I don't always agree with Jim Sterling on what he says, but I have to say I completely agree with this episode. I like CoD, I think it needs a lot of improvements, but I like it, and the people who troll it to no end get on my nerves.

Mr. Omega:
You're defending CoD on the Escapist, one of the most sequel-phobic, anti-mainstream, "popular is bad (Unless it's Valve)", indie-snobby sites on the internet... that takes balls.

But of course, you're here too. Are you one of them or a shining exception to the flaws that every other member carries?

Well i posted on all his other videos, so their you go Jim, your slowly creeping up on Movie Bob as my third favorite show ( I just consider both of Bob's shows as one).... But thats behind Extra Credit and the King, Yahtzee.

And to the dude who used a Pokemon reference to describe the difference between Long time Quake players to new players being different then CoD, i think I'm about to stroke out, WTF?

I don't play multiplayer, so my problems are with the DESIGN of the single-player campaign for ALL Call of Duty games.

It always feels like a shooting gallery simulator from way back, mostly due to the infinitely respawning enemies and their brandead AI. There's barely any AI to the enemies to bring any challenge compared to most other shooters (Halo, FEAR). The scripting is always suspect, and the inclusion of allies baffles me when they're not efficient and get in your way. The story is so rushed through so many different characters that I lose interest or investment, a by-product of being an action movie experience.

I don't believe the complaints about better weapons and such, because lets face it in blops the game begins and ends with the famas and 4 began and ended with the m16.

I don't like Blop's progression to close quarter rapid fire weapons, but that's prefrence.

I wonder though how you can defend the story. It's so painfully generic. Granted the nuke scene was impressive, but that was one strong scene in over a half dozen games. The story is painfully obvious to the point where I walked in on my roomate playing blops, watched him play for like 10 minutes one the first few levels then predicted the entire story perfectly.

You can enjoy the story sure, but its nothing special at all.

willing to listen eh? well, then, but first off, one complaint:

"wonderfully paced"

uh, no. constant action is not wonderfully paced. wonderfully paced is MW1's nuke scene, for e.g., not anything that follows in the series.

but anyways, here we go:

COD is not bad because its popular, its popular because its bad. it appeals to those with no want for anything outside simplistic game play. the story mode is sub-par. it is a textbook "we win because we are good because i said so, and they loose because they are bad because they are Russian", without a single challenging thought, or any action beyond shoot faceless bad guy #785. its environments are bland and unforgettable, its has a dull palette, its missions are little more than go from point a to b and not die.

COD is by no means bad, its just meh, and only meh. its not a good game, not a great game, not the best series as some tout. its simply meh. there are better games from 5 years ago, there are better games from 15 years ago, and still as playable, while COD looses its appeal as soon as everyone abandons it for the next installment for a slight graphical update and a few more weapons. on that note, its about as balanced as what your diet must be.

its only goal seems to make what will sell, and what sells does not necessitate quality. McDonalds 'food' sells, and if you are about to tell me that what comes out of that passing for food is quality than you need help.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare, it's sequel, and BLACK OPS all had WELL PACED stories.

Hold the fuck on, Black Ops started with you getting severe elctro shock torture then has you flashback to Cuba where, in the literal span of 7 minutes, someone's hand gets stabbed, a metric ton of police officers show up, and you're already in a car doing a high speed chase with explosions going on around you.

Call of Duty, besides the first Modern Warfare, never did pacing right. The reason the "getting nuked" sequence in the first one was so visceral was because it was treated viscerally. You see a huge explosion, blackout, you then wake up in a completely destroyed city, your dead comrades around you, and crawl and breathe your last breath, watching as a building collapses in the distance. Fade to white.

THAT is narrative pacing. What MW2 and Black Ops does is the typical B-rate action movie story, i.e. make up some generic formulated plot to justify all the explosions and set pieces going on.

If you want TRUE pacing regarding set pieces, go and rent Crysis 2.

Good argument. Honestly I'm not a COD fan cause I found online too hard to get into and I dislike realistic games over all. Still I see the appeal there is in the series but I'm happy with my TF2.

He is right. CoD doesn't suck. Blops sucks. CoD has been fun since the very first one I played all those years ago, and Modern Warfare was the perfect iteration of it. It would be nice if the CoD games themselves could move on in a good way, and I don't mean by not having dedicated server support. I don't usually like the Jimquisition, but I really enjoyed this episode because what he said makes perfect sense.

Mr. Omega:
You're defending CoD on the Escapist, one of the most sequel-phobic, anti-mainstream, "popular is bad (Unless it's Valve)", indie-snobby sites on the internet... that takes balls.

Anyway, the defenses have been pretty good. It's not the best defense, but it's good. And I do not like the whole "CoD players are dicks" mentalities.

you seem to misunderstand escapist opinions they seem open to all plays.. hell loads like halo.

