was I actually think it was quite a brave thing to do. Yeah, in ecology game to explore. And even though, you know, we're not we don't see the full horrors of it really, and perhaps you're right, we probably shouldn't. Yeah, I don't know if again, it kind of goes back to when we talked about the modern warfare game. Like what's the is it called how much of a right environment as ecology game to discuss some of these like kind of issues. But I do think it was a bold, a brave step to include this. And I think it was important. And I am
Unique Perspectives in Call of Duty
01:18:47
Speaker
glad they did it. I mean it's as you said it's not for obvious reasons but it's not something that is explored in these kind of games you know it's not like for obvious reasons again it's a very sensitive subject in human history it's like a terrible atrocity and you're completely right because that was something that and after a minute I'll get on to like when we finally discuss Vanguard but
01:19:12
Speaker
for this game at least. Usually in games like World of War 2 games you always fight against like a faceless horde. It's like it's not so much like obviously you fight Nazis the first and foremost you are. Yeah it's clear it's kind of laid out this is who you're fighting but at the same time it's never really you know you don't feel as if that's who you're fighting.
01:19:35
Speaker
You know, it's like if you play a Star Wars game and you know you're shooting down like, kind of ironically, you're shooting down stormtroopers there as well, but you're just shooting down faceless, you know, people like NPCs, like these digital characters. Something that I have to admit I really did appreciate was, I don't know if you got this, but see in the level of liberation,
01:19:57
Speaker
where you go into the, like, there's an area you can go into, I think it's the toilets you go into, and you can hear, like, two women talking, like, in the cubicles and they're basically talking about, you know, their families and things and how one of their husbands is away in the Eastern Front fighting and things like that. It's kind of perspectives that I don't feel as if in
01:20:22
Speaker
especially the World War 2 games, it's not really explored as much and I did appreciate those kind of small tidbits. You know it wasn't just saying at the time you know everyone in Germany was to blame and everything and oh it was terrible because I love like
01:20:37
Speaker
small moments where we see like the German civilians who are caught in the crossfire and you know they are wanting to escape because you know like it's not all black and white it's the fact that there were these civilians as well who were trying to escape the Nazis it was just this such like a brutal time of history really and again I know I'm statingly obvious but
01:20:59
Speaker
I do agree with you. I feel as if it definitely was important to have this in because I'm sitting here saying it's like lazy to put it in. Maybe that's the wrong word. Like maybe that is the wrong word. I'm glad they put it in. But yeah, I just wish they had done it better. But that's me speaking on hindsight though. Like I can easily sit here, you know, in my chair and be like, oh yeah, if I was there, I would have done it differently. Seeing the law of the state, I genuinely don't know how I would have done that.
01:21:29
Speaker
because controversies in Call of Duty are, you know, they're common, aren't they? Yeah, especially now they are. Oh yeah, you know, you've got like, as we spoke about in our modern warfare retrospective, you've got like the, oh god, you've got war crimes that, you know, are based on real life war crimes, you've got... White phosphorus. White phosphorus, yeah, children getting blown up, acts of terrorism,
01:21:55
Speaker
You've just got all these things that now have become a spectacle and like a set piece almost of games. The one thing I will say though is, although I'm kind of criticising it slightly, I don't feel as if it was like... See when this game came out,
Best and Worst Call of Duty WWII Games
01:22:11
Speaker
was that controversial? The concentration capacity? Yeah, the bit at the end. I don't recall it being controversial.
01:22:17
Speaker
I think I actually remember more people kind of praising. Yeah. I think I mean, I may be wrong here and maybe I missed, but I can't recall it being a controversial thing. I remember there being what there was like, it wasn't any controversy, but there was discussion about is that like, for a while, a lot of World War Two games, like had reframed from using the swastika. And they'd use like a kind of, you know, you get the kind of iron cross flag, German flag and things because because the swastika is outlawed in German.
