So apparently XBL is now PSN and is down all the time I was planning on playing Wildlands coop with someone, couldn't start my digital copy while XBL's licensing/store was down and remembered BLOPS3 was the + freebie in June. Convenient for BLOPS4 launch day!
@roadrunner343 tagging you here since it's relevant here more than anywhere else to continue our COD discussion. It's been a while since I've played a COD. I have to say the campaign and gimmicks in it are fun. Last ones I played were BLOPS 2 and GHOSTS where were just straight forward military shooters. The Mirrors Edge/Deus Ex vibe in BLOPS 3 was actually an interesting addition. But it's a shame, the campaign is really kid of cool, and that's the part they've now eliminated.
However, playing it reminded me just how bland COD gameplay actually is. I'm spoiled by Bungie and Ubisoft's gunplay systems in shooters. Even EA with Titanfall. The guns just feel bland, aiming feels bland, everything is just an unsatisfying Hogan's Ally of crouching behind boxes and shooting little targets. I haven't played the newest ones so maybe they've improved it, but I can't imagine they'd break the golden goose. You're right it plays a lot faster than BLOPS2 and GHOSTS (Call of Doggy) did....the Mirrors Edge kind of aspect makes that cool. But it also feels wrong. It still wants to be military but moves like DOOM. It reminds me of old Activision games like S.i.N. Cool in their day but it feels so empty now. Good for pick up and play 15 minute sessions or so I suppose. Not sure making it a zombie shooter was a great idea though. I guess that's a popular thing for now. It worked for Telltale.
@NEStalgia Thanks for tagging me here - like you, I didn't really want to derail the other thread any further than I already did, so I decided to step away =)
With that out of the way, the last CoD game prior to BLOPS4 that I played for any amount of time was CoD:MW. I got WaW in an absurd Steam sale, but I didn't really play it. So there's a huge gap in my CoD experience. I should also mention, that I'm a PC only FPS player. I really can't stand FPS games without a keyboard and mouse. Not sure if that changes anything regarding our conversation though.
Like you, I prefer Ubi's tactical gameplay & gunplay. I slightly preferred Titanfall's locomotion. I do think BLOPS4 feels really good though, it's incredibly fast and fluid. The hero aspect shakes things up just enough to get me interested again. You mention Bungie, and I personally find BLOPS4 gunplay to be just as good feeling as Destiny 2. Overall, the primary reason I purchased the game was for Blackout though. So far, for me, it is by far the best BR experience - both in terms of performance and fun. I understand many people don't like BR, so that may not be a selling point for you. Standard MP turned out to be more fun than I was originally expecting as well, thanks in part to the gunplay and the heroes. There's also a lot more MP game modes than I remember from a decade ago. It's perfect when I only have a few minutes to play, rather than the 20-30 minutes required for blackout. I can't comment too much on Zombies, as I've only played it a little bit, but I'm more of a competitive player anyway.
Regarding Singleplayer, it sure is a bummer that there is no campaign. I wish it still existed. Ultimately though, I primarily played CoD, Battlefield, Titanfall, etc... for the competitive multiplayer anyway, so it was not a deal to me. What I think would be great, is if they really shook things up, and perhaps Treyarch continued to focus on their competitive online titles, and one of the other studios focused 100% on an awesome single player experience. Until then, I'll probably get my fill of CoD from BLOPS4 for the next 5-10 years again.
EDIT: One thing that does drive me bonkers is how limited you are in creating custom classes in standard MP. You unlock stuff by leveling up, which is cool, but it takes forever if you're a filthy casual like myself. Then when you do level up enough to unlock a gun, you have to level that gun to unlock attachments. I don't like feeling as if I'm at a major disadvantage just because I can't play for dozens of hours a week. Otherwise, it's been pretty fun thus far.
I have approached BLOPS4 with the freshest of eyes. Have never purchased a COD game before and haven't even really played them outside of demos or here and there at a friend's house. I got into the beta and booted it up just out of curiosity.l and was totally surprised by how much I enjoyed it especially the Blackout mode. Having put 1000 hours into Destiny 1 and 2, I would say that the movement and gunplay was right on par with those. Even as a majority single player gamer, the lack of a campaign doesn't bother me in the slightest in this type of game really.
Haven't bought it yet but may if it's a good discount on BF. Perhaps it's from not being at all familiar with playing the franchise, but I really enjoyed what I played of it!
@roadrunner343 Hah, I'm more recent on the series than you, I hadn't guessed that. Neither of us were terribly recent though Yeah I learned shooters on PC, left PC for a variety of hardware and software nightmare reasons and got a PS3 back a decade ago or so. Learning shooters was a nightmare with sticks. I bought one of those weird adapters from Hong Kong that you can plug a keyboard and mouse in and it inputs DS3 inputs. It worked...kinda....ok, it wasn't great. I made it through Haze and Killzone 2 that way. Supposedly X1 now supports full keyboard/mouse which is cool, but oddly impractical. Switch gyro is where it's at for console shooters since Sony won't unlock motion for the DS4. But.....I can manage on sticks these days. Third person is better on sticks most often, but I'm adapting more to mouseless, gyro-less first person.