It's nice to see Jim Sterling is getting back on track with these Jimquisitions. Most of the recent ones, specifically starting around the time the first Escapist episode of the show was unveiled, felt like Jim was just showing off that he could say whatever he wanted with or without justification (although he did usually have good enough justification).

As for the actual topic, I never really got into the COD-style multiplayer mostly because I found old-school multiplayer more fun and also because the whole leveling-up scheme just seems like a ploy on the developer's part to make you play the game more. In my opinion, how many hours you rake up in a game's multiplayer should not be because of how much time you put into trying to unlock that explosive crossbow.

Every argument against COD is "hurr durr it's stuupid?"

Wow, Jimbo, you're going to try and talk about ignorance?

Alright, now *actually* argue the valid points instead of the easy to debate points. Someone else on Escapist does that; I'd rather not see another. ' -'

I guess ill put my two cents into this because iv ben playing cod for a while and have had a good if not shaky relathinship.

I started cod 2 on my xbox when i was like 12 and it was my first real online fps i started playing, needless to say it kicked as and i loved it and when i get a headset after my voice dropped thanks to puberty i found myself enjoying the people. It also introduced me to a hard as hell campaign if you put it on vertern. ( Yes halo was hard but if it was on legendary and you put it on 2p it become alot easier)

Then along came cod 3, it was diffrent, very diffrent. but i gave it a try while it was not as good as 2 i thought it was very enjoyable buit i sort of relized i had pumped 120 bucks into this game franchise and at 13 years old thats alot of money for me. so thinking on that and trying to get as into cod 3 as i did cod 2 i relized that it was growing a tad bit stale and i thought if this stayed the same for cod 4 i was going to have to bow out of the cod serious

AND DAMN WAS I WRONG

cod 4 came along, this is when was first in highschool or finishing middle school (i forget) but alot of my freinds were hooked into based of how cool it looked in all the trailers. So being a cod fan for the last three years or so i went out and got my hands on it, and it blew my mind. it was incredble diffrent and i fell inlove with call of duty all over again. it had hooked me back in with how the online mode worked and i couldnt get enough of it. (but like all things it does get stale.)

bring in waw (DIDNT GET RIGHT AWAY)

Instead i played alot of mw1 and when mw2 came out i got my hands on that and played it....alot......way to much...as to the point it was getting really boring.....REALLY FUCKING BORING......uggggghhhh iv put over 50 hours into the online mode and i allready finisehd the campain mode.

so i went and got waw

i was not impressed so much so i didnt play to much. it was getting old i was growing tired of the formula

then black ops......uggghhh. i played it for maybe 12 hours...i was so fucking bored... but my brothers wanted to play it all the time because they were really getting into cod when black ops rolled around..... and i had to play it with them..... and now im so tired of the cod franchise...

while yes some of you may look at the post and say thats only a few years between how could you grow stale on that... please remeber im trying to compact about 6 years of cod history and easily over 1000 put into the cod franchise for online play.

Now we are getting to mw3. I will stay hopeful, i will grab it but in all honesty it might just be for my brothers... it infinty ward can make a revolution to it like they did for cod 3 to mw1 i will fall back in love.... if not i think iv just grown tired of the franchise.

story time for mw2- i got mw2 on christmass.. we were moveing the next day. m room had nothing in it but a tv and an xbox. i stayed up[ all night playing it till i beat it. one of the coolest nights of my life.

So yeah thats how i feel, just growing very stale with me (if you want the summary)

hawkeye52:
snip

Completely agree here.

The game isn't fantastic, but at the time of CoD4, it did have a particular unique game style while introducing a fairly new number of concepts, this was then undone by the same formula being used over and over and OVER again in every flaming place in the sequels (e.g. sprawling about in slo-mo happens so often in Black Ops it becomes tedious, the once or twice this happend in CoD4 it was actually a WTF moment and well placed).

Multiplayer has gone further down the drain since MW as outlined by hawk, moving to P2P was the worst idea. The introduction of paying for DLC, the piss poor map design's and the console ports style games, (MW2/Black Ops), have been so poorly optimized they might as well give up on the pc market. They've just proceeded to cripple the series further and have fallen far away from the pinnacle in my eyes.

One hopes that they can actually be kinda UNIQUE again by introducing some new ideas and concepts in MW3 but i doubt it. Here's to hoping BF3 is actually like BF2 and has the original Battlefield Spin on things.

The best video i've seen on the escapist this month! Keep it up :D

OniaPL:
Don't know why I'm still awake but this was a pleasant surprise.

And also nice to see someone defend this franchise for a while. Black Ops was my first COD- game and I clocked a total of 150 hours. It was a simply good game.

And I'm not a hardcore online shooter fan.

Erm no, the thing he didn't seem to address was the series, yes Cod4 was a good game, no one seems to be disputing that at all, the problem was that every game after was just the same thing with a new campaign and multiplayer updates and they still charge you full price for a new game and they keep getting away with it, MW2 for example just ruined alot, a shorter more outrageous campaign with a ridiculous story, an attempt to garner coverage with the airport level etc. etc., then they added in Zombies because they ran out of idea's on top of a new WW2 shooter, then they just made one about the Cold War conflicts with Zombies still. They've ran out of idea's and they're just milking the franchise at this point, it's not like CoD4's multiplayer server's are down they're still filled, the only reason people are buying the new games are because their friends are getting it and they want to play with their friends.