01:22:47
Speaker
And, you know, it's like, I don't, I don't think a game can be sold there. Maybe if it has that in account, there may be some stuff there. So a lot of games had removed that from it. And like, I think this game originally was going to, but then they decided to put the swastika in. And I think that was also another right. Another correct decision.
01:23:04
Speaker
I say, because that is, again, something that, like, you know, going back to historical accuracy, I think it is important to, you know, have that in there as, you know, representative of what it was. But yeah, so I don't recall the controversy about the concentration camps, you know, I have to admit, but I might be just forgetting, I might have just missed something.
01:23:20
Speaker
No, I think you're right, because the only reason I'm asking this because I can't actually remember. I remember it being mentioned, but I don't remember people getting up in arms to be like, oh how dare this scene be end or anything. You're like, what the usual response is for a college of two controllers, but for this it seems as if it was like,
01:23:37
Speaker
it was received more positively and i have to admit i'm kind of glad for that in a way that although as i said i am not a big fan of this game i think it's too flashy too showy and everything i do like appreciate like where they've gone with it and especially with that scene at the end one other thing that somebody else did mention was like comparing world at war to this game again apparently in world at war at the very end of the game
01:24:05
Speaker
they give you like the casualty list, you know, and they say so many million people die during the war and they give you the statistics and things. Whereas in this game they slap it at the beginning and I think that is quite telling, you know, it's like they're getting that kind of
01:24:23
Speaker
that kind of thing out the way first. Because with World at War, they do show you like realistic, or not realistic, but they show you real newsreels, you know, of people getting shot, of people trying to fight back against like whatever enemy they're fighting against. And it's brutal, it's in your face, and it brings it down to this kind of realism level. But in this game, it's all CGI, good-looking GI Joes, you know, that are fighting against the Nazis because that's what they did. And it's like,
01:24:53
Speaker
It does kind of lose the human element in a way. You know, you see less and less of Daniel's struggle as, you know, this character and more of just more of a video game character getting from point A to B.
01:25:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think as well, comparing Colgi World War II to World of War, they started off with different objectives. World of War is trying to show the horrors and the brutality of World War II, and it really strips away any kind of glory, as we said, from it. So that's what it's
01:25:26
Speaker
it's kind of aim is. But with World War II, it's trying to tell a tale of heroes. It's more akin to a lot of World War II films, both of During the War After the War and now Tales of Heroism and Valor and things like that. So that's more the tone it's going for rather than an exploration of, not that it's a totally accurate exploration, but a kind of quite exploration of the
01:25:52
Speaker
realities of war. World at War is more trying to do. Yeah, so more like Band of Brothers. Yeah, in that kind of way, like Saving Private Ryan, those kind of films and the older ones, of that kind of tale of heroism and glory and things like that, rather than something maybe more akin to Daz Boot for World at War, where it's really the grim realities of life and death struggle.
01:26:17
Speaker
So what would you say, before we go into our thoughts about Vanguard, which of course as we mentioned before had come out yesterday at the time of recording this, what would you say, what are your final thoughts on the best versus the worst of this series of games?
01:26:34
Speaker
Yeah.
Thoughts on Call of Duty: Vanguard
01:26:35
Speaker
Just before I go into that, can I just, I've remembered the name of that game that I was struggling to remember earlier. It's called Atontat 1942. It's available on Steam. It's a point and click adventure. And it's a very different experience to any of the kind of World War II Call of Duty games. But if you're looking for a game that kind of explores a more like a kind of accurate portrayal of some of the horrors of what, especially of living under Nazi occupation, then I'd highly recommend it. Very, very good.
