cod ww2 final review

black ops 4 is just around the corner and it is time to say goodbye to the current call of duty, world war 2.

i'll be honest, my favourite call of duty is sledgehammer's previous game, advanced warfare. most people hated it but it was one of my first call of duties, i liked the semi futuristic setting and it had cool and interesting guns. obviously i was excited for sledgehammer's cod ww2. all the youtubers hyped up the game, back to world war 2, back to boots on the ground bla bla bla.

due to personal reasons, i only got to play the game from like march. thankfully i missed out on the horrible launch of the game. anyway, lets get on with the review. lets talk about the campaign first. i didn't even bother to finish it. in a nutshell it is an over dramatic quick time event soap opera. it has so many scripted and QTE sequences like it felt more like watching a movie. it felt like nothing i did mattered and the characters are so cliche and uninteresting. the game's graphics are also not very good. not horrible but not on par with 2018 standards. i mean it looks worse than black ops 3, battlefield 1 and just about any other fps game released in the last year or two.

next up is zombies. i don't care about zombies. it's like smashing your head against a wall repeatedly while trying to decipher the plot of lost. screw zombies, i wish they would get rid of it and give me more mp content.

then on to the meat of this review, the multiplayer. of course the sjw idiots had to get their hands on the game so nazi symbols are censored and there are women in ww2. i mean i'm not against women being represented in games but not in ww2, it is completely historically inaccurate. the first time you run into a black female nazi soldier you're like... wtf is this?! oh yeah, there is also pretty much no content from the pacific, eastern or north african theaters of the war which is so disappointing.

something that is new to call of duty is war mode. it is essentially a ripoff of conquest from battlefield and other modes like payload from overwatch. problem is that it is sooooo repetitive and because the maps are bigger, the game lags and stutters quite a bit more. the other problem is that there are only 3 maps with the base game and it is not enough.

speaking of too little, that is another problem with cod ww2 in general. the game launched with way too little content. 9 standard multiplayer maps only! not enough guns, uniforms, emblems, calling cards or camos. there was also no emblem editor or paintshop at launch. even most of the emotes are just the same thing with a different name. they did add quite a lot more content later on but not enough maps outside of dlc. all the other content is ton of cosmetics which dilutes the loot pool so badly that it is pretty much impossible to get anything that you want without buying supply drops (loot crates).

that brings me to another huge issue with the game: the micro-transactions. supply drops are nothing new, but this game tries everything it can to get you to buy supply drops. limited time weapons and outfits which means you either grind the game for 12 hours a day or you buy supply drops otherwise you miss out on getting those items forever. it shows you all the new cool stuff every time you log in. and they say the weapon variants are cosmetic only, no stat changes but the fact is that some of them have very different and, in most cases, better iron sights. so of course you want them because they give you an advantage. they also added so many dlc weapons to the game which should have been in the game at launch. then they make it so difficult and grindy to get them which is so frustrating. it typically costs 20000 to 30000 armory credits (in game currency) to buy one of these dlc guns. that is a hell of a lot and like i said before, these are always only available for about 3 weeks. so if you font play the game for hours on end and grabbing your daily payroll credits, then you wont be able to afford these. the other way to maybe get these weapons is by buying a contract for 5000 armory credits that requires you to complete a challenge in order to get the gun. this system is not much better because these are also only available for a limited time, you have to wait for months for the contract to pop up for the weapon that you want. the completion tracking for these contract challenges are broken a lot of the time causing you to fail them. you also can't pause these so for example you will have to use only an smg like a tryhard for 3 hours on end. the developers have also just given up trying to improve the system. at the moment you get orders every day for completing 35 games in order to get an event bribe. the multiplayer has devolved into a grindfest which makes me want to blow my brains out. the whole stagnated content release, event system and loot design is sickeningly greedy. it is pretty clear that to activision and sledgehammer, it is all about selling supply drops and not making a good game.

the whole division system is such bullshit as well. i don't see any benefit of this system versus a pick 10 create a class one. it just limits player choice and creates imbalance. they did improve it a bit later on but you cant improve much on a pile of vomit.

on the positive side of multiplayer, they did add a few fun game modes. party games like prop hunt and infected were really fun and even the dogfighting in planes are good for a laugh. i really really hope black ops 4 adds a lot of party games. another nice thing is the matchmaking system that allows me to connect to and join international games. sure there is quite a lot of lag but i'm not reliant on local players/servers in order to play the game which is really great. this was a problem in bo3 and most other cod games.

the biggest problem with ww2 multiplayer though is that the game is simply too boring, specifically the traditional modes like team deathmatch. i'm not sure why or how they managed it but the gameplay is just not exciting. perhaps it is the terrible maps or boring weapons, who knows.