Here are some legitimate arguments. Look at MW2 for PC. No dedicated servers, no modding, 18 player max, lag issues due to no dedicated servers. It was a joke on the PC. To make it worse there was wide spread hacking in the first 3-4 months of its release, approx 1/2 games I got into there was a hacker shooting me in the head from across the map.

What other reason do I need to never buy another CoD game? I loved CoD 2 and CoD 4 so much. However after MW2 I won't ever buy one again. Yes I did try Black Ops, no I did not like it.

Sylocat:
*sigh* Is his solution to each complaint about his overacting just to overact even more? Is he deliberately trying to try way too hard to be funny? Is his intention to come off as desperate "ironically?"

This is why I don't understand this show overall, it'd be fine if this was a show someone does on youtube, but why is this on the escapist? After watching zero punctuation, unskippable and extra credit, it's neither that funny nor does it really have any new, interesting points that haven't been considered before.

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He's complaining about people shallowly writing off games and retaliates by shallowly writing off the arguments of people who dislike games he likes. -_-

I'm going to say it again, I don't understand why the jimquisition exists, he isn't saying anything that hasn't been said before.

The video pretty much says "I like Modern Warfare" and that's fine! but the sweeping statements aren't exactly intellectually-stimulating.

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Maybe I'm being too harsh, I suppose he is just responding to unreasonable people with unconstructive arguments. But then this is something that someone would make a forum thread about, not a video that is hosted on the Escapist... I just don't get it.

Textblock incoming:

Raiyan 1.0:

kroldok:

While CoD may not need defending, it's players (some of them at least) certainly do.
Every time the "kiddies" and "fratties" scream "WIN" and spew bile over all non-CoD players, everyone else screams "FAIL" and spew bile over all CoD players ("an army of millions of frat boys and 13 year old tards" as i belive they are here represented).

This is the core point of this video, that you simply cannot judge other people based on something as arbitrary as their prefered choice of entertainment, and what it mostly comes down to is a generalisation of a large group of people.

But by saying that all those people who dislike CoD are (as he puts rather derogatorily) 'artsy fartsy types' or ' just going with the trend', isn't he making broad generalized stereotypes himself? For example, as I already mentioned, I believe CoD doesn't deserve to be the best-selling game on the PC as the last 2 sequels were very poor unoptimized ports. How do I fall into any of his preset camps?

Fact is, Jim's just trolling back.

First of all, just went through the video twice in a row and he doesn't actually say either of those things, at least not as straight quotes.
The 'Artsy fartsy' character he portrays states:
"What on earth are you talking about? I understand that videogames are supposed to be art, and Call of Duty could never be art.
Where is the tutorial that tells you the complete opposite of what your'e supposed to do to blow your mind. Where's the commentary on the stark nature of the human condition that all videogames should have, this is not good"
Basically, this character makes a broad generalization about CoD players, nowhere is it insinuated that Jim himself hates 'artsy gamers' or people who hate CoD, he does however hate the people who hate him for enjoying CoD, and there is a big difference.

Towards the end of the video he sums it up quite nicely:
"Somebodys intellect is not reflected in the games they like, there are some who play CoD and only Cod, and there are plenty of others who enjoy the games as part of a balanced diet of software. Call of Duty isn't perfect, Activision may soon be running the series into the ground if rumors of spinoffs are true and $15 mappacks can go f*** themselves. But at the heart of the series there are good games to be had, and theyr'e enjoyed by more than just mindless fragheads. And if you have a legitimate argument against the series and it's players other than simply 'Derp, it's stupid' i'm more than willing to listen"

Trolling? oh yes he is.
However i think this is a good thing, it's easy to enjoy Zero Punctuation because the target is developers, and it's easy to enjoy extra credits because the provide in-depth look into the industry, the problem is neither of them properly adress the in-house culture of the gamers themselves, and the 'inbreeding' that tends to come along when tight enough groups form, Jims trolling is directed at us the players, and i like that idea, it provokes thought, at least for me, even though alot of what he says have been said before (most notably the sexism episode), he does put a spin on it that i quite enjoy.

this guy is just trying too hard to prove hes "Different" .

EDIT - im hoping for a debate between this guy and yahtzee ...

Swifteye:
I'm really digging this guy he's real escapist material I mean look how much he gets under people's skin with his. Everything. Just like Yathzee and moviebob. James will be our nice guy. Movie bob will be the nerd. Yathzee the Cynic. and now Jim our narcissist. They are the archetypes of the escapist. Kneel before them.

Don't know that I'd kneel, but I totally agree with this take. I never really thought Yahtzee was narcissistic and trollish like Jim, just overly critical