01:27:00
Speaker
very, very good game. But yeah, so going back to going back to your question, like, like my, certainly my favourite still of the World War Two Call of Duty is Call of Duty two, just because I think it's the best, like, I think what it does, it's the best, like, it's the best kind of experience. And like, I think it's just such a tightly like crafted and polished game that I think is the most fun to play and joy lakes. But it really depends what you're wanting to go for, like, because
01:27:25
Speaker
Call of Duty 1 and 2 are really good but they're not like if you're looking for like a kind of like more thematic or narrative you know experience and they're not the ones to go for. I think like for me like the two the two shining examples are Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty World of War. Call of Duty 2 because I think it's the best like crafted
01:27:42
Speaker
of all of them but like World of War I think is the most interesting from what it's trying to do and in like its exploration of like parts of the war and like it's true horrors really so I think they're like the two best examples in terms of the worst like I think from like a kind of gameplay perspective I'd maybe lean a bit more towards Call of Duty 3 because I think it's the roughest you know I don't think it holds together as well in that respect and then but like on a more kind of maybe like um I don't know like
01:28:08
Speaker
for lack of a better word, philosophical kind of like level, I think World War II, just because it's getting kind of pulled apart and what it wants to be and what it's trying to be. It's like on one hand it's trying to be Hollywood, Michael Bay, you know, esque. But on the other hand, it's like, oh, but here's like grim realities and like, you know, the horrors of war and everything. And they just can't, those two things can't reconcile themselves. And it's just, it feels like a game of conflict with its Gulf. And I think that kind of hampers it really
01:28:34
Speaker
it is, I would probably agree with that, just instead of World of War 2 substituting that with World of War is the best, because I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of the first American half of it, although it's brutal when it's very visceral. I wouldn't say that's my favourite of all the college duties, but in terms of World of War 2 setting, it's something that takes the series in a very different
01:28:59
Speaker
direction that's very fresh and interesting compared to like the predecessors. I do agree with like Call of Duty 3 being dated. As I said I played it again, didn't enjoy it at all. It was alright but it wasn't, it felt again, it felt more like a game and you're like oh I've got to go on a pony to stop the Nazis. Yeah it was like
01:29:20
Speaker
World War II, I agree, was definitely the weakest. I was not a huge fan of it as, you know, I pointed out. And I do agree, I just wish it had done certain things either better or decided what identity it wanted. Because that's the thing, when this game came out, it came out when all of these space shooters were really popular and it was like, pew pew pew, look!
01:29:43
Speaker
I'm an astronaut, mum. Disliked. And yeah, like, if I had to hear, like, boots on ground one more time, I would have gone mental, honestly. It was like, as she said, that's how it was advertised. It was like, boots on ground, and look, no jetpacks. And it's like,
01:30:00
Speaker
Really? Is this all they have to say for people to buy the game? It's like, no jetpacks. I'm sold. You son of a bitch, I'm in. It's just, I feel as if World War II did have this scope and it did have the resources to produce
01:30:15
Speaker
maybe something a bit better but I don't know hopefully like I say like you know hopefully the future will be better but we actually do have our next game in World War 2 which came out yesterday that of course being Vanguard just to kind of summarize or just to kind of wrap up do you want to give your quick thoughts on
01:30:36
Speaker
Vanguard so far. So I've only played the campaign so far. I've not touched multiplayer. I've not touched zombies. And I'm unlikely to touch zombies because I'm very much in your school of thought on what zombies has become. But so this is just pure on the campaign. It's OK. That's really what I can say. It's short again. And again, I feel it suffers from a lot of the similar problems we talked about World War II. I feel it's a conflict of itself, what it's trying to do. And again, it's that way they're trying to pack a lot into a very kind of short experience.