to sum up, i'll list the pros and cons...

pros

- party game modes

- matchmaking

cons

- graphics are dated

- poor multiplayer features and content at launch

- campaign is too scripted, cliche and dull

- microtransactions/supply drops. activision greed is real

- limited time events. too hard to get dlc weapons

- division system is unbalanced and restrictive

- multiplayer is a grindfest

- traditional multiplayer modes are boring

- maps suck

final score - 5/10

the problem with battlefield v(agina)

not too long ago when the battlefield 5 trailer dropper, there was some outrage from the community. when the bf5 reveal came around and you see red haired handicapped british women running around quickscoping guys and wielding a cricket bat, that is pretty far from historically accurate. after this they said bf5 was their take on ww2. what? ww2 is history, not up for interpretation. there were really really very few women who served in ww2 and i'm pretty fucking sure, none of them had prosthetic limbs. if that wasn't bad enough, the head of dice, patrick sunderland, directly told battlefield fans not to buy the game if they have a problem with women in a ww2 game. right, that seems smart.

after the community was told to go screw themselves, the obvious happened and news dropped that pre-order numbers for bf5 were looking terrible. ea decided to delay the game to get it out of the black ops 4 and red dead redemption 2 release window. but of course that wasn't what they said the reason was.

now the beta for the game has dropped and the general reception is a big ol' ...meh.

the beta is boring af and they changed and broke features in the game that should not have been messed with. some players also discovered that on the pc version of bf5, some phrases and words were being censored in text chat. thats not anything new, you know censoring swear words and such. but bf5 censors the phrase "white man". wtf ea and dice? if you weren't getting enough crap for all your sjw bullshit already, now you go and do this. honestly, as a white male who does not want some political propaganda & sjw influence in my games i'm not feeling very welcome in bf5.

for me, there is another issue with bf5. i played cod ww2 for a while earlier this year, grinded it, and got bored with it very quickly. so at the moment i'm over the ww2 setting. another game so soon after cod ww2 that has m1 garands, stg44s and kar98ks does not interest me. there won't be anything new or interesting about the maps, weapons, gear or uniforms in bf5 that you haven't seen 20 times before.

in short, no thanks, i'll pass

this.is.blackout... ok, so what?

i'm definitely in the minority but black ops 4 blackout does not interest me at all. the other multiplayer yes. there are issues there but i'm excited for the traditional mp. for those of you who don't know, treyarch are adding a battle royale mode (like fortnite and pubg) to call of duty black ops 4.

the trailer looks very impressive and exciting, can't knock it there. thing is, i don't like battle royale game modes and here is why.

- i don't like any multiplayer game modes that do not have respawns. i know a lot of players like it because the risk is higher and makes it more stressful and "exciting". i just think it makes it more boring, frustrating and causes people to camp a lot.

- temporary random loot sucks. so you only have one life and you are at the mercy of the RNG loot system in order to kit yourself out. so need to find armor, health packs, good guns and ammo. so you won't necessarily be able to play with what you want. having a create-a-class system or another form of choose-a-loadout is much better.

- only one map. yeah the map is "big" and there is lots of variety in geometry, you'll still be playing on the same environment (aesthetically). the same theme, weather conditions etc. gets old fast.

- solo player problem. i can see how this could be fun with a couple of friends, dropping in together, watching each other's backs and rolling in on a chopper. but i'm mostly a solo player since most of my friends either went to playstation, fortnite or battlefield. battle royale solo is crap.

- games take too long. if you actually try and win, a game take way too long for me. i prefer 5 to 10 minute matches.

- the illusion of progression. since you don't unlock weapons, equipment or abilities in battle royale and you also don't have weapon unlocks/leveling, there is no real progression. like fortnite, you can have a level and unlock skins but who gives a damn about that.

- bullet physics. you can stick to hit scan snipers since it wont work with people sniping you from across this huge map, so the have to add bullet drop which sucks, is really dependent on connection and is simply fucking annoying.

- lag. i'm from south-africa. we don't have the best internet connection en we hardly ever get game servers here. that is why cod has always been great to me since it can default to p2p, you can have a minimal lag game and don't need a server. blackout can't work like this and will be dedicated server only, which means my connection will be to a server in europe somewhere at best. no thanks

it's just me i guess, eh. at least they don't have building

fortnite is annoying

it's no secret that fortnite is the biggest game on the planet right now. there are a few reasons for the popularity. first of all, it's free. this is a big factor and people should never underestimate the power of free stuff. the marketing drive also helps a ton since you see it everywhere. the game has also been visually designed to appeal to children, essentially looking like a rainbow crapped all over a CGI kids movie from disney.

one thing i will give the game is that it is available on pretty much everything including pc, xbox, playstation, ios, android and nintendo switch. all playing together except for sony playstation who is the rich selfish kid on the playground.

so why do i ...dislike fortnite?

