Call of Duty: Ghost Recon: Red Dawn GI Jerricho K-9 Warriors.

[Skarclaw]

HAIR FROM A REAL SEAL TEAM 6 DOG

[Stuey]

I was pleasantly surprised by MoH (played the 'original' reboot) - it's the only one of the bunch that doesn't have some retarded story about global war and Russians and nukes and *suitcase*. Not an amazing game, falls into a lot of the same pitfalls as the others, relatively grounded though.

 

BF3 and BF4 campaigns are pretty bad (hint: DICE, stop making singleplayer) - buuuuut BF is still the best online FPS (or my fav anyway), despite how DICE are slowly ruining it. Somewhat excited to build a PC after Christmas and play it in all it's glory

[Skarclaw]

Am I alone in thinking that the last actually decent "Modern Military Shooter" was the Medal of Honor reboot?

 

Not perfect, but I can't seem to recall any MMS since then that has seemed to be worth spending the money on. Not MW3, BF3, BlOps, BlOps2, MoH:Wf, and now BF4 and Ghosts…. (Of those games listed, I have bought MoH:Wf and BF3. And while I enjoyed all the Magpulness and LaRueness and DDness and Vickersness, MoH:Wf was pretty pants outside of the gun selection and customization. And BF3 was just 60 bucks of meh.)

 

ETA: Now that I think about it, CoD:MW2 was pretty meh, too….

 

the last good cod game was cod 2 imo. the emphasis on b/a and s/a weapons meant you had to do more then just click and hold for a kill. the gameplay on new cod game is increadibly flat aswell it might aswell be a 2d wolfenstien affair. halo has it downsides but atleast it is more "3d" - alot more dynamic moving around the maps. also, again, most of the "good" guns are semi auto jobbies...

 

bf3 multiplayer with mates is wicked tho

[Jagdraben]

So I picked up Ghosts.

 

Playing the single player and here are my thoughts:

 

+ It's a post-MW CoD. For better and for worse.

+ The story is pretty stupid. I would love to hear what Neil DeGrasse Tyson would have to say about the first "mission" - although it seems to have been the most fun of all of the ones that I've played thus far. Seriously, they do the whole bad guy is always one step ahead of the good guys down to the point where the bad guy believably thinks the good guys are dead and then gets captured by them, but being captured was all part of his plan.

+ Somehow, they still haven't figured out how to let you select your load out before a mission (I understand that BlOps and BlOps2 both have this feature, which makes the lack even more egregious). But this feels somewhat less relevant in light of the fact that…

+ The guns are interchangeable. An assault rifle or an SMG, it doesn't matter, they all act the same way. In fact, two of the SMGs are, in fact, assault rifles. Sure some of them have a little higher rate of fire or a larger magazine capacity, but they all feel the same. The exact same. The Remington R5 feels the same as the AK-12 feels the same as the CZ feels the same as the FAD feels the same as the SC-2010. In fact, the SC-2012 - an updated Brazilian FAL in 7.62mm - has an obscene rate of fire and almost no recoil. But it also feels identical to any of the other "assault" rifles. Meaning that the option for a semi-auto-only thump gun has been taken from us. And the DMRs all have stupid magazine capacities.

+ On that note, the not-sniper rifle/DMR optics are all interchangeable, too. Including with Iron Sights.

+ The reloading animations are pretty pants. Frankly, any "military shooter" game that doesn't give two completely different reloading animations based on whether you're reloading from empty or performing a tactical reload after MoH:Wf just seems stupid. And while the Ameli (5.56mm MG3) is the only belt-fed I've used thus far, there is still a full belt of ammunition present when you run the "magazine" dry and begin the reloading animation. Which feels lazy.

+ Plotholes you can drive a Mack truck through. It's never explained why the Federation decided to hijack ODIN and invade the US - if they control the world's remaining oil wealth, all it would take would be an embargo to shut down the US. It's also not explained how it is that the war between the US and the Federation, despite being fought to a standstill, is still raging a decade later. No explanation for why NATO, Russia, or China isn't involved. Or how the US is still able to fight it with vehicles powered by oil-products with firearms and equipment made with petroleum by-products a decade later.

+ Playing as the dog is less fun than it ought to be. There is seriously something wrong if tearing somebody's throat out with your teeth in a video game as a dog isn't fun.

 

Perhaps nots as disappointing as CoD:MW2, but still pretty disappointing. So. Yeah. I'm gonna go on ahead and say that the modern military shooter is basically a vegetable and somebody needs to pull the plug.