Titanfall 2 really surprsied me with how good it feels. I got it one one of the sales for like $6 and got sucked into really clean gunplay.
Good to know BLOPS 4 gunplay sounds improved from 3. It's honestly incredibly bland and ancient feeling in 3 to the point of feeling retro. Quake Live still plays better. Maybe they did teach an old [call of] dog[gy] new tricks....albeit, by copying Bungie.
I do tend to forget they're pushing the BR aspect. The whole concept of BR has never really appealed to me, and ultimately I'm a bigger PvE fan than PvP. For a PvP game, I think Splatoon 2 will remain my go-to for quite some time It's hard to have too many PvPs to actually be good enough at all of them to make it worthwhile.
But the campaign loss is heavy, in part because, to me, one of the best modes of COD, Halo, Gears was the party coop. It wasn't as dragged out as Destiny, Farcry, etc. I feel like Activision wants to segment their brands. COD is the PvP FPS now. Destiny is the PvE FPS. Overwatch is the third person team shooter. it just feels weird for COD. Despite the PvP deathmatch being what made it popular, the campaign was always a hallmark of the AAA budget series.
I like your idea of a single player focused COD. Unfortunately it looks like the big publishers are in a phase of moving away from single player anything in favor of online everything to cash in on trends, SaaS, Fortnite etc. Even Bethesda's now an online-only thing. Which is silly considering Sony's posting record sales with a battery of solo games. Though part of that is probably because they're the only company that's making them!
As for unlocking: Let me guess....you can buy in-game currency to unlock it faster, amirite?
@NEStalgia Regarding online currency, I actually have no idea. I think I have a mental block when it comes to micro-transactions and I automatically filter them out. I never buy them, have no interest in them, and didn't even notice if they are available in this game.
As for singleplayer, it is a shame the industry is trending away. To me, it feels like a growing number of people think the CoD series has become stale and repetitive. I don't think it needs to be an annual release, as indicated by my long break from the series. I think it would make perfect sense for Activision to have one studio focus on Multiplayer, one Singleplayer, and heck, maybe the third should focus on co-op Zombies/Left for Dead style gameplay. Until then, I am quite happy with BLOPS4. I'm completely satisfied with Blackout, and have uninstalled PUBG (I could never get into Fortnite), and the standard MP fills a similar role for me as the original Titanfall (I skipped 2) did for me a few years back. When I get bored of that, I'll probably dive into Zombies and see if it clicks, but at this point, I don't have a huge interest. I think BLOPS4 is good, not great, and is likely more appealing to me now simply due to timing, lack of any other polished BR, and personal circumstance.
@NEStalgia As for Bethesda, they just need to make better games. Half their catalog runs like crap, doesn't look great, and has jank all over the place. Going online-only isn't going to change that. Case in point: Fallout 76. Making something into an online 'experience' won't make the game better if it wasn't good to begin with
I really hope Ninty sticks to SP as well. The inevitable Metroid Prime 4 better not be some Metroid Battle Royale.
It's kind of a growing problem. Not so much because single player games don't sell anymore, but because online-only games have the potential to make more, and everyone is chasing after those dollar signs. Of course, if everyone starts doing it you get your Steeps and For Honors; people can't play everything at the same time. Though the same thing can be said about open world games. The tendency to turn everything into a 100+ hour adventure.
@roadrunner343 I envy your mental block of microtransactions Some games hide it more than others. BLOPS 3 doesn't hide it very well. I'm betting BLOPS4 doesn't either
I think the online thing is a mix of the studios dreams of total lifecycle control of a game, (EG, no 10 years of CoD, you buy a new one when they say you buy a new one) plus thinking of catering to the "new" gaming market they reach through "social" play. On the surface, if you're a business executive chasing trends it all makes sense. Plus the ability to continually monitize it as a service is quite attractive, and it means resale is meaningless. But I also think it'll backfire. Problem with online games is if you're not #1 you're #100. Many of them overlap the same market so if you're not the one that wins attention today, you simply lose your investment. I think they'll learn from watching Sony succeed with stories and watching an inevitable bust or two of their online games. Like For Honor. They're selling the season 2 expansion at full price. Why? Nobody played the first one and it had so few modes! It was a good game, but not being #1 made it vanish.
But I can see for time constraints and all COD could be good popcorn fun. Lots of action, minimal investment of time or attention......sounds perfect for Switch
@Octane LOL, yeah. It was easy to forgive them with Morrowind and Oblivion. It was so ambitious and unique that the problems could be ignored. But they've just....I'm not as thrilled with them as I used to be. FO3 was a mess, Obsidian saved with with NV. FO4 is ok, it does some things well, but it takes itself too seriously. 76 is going to have holograms of the survivors of the war from the days after....huh?! This is Fallout...bobbleheads and kitsch reign supreme.....mutant militants who insist on proper grammar are a thing. Iguana on a stick for 100 bottlecaps and some Rad-X for lunch! And they've turned it into holograms of post-nuclear war survivors and their misery. It's not just the engine problems, they have lost an understanding of what their games are. They bought Prey, an over the top horror about a Borg-like alien race with Art Bell on the radio as himself in the background and turned it onto a space station survival horror game. I used to think Bethesda did neat things but now they just seem to be a building full of Lv120 Edgelords that make empty sandboxes they don't playtest and don't understand the source material.