1) it's consuming gaming culture. it is almost impossible to go onto youtube, a online gaming website or reddit without seeing or someone mentioning fortnite. all your favorite youtubers are dropping their regular content videos for fortnite ones because views are through the roof resulting in more money for them. these retarded fortnite dances are infecting pop culture and the amount of cringe on the internet has increased dramatically because of these.

2) false (gaming) gods. with the popularity of fortnite rivaling that of the holy bible, some "pro" gamers have been playing it and have been gaining popularity amongst the 6-12 year olds. ninja is obviously the poster boy. this fucking guy is the biggest pretender ever. but i'll make a seperate post on him. then there is ali a. he used to be a very successful call of duty youtuber but completely ditched his fans and everything for the fortnite views and money. he is now the fortnite clickbait king.

3) the game is mediocre at best. all this booha about battle royale when all it is is simply free-for-all with only one life. all you need is one big map (which you can use any landscape building tool to generate for you in a few minutes), basic non-customizable weapons and a "storm" mechanic that gradually forces everyone out of their camping spots. so you are at the mercy of RNG for weapons and defense, can get sniped and killed in one shot from across the map or not see anyone for 20 minutes. plus the whole thing doesn't work with any proper leveling/progression system by it's very nature. the only "progression" in fornite is your level number, which means nothing and unlocking skins. skins are the most worthless things in gaming ever. it's like having a fake M badge on your BMW. doesn't change the car and people will think you're an idiot for trying to show off. visually the game doesn't look impressive or realistic. the weapon mechanics are super basic and 2 decades old. the building is annoying as hell and trumps gun skill. you drink a potion to get a shield (what?). a single game takes ages if you actually try and win. there are no interesting game modes like conquest, infected, prop hunt or gun game like we see from other multiplayer games.

4) epic keeps trolling people. every now and then something mysterious happens in fortnite like some secret bunker nobody can get into, or a meteor that is in the sky or now there is some cosmic cube travelling across the map. that great that they add all these things in but the end result is always anticlimactic or even simply amounts to nothing. it's like the tv show lost, massive hype and build up and mystery but all that follows is disappointment.

if you enjoy the game, then power to you. i wish it would just go away. it's like that annoying advert on tv that keeps popping up every ad break that makes you want to kill yourself.

black ops 4 is not call of duty

like the title says, as of bo4, call of duty is no longer call of duty. bold statement, i know. well as "bold" as a stupid gaming statement can go.

to determine if this is true, we need to ask: what makes call of duty well... call of duty? what aspects define what a call of duty game is in the modern era?

to me, a cod game meets the following criteria:

1) action packed, linear campaign

2) fast/twitch first person shooter

3) quick time to kill (when compared to games like halo, battlefield etc.)

4) random weapon recoil

5) no armor system in multiplayer

6) health regeneration

7) no classes or character "roles" (so no such thing as a medic, support class, engineer etc.)

8) no buildables in multiplayer

9) 6 vs 6 multiplayer on traditional modes

10) create-a-class, level up and prestige systems

11) kill/score streak rewards in multiplayer

so if you look at any cod game from cod4 to ww2, they all fulfill all 11 of these criteria. even some of the earlier cod games (cod, cod 2, cod 3) would fulfill at least 6 of the 11 criteria listed.

this brings us to bo4... how many of these criteria does bo4 fulfull? well lets go through them all and see.

1) no, there is no campaign... pathetic

2) yes. although, the ttk is so long now this could be debatable but we'll give it this one.

3) no. 150 health + armor + extra health from crash, ttk is waaaaaaay longer in bo4.

4) no, bo4 has predictive recoil now.

5) no, bo4 has armor that you can apply on your loadout/class.

6) no, manual healing now.

7) no, you have a healer/ammo guy now (crash) & a character that builds walls (torque).

8) no, you can build/place barriers and wire traps pretty much wherever you want (torque).

9) no, 5 vs 5 is the norm in bo4.

10) yes

11) yes

that is only 3 out of 11! if the requirement of being a call of duty game is to have create-a-class, kill streaks and to be a fast paced fps then a game like crysis 2 complies and is more of a cod game than bo4 is.

let's face it. call of duty ww2, as bad as it is, will unfortunately be the last proper call of duty game. rest in peace.

so whats this?

not sure how you stumbled in here but welcome!
this is a place for me to post my thoughts and opinions on video games for the most part but likely about some other topics as well.
i've never really done a blog before so i'll just learn as i go.