simply brilliant. best review i've read on this site.

Pictures flatter your style superbly; especially when you do dodgy diagrams or graphs to demonstrate a point. It is a concept many other reviewers worldwide should really learn to pick up on; especially on so-called 'professional' sites. Sure, a few screenshots may be thrown in, but often they bare little relevance to the review on hand. Your work, however, is the perfect mid-point between animation and pure text.

I would like to compare this review to "The Brothers Karamazov".

Send Gin

nil:
I was under the impression that the essence of Gonzo Journalism was discussing your feelings about an event or experience, rather than trying to analyse it objectively. But you could be right, as most of my knowledge on the subject comes from the internet.

My extensive research on the subject- yes, I looked at the Wikipedia page- has led to think that when a lot of people say Gonzo reviewing, they really mean something which admits its own subjectivity, and doesn't try to get away from it. The journalist can have a physical presence in the piece, but the point is that however hard he or she tries, they cannot remove themselves from it entirely. Or somesuch bollocks.

limasol:
Ok review, i reached the line graph and thought that it was going to be crap, however your opinions on hubris/western world/weapons are interesting.

Thanks. Believe it or not, reluctant complements are my favourite type. They feel hard-earned.

the_tralfalmadorian:
simply brilliant. best review i've read on this site.

Shucks.

Mel:
Pictures flatter your style superbly; especially when you do dodgy diagrams or graphs to demonstrate a point.

Thanks. I'm thinking of making dodgily drawn MS Paint doodles a regular staple of my reviews, so it's certainly something I'll be working on.

sammyfreak:
Send Gin

Always.

Your words melt my heart... ah (cough) Bears, Boobs!

Great review as per usual. I completly agree with the spiking difficulty curve. How many times did it take me to get past the TV room? Too goddamn many.

Also, like the new title my Genetically Different friend.

Wow. I am normally a negative person but, i have nothing bad to say here. So well done you get my applause. *applauds*

Wow, good review.

Great review Gigantor. I knew that COD4 did have some commentary to real life events, but still, I never read that far into it...

JakubK666:
*chlip

If I was a girl I'd totally fuck you for this review...in fact I'd totally fuck you right now anyway...and I'll probably have to go to the end of the line first.

Right now? You mean like? Aww, no.

Okay, aside from that, good review Gigantor. :) They talked about the exactly right issues this game has.

A fantastic review, encompassing the style and possible messages in the game, as opposed to just how shiny 'n killy the guns are.

Well done Gigantor. It's a lovely and insightful read.

Cheers

Apone

seeing as this has been resurrected from this past June, I'd like to point out that there was no instance in the game in which the middle eastern foes were called "terrorists". Actually they aren't really called anything. The only hint you get as to what they are or why they're doing whatever they're doing is that Al-Asad kills the president of the ambiguous country (which appears to be Saudi Arabia) and whatever kind of revolution they're going for is begun.

Calling them terrorists would make the political message of the game much different (depending on the manner of labeling them as such). It would probably be assumed that it's advocating the US's invasion of Iraq and other aspects American foreign policy.

The political message of the game is rather malleable depending on one's own political viewpoint.

Someone who believes in America's foreign policy will view the detonation of the nuclear bomb as saying "Middle Eastern terrorists place no value on human life and their only purpose is to destroy as much as possible without restraint, thus they must be neutralized" A more skeptical person will interpret it much the same way as Gigantor. The case is similar for the actions of the Ultra-nationalist enemies in the SAS part of the campaign. Evil commies destroying freedom or embittered revenge seekers. The game does more to show the revenge motives of Zakhaiv though.

There are other subtle messages in the game. The Marines are given some glory in their death by a gigantic nuclear boom in that they stop to rescue the pilot of a downed helicopter, which wastes just enough time to get them all killed anyways. The SAS are portrayed as cold, "ends justify the means", and indiscriminately destructive with the killing of unarmed crew members on the ship in the prologue and the torture and execution of Al-Asad in the safehouse.

I suppose Al-Asad's death was meant to give him an almost identical end to the one he gave the president of the ambiguous country.

Well I was tempted to jump in and be all quirky and difficult... but unfortunately this is an excellent review. I don't feel like reading through all your reviews, but I suspect this is your best yet.

So yeah, top work.

Necropost. Yay!

shufflemonkey16:
seeing as this has been resurrected from this past June, I'd like to point out that there was no instance in the game in which the middle eastern foes were called "terrorists". Actually they aren't really called anything. The only hint you get as to what they are or why they're doing whatever they're doing is that Al-Asad kills the president of the ambiguous country (which appears to be Saudi Arabia) and whatever kind of revolution they're going for is begun.