01:31:05
Speaker
So it's not bad. It's okay. I have a very negative view. I have to say of this game so far. So I got it delivered through Amazon today and was like, oh, I can't wait to play it. And you know, I was hoping to like completed the campaign by the time I came on this podcast. But turns out that if you want to play this game on the Xbox, you have to install a 23 gigabyte update. And then once that's done and all your
01:31:32
Speaker
extra content packs are downloaded because i went out with my partner for a walk we just went out you know and then we came back it's like oh it's done so i pressed it and then it was like boom you want to play this game 41 gigabytes it's like ah so i downloaded that took a couple hours but i downloaded it and i managed to get a couple of levels in before it's funny you should mention it's like world war two because i honestly feel as if this is just like a mod of
01:31:56
Speaker
World War II, it's the same game, it's just the same game. And usually that is a critique levied against college duty as a whole saying, oh it's the same game, why are you surprised? I mean it's literally the same game, you've got the same dog models, you've got the same German models, there's maybe a couple of small differences, you've got the same ammo boxes,
01:32:19
Speaker
to shoot and blow up that are bright red. The only difference is the characters. We get a more intimate view of the Nazis against the Vanguard team that you're playing as, which I feel is quite interesting. But see overall, I'm
01:32:36
Speaker
I'm really not impressed by it. Some bits are good, again it's like World War II it's like there's some nuggets of oh this is quite interesting but I don't I don't have hope I'm gonna be honest I think I'm exactly the same I think it's okay but
01:32:51
Speaker
I feel as if this represents what call of duty is becoming, if you know what I mean. I don't want to sound pretentious and be like, oh, this is the call of duty nowadays, but it's that geared towards the war zone crowds, the microtransactions. I'm going to admit it as well. See the menu screen for this? It is ugly as hell. This has been going on since modern warfare because you've got modern warfare, then they introduce a war zone.
01:33:18
Speaker
so you had modern warfare in one side and warzone in the other then they introduced cold war so you had an extra tab for that now you've got vanguard and now there's a fort tab it just looks ugly it looks ugly and terrible ends
01:33:32
Speaker
Yeah, I will play the campaign because I'm halfway through it already but what I'm seeing of it so far, I'm not enthralled. I like it well enough that it's not amazing and yeah, sorry, that was just a massive dump of a rant to be like, it stinks and I don't like it. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to download anything anymore.
01:33:54
Speaker
So yeah, just as a kind of closing thought, are you hopeful for the future of like World War Two games or do you think it's had its time? I mean, I don't think it's had its time. I mean, I still think there is a place for World War Two games. I think now, especially like since we're in a more varied FPS market, you know, there's a lot more variation there. So I don't think there's as much you're likely to run into. I think you're more the fatigue now is more with franchises.
01:34:20
Speaker
rather than like settings that we had in like the early 2000s. So I think there's still a place for World War Two games in general, FPS and otherwise. With regards to Call of Duty in a World War Two setting, I don't really have much hope because I feel Call of Duty is in a very particular frame now. It's that very like, it's a cinematic, it's a short cinematic experience. And I just don't think it quite works with the World War Two setting, especially what they tried to do with it.
01:34:50
Speaker
I just don't think it really works now. I mean, I hope that if they went back to more like the structure of those original Call of Duty, I think it would work well. I think it would actually be a bit of a refreshing change, to be honest. But I've got to be honest, the way it is now, I don't really have that much hope.
01:35:08
Speaker
You know, I'll stay a little bit optimistic but not from what I've seen. It does seem like indicative of the way college is going now where it's like they'll put in a campaign but obviously the focus will be the multiplayer. I have to admit I'm in the same boat. I haven't played the multiplayer. I might check it out after I finish the campaign. Again, zombies, not interested at all. Maybe I'll check
Future of WWII Games
01:35:32
Speaker
it out out of morbid curiosity but yeah.
01:35:34
Speaker
probably not it's probably worth saying our mutual friend who enjoys the he really enjoys the zombie stuff that he wasn't particularly impressed with the zombies in this in vanguard so oh wow doesn't look like maybe it's that good that was really terrible that was really terrible oh okay i'm gonna i'm gonna need to go lie down and think about that
01:35:55
Speaker
And, yeah, on that note, yeah, thank you, Adam, for discussing this topic because I know it kind of got a bit serious and heavy at times. So thank you for joining me. My pleasure. I think it's important to discuss these things. And I'm glad we've got this forum, forum where we can do that and we can have a nice rational discussion about these important issues. So, yeah, my pleasure. Always happy. Always happy to be here.
01:36:18
Speaker
As always guys, thank you all so so much for joining us in this episode today. Stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly, stay hydrated.