[hitmanNo2]

Yeah.  It's just pretty sloppy all round.  When you knife kill someone when running a pistol and a knife, they disappear and a knife appears in your right hand then goes back to pistol in the right and knife in the left.

[Jagdraben]

The SCUBA mission is pretty fun, too. (Just did it.)

 

ETA: SCUBA and space. Best parts of the game, honestly. The rest was meh.

[pkm200901]

The space and ocean missions were by far the best part of the crappy game. I just got a new graphics card so I'm going to try maxing out the graphics and see if that'll make it more palpable, but honestly I really don't want to load it up and run it again. I wonder if Steam offers refunds for *suitcasey* games?

 

*edit - they don't. You'd think after C&C4 and DNF I'd have learned not to impulse buy games I suspect to be *suitcase*.

[Jagdraben]

I don't care how good the graphics are, if the rest of the game is pants.

 

In fairness, Ghosts probably does the CoD thing the best that any CoD game has. But… that doesn't save the rest from being *suitcase*.

Which leaves me torn and confused… on the one hand, the *suitcase* campaign means that I'm glad that the campaign is short. On the other hand, if the campaign were really long, I would be more interested in forgiving them for having a *suitcase* campaign (you run out of stuff to do eventually).

In a week, I'll start spoiling things.

[Gunmane]

I feel like modern military shooter developers should be forced to watch Total Biscuit's reviews of their latest games, and also of his pivotal video on the term modern military shooter. 

 

It just boggles the mind how this continues to go on purely on the factors that people continue to eat whatever is presented up.  We have done so much "modern" warfare that it quite frankly feels out of the picture of what current conflicts have been.  You have of course the terrorist elements placed in, but they are "hollywoodized" to where you have this same plot happening over and over again (as mentioned above in Jagdraben's post with some analyzing) with just a name change of the characters.

 

Full blown wars with "Ultranationalist" Russia, or China, or "The greater Co-Asian Empire" or whatever else that is christened as the "modern future" opposition, while they can be inspired by fears  real in the minds of people worldwide, just do not strike the same tone as reflecting on what has happened or is happening right now.  WW2 games flourished for the longest time, I feel, because they interjected players into a conflict that for many if not all, was always a curiosity of the past that we found ourselves tied to through its imagery, its resonating effects today, our own families memories of the war.  The projected curiosity of the future portrayed in these modern military shooters is just so absurd that it kills off that gripping effect on players.

 

If developers want to make a modern warfare game, base it off of real conflicts in war-torn areas not usually covered.  There are still places in the world where conventional warfare has taken place in the "modern era", however difficult it can be to define unilaterally such conflicts as conventional.  If they want to make a fictional war, then base it on real projections.  Have rebel factions compete not only against a government but each other, have government troops inadequately prepared to deal with rebellion, have invasions by foreign forces make some sort of sense either historically or politically (this rival nation has invaded before, or your leaders tried to plan a coup of their government, or quite frankly they just want your resources), have your audience sense a change in your shooter from this "modern" concept that has truly dragged down the value of these sort of games.

 

 

Of course, I may be writing complete gibberish here.  I honestly will stick to Monster Hunter and other games before I give these games a glance these days.

[Baddbaz]

The biggest let down with ghost is the fact that it is only going to play at 720 on the xbox one . On ps4 it is going to play at 1080 . Also if you brought the game for a ps3 console . A digital copy is only 9pounds if you decide to get the game for your ps4 if you decide to change systems later on .

[Habakure]

That's really annoying. It's happened a lot, with games that come out on an xbox and a playstation. One always has 1080 on release while the other is 720 (but with a promise/hint that you can download an upgrade latter, to go 1080).

[hitmanNo2]

*PC master race* 135 fps at 1080p

[Shardik]

*fruitcage* you PC boy

[Jagdraben]

snip

 

 

Honestly, this is why I can't wait for Black Powder, Red Earth. You're a PMC doing ops for various parties (private and governmental, all local) in an Iraq that has been torn into three different countries. It is going to be a bit, well, 8-bit. But I can deal with that.

[pkm200901]

Not sure why, but my texture resolution is garbage... Any ideas why? (This is on PC).

[Probotector]

Not sure why, but my texture resolution is garbage... Any ideas why? (This is on PC).

 

It's a console port, what did you expect? 

 

Some people have reported that the game sometimes doesn't save changes from the graphic options. Check again.

[pkm200901]

Yeah, I figured it out. I had the settings maxed out - the solution for me was to set graphics to high and then textures to extra. I'm not getting max quality but it won't let me, so *fruitcage* you Infinity Ward.