Calling them terrorists would make the political message of the game much different (depending on the manner of labeling them as such). It would probably be assumed that it's advocating the US's invasion of Iraq and other aspects American foreign policy.

In my defence, I think I called them "terrorists" rather than terrorists, because I wanted to get across how murky the motives were for the game's war. It's not really explained, although if it were a "war on terror" it would seem justifiable given that the chaps do seem to actually have nuclear weapons. Recent wars have been started for less.

shufflemonkey16:
The political message of the game is rather malleable depending on one's own political viewpoint.

Someone who believes in America's foreign policy will view the detonation of the nuclear bomb as saying "Middle Eastern terrorists place no value on human life and their only purpose is to destroy as much as possible without restraint, thus they must be neutralized" A more skeptical person will interpret it much the same way as Gigantor. The case is similar for the actions of the Ultra-nationalist enemies in the SAS part of the campaign. Evil commies destroying freedom or embittered revenge seekers. The game does more to show the revenge motives of Zakhaiv though.

I'd certainly incline more toward it showing a case of the Americans forcing their opponents hand, and everybody suffering as a consequence. I don't think the game wants to come down on either side, precisely because when a nuclear bomb goes off, there aren't really any winners. Just survivors. That was a bit naff. Oh well.

shufflemonkey16:
There are other subtle messages in the game. The Marines are given some glory in their death by a gigantic nuclear boom in that they stop to rescue the pilot of a downed helicopter, which wastes just enough time to get them all killed anyways. The SAS are portrayed as cold, "ends justify the means", and indiscriminately destructive with the killing of unarmed crew members on the ship in the prologue and the torture and execution of Al-Asad in the safehouse.

I suppose Al-Asad's death was meant to give him an almost identical end to the one he gave the president of the ambiguous country.

As per the marines, I think the point of rescuing that downed pilot is that it's an action which suddenly becomes completely pointless. The player is so involved in their own little gung-ho macho microcosm, only for the perspective to zoom out, and for that one act to become completely insignificant when the nuke goes off. At least there's a certain straight-forward honesty about the Americans, unlike the SAS, who provide all sorts of moral quandaries.

All fair points, though. It's certainly a more tricksy game than it gets credit for being.

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

That was a smart and extremely well written review of the game. I must say you almost equal Yahtzee with that. Well done i applaud your effort.

Great review, one of the best on this site.

Online gaming presumably offers the bonus of a twelve year old (who is admittedly much better at this sort of thing than me) deriding my manhood as he riddles me with P90 fire, only for him to riddle me with accusations of faggotry as I smite him from beyond the grave with Martyrdom.[/quote]

Yep, you got it pegged. Awesome review, probably the funniest and wittiest i've read in ages.

I was hugely impressed when I read this the first time, and I'm just as impressed now. Well done, et cetera, et cetera.

BallPtPenTheif:

Gigantor:

At the same time, the majority of soldiers who try to get into special forces...don't. If five people don't get in, and one person does, isn't it reasonable to assume that the one who does would be the best at doing what was needed of them in that instance?

Maybe it's just that the SAS are best at what the SAS do, and other soldiers are best at what they do: specialisation, like.

this is true. the specialized skill required for certain divisions can be more difficult to master. however, there are still tasks that "grunts" are better suited for. for example, if you have to police an Iraqi suburb, you wouldn't have a bunch of Delta Force guys checking IDs. beyond the waste of resources, the training that Delta Force receives isn't condusive to safe civil discourse. one could even argue that typical army training isn't suited for safe civil discourse, but between the choices available they would be the best option.

Believe it or not, that's not exactly true. While it would be a waste for our SF and Deltas to pull guard duty and civil policing, safe civil discourse and cultural classes are mandatory predeployment classes.

The unconventional warfare manual advocates cultural awareness as a means of enlisting the aid of local forces. The SF receive extensive language and cultural awareness training and are experts at entering an area and building a rapport the locals, It just makes more sense to take advantage of on site assets rather than depending on what you could bring to bear yourself. If your interested, you could research the Tiger02 team and their work with General Dostrum in Northern Afganistan during the opening months of the war.

Heathen92:

BallPtPenTheif:

Gigantor:

At the same time, the majority of soldiers who try to get into special forces...don't. If five people don't get in, and one person does, isn't it reasonable to assume that the one who does would be the best at doing what was needed of them in that instance?