And yet Fallout is oh so popular. I mean yeah yeah I liked Fallout before it was cool, yadda yadda. But still...I'm not sure how their version gained this sort of "the internet implodes when Bethesda says Fallout" kind of status.
Heck Ninty hasn't stuck to single player much beyond BotW, Odyssey, and XC2. Looks like 2019 fixes that. But for now the next big thing is Smash. More Multiplayer.
Yeah, the potential to make more and chasing after $$$ is what got Capcom and Square in deep doo-doo when chasing the COD money a decade back. They all want in, they all want to win, but...they lost their own fans and didn't grab the attention away from the already bigger competitor online. Yeah, Steep, For Honor, and dozens of others end up dead empty wastelands without players when Overwatch and Fortnite take their market's attention. Everyone can't play at the same time, and in an online game they need to. Farcry5 will be as playable in 2024 as it was in 2018. Maybe it will be cheaper, but it's still a sale. Nobody will care about For Honor in 2024 and it won't be playable. It's interesting. Studios always turn to their back catalogue when things go badly. Rereleasing remasters, ports, special editions fills their libraries. With these online games focus they're building a deadzone of no library to lean on in the future. Years of few actual games to keep retailing forever. FFVII is a major announcement 20 some years later. People rebuy it. Nobody will rebuy Fallout 76 in 20 years.
On the other hand, Bethesda publishes Doom and Doom 2016 was such a fantastic mix of retro and modern game design that it made me, a non-shooter fan, an absolute lover of the game and is tied with Splatoon as my favorite shooter. (Metroid Prime isn't really a shooter as much as an adventure, especially since there is a lock-on function that trivializes aiming in 1, 2, and most of 3)
Metroid, Xenoblade, EarthBound shill
I run a YouTube/Twitch channel for fun. Check me out if you want to!
Please let me know before you send me a FC request, thanks.
I was never a fan of Half-Life 1 or 2. I get that they set a good example, but other games took the most innovative aspects I liked (the way it handled its scenes) while removing the stuff I didn't...which was pretty much everything else that wasn't stock shooter fair, especially the gimmicky physics portions that usually ground the pacing to a screeching halt in HL2.
So, we got the Castlevania Requiem surprise by Konami... Now Sega's turn ! o_O
Sega announced in a Tanita official broadcast that the first three Virtual-On games in Virtual On: Cyber Troopers, Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram, and Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force are headed to PS4.
PS4 didn't have **** in the first years either. Remember when PS4 and Xbox's biggest games were just ports, that being Last of Us Remastered and Halo MCC?
Metroid, Xenoblade, EarthBound shill
I run a YouTube/Twitch channel for fun. Check me out if you want to!
Please let me know before you send me a FC request, thanks.
@Dezzy@EvilLucario Half-Life 2 is fantastic assuming you think Kingdom Hearts series story is too linear and understandable.
I'll say it, it's beyond overrated. The storytelling makes no sense. It was a convenient excuse to throw an art direction on screen, combined with "immersive" story telling that means you often miss most critical parts of story. Worse though the story arc really has little coherence or sense and by the end you still have no understanding of what just happened or why. They had a great concept. They had an art direction they wanted to showcase. And they had a story telling mechanism they were proud of. But while all that presentation was wonderful, they forgot to actually tell the story. By the end of the game the city is getting crushed by trash compactors like the base of the Death Star. You don't know how, or why, or what the objective is. It's just there. And it's never explained you just "go with it."
Actually @EvilLucario you'll love it, you love games that explain absolutely nothing about what's going on ever
Seriously though it's VERY different from HL1. HL1 was an old school corridor shooter in a closed lab and some horror elements. HL2 was possibly the first "modern" large world, outdoor, different locations, with a cinematic story (or an attempt to deliver one.) It was revolutionary for its time. That's why it is higher regarded than it ought to be. In hindsight it fails on a lot of levels. But at the time it was too amazing to notice. It was revolutionary but unrefined, and the first half hour is the best half hour, story-wise.
Also, I've heard it on good authority from some former Valve contacts that even the dev team has no idea what the story was supposed to be and thinks it makes little sense as-is. It really is a train wreck they lost the narrative on part way through Which is probably a big part of why they never bothered with 3. Fans created something in their head that 2 had this amazing story, and inside they're like "we don't even know what the story is!" How do you live up to hype on that? Best not to try and keep selling Dead Cells for $10
HL2 was probably good for what it was at the time of release, but it hasn't aged very well. I tried it in... 2009 or so as a part of the Orange Box bundle and hated it.
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