Maybe it's just that the SAS are best at what the SAS do, and other soldiers are best at what they do: specialisation, like.

this is true. the specialized skill required for certain divisions can be more difficult to master. however, there are still tasks that "grunts" are better suited for. for example, if you have to police an Iraqi suburb, you wouldn't have a bunch of Delta Force guys checking IDs. beyond the waste of resources, the training that Delta Force receives isn't condusive to safe civil discourse. one could even argue that typical army training isn't suited for safe civil discourse, but between the choices available they would be the best option.

Believe it or not, that's not exactly true. While it would be a waste for our SF and Deltas to pull guard duty and civil policing, safe civil discourse and cultural classes are mandatory predeployment classes.

The unconventional warfare manual advocates cultural awareness as a means of enlisting the aid of local forces. The SF receive extensive language and cultural awareness training and are experts at entering an area and building a rapport the locals, It just makes more sense to take advantage of on site assets rather than depending on what you could bring to bear yourself. If your interested, you could research the Tiger02 team and their work with General Dostrum in Northern Afganistan during the opening months of the war.

As a counterpoint look up the various instances incidents involving the Paras when they were stationed in Northern Ireland as security forces. The whole thing was a cluster fuck because highly motivated assault troops don't mesh with sensitive peace keeping operations.

JakubK666:

nilcypher:

JakubK666:

CoD4 is a really shallow shooter and it doesn't deserve the amount of philosophical preaching bullshit it received from you.Awesome but totally out of context.

If you really believe that, then, without meaning to offend, a lot of CoD4 clearly went over your head.

Okay...it's not shallow...just a very poor portrayal of War.The same squad of jackasses single-handedly killing instantly-respawning terrorists that so far starred in every single other war movie/game.As for the story it is thick with patriotism.We got nukes and "Nazis of the new era" - Russians and Terrorists.In the end I wouldn't be too suprised if Griggs was replaced with Cole Train from GoW.

I'm still sticking to my original statement because imo,it's like discussing Xenophobia and (Flood's) Utopian Society in Halo.

As much as I was going to try to disagree with you, you're actually right....

I never looked at the game so deeply through the political perspective, of course I noticed the political references and such but I just thought "whatever, it's just being realistic, like CoD always does (for the most part)" but hell, I never thought of the game as:

CoD4's single player campaign offers a brief but striking commentary on war.

that^ - I always thought the single player game as if it were just another war movie - where you take the FP view of Soap and...whatever the guy in the Middle East was, I think it was Jackson or something.

(Honestly I still don't see it, but you are a good writer Gigantor and I'm surprised someone hasn't hired you yet. You could write about how Kingdom of Loathing is the greatest piece of philosophy on the entire planet so far, and I'd probably agree with you. Speaking of, since Robert Janelle talked about KoL, you should jump on the bandwagon damnit!)

I never got the opinion that the game had some great message against war.
It didn't.
The price of war was more then the Americans or the British expected, but it was ultimately shown to be absolutely the correct action and was justified all along the way.

It's called heroic bloodshed. Our hero dies, our friends get killed, but we secure the safety of the world against nuclear weapon-crazies and the world will never know. Along the way our naive young warrior witnesses the horror of war or is raped by polar bears and goes about his work with a new sense of quiet dignity.
It's like the plot of Hero but with guns and a nuke.

The only unexpected thing was the cavalier attitude about executing people.

Funnily you summed up all my thoughts and feelings on that game... Damn you and your mind reading abilities! (in other thread-related news: pretty good job with that review).

Excellently done review. Now you've gone and made me play through the campaign again.

well it is different then what mine would be but great none the less i agree with everything there is and your right online is overrated

The reason for this riddling, and my downfall overall, was a pleasantly ironic one: I was too prepared for the game. I'd seen bunches of videos of people doing the "F[ucking].N[ew].G[uy]." shooting range in 3.7 seconds. I was unaware what the fuss was about, but intrigued anyway. Down the rope; switch to pistol; shoot, shoot, reload, shoot; cook flashbang; throw; shoot more; flashbang; reload; run to end while shooting through walls; earn grudging respect of mustachioed octogenarian captain and dreadful Mary Poppins cockney chimney-sweep; high fives all round; home in time for Countdown. I worked my way down to seventeen seconds, and the game duly suggested the "Veteran" difficulty setting.

You know, I always felt that improving on that section was a bit of a waste of time. I only got a Regular rating, but because of my prior FPS experience, especially in difficult settings, I picked Hardened, because I felt, "No matter how difficult this is, it can only be as hard as Operation Flashpoint in Cadet mode." And you know what? I was right. I'll be playing through it in Veteran next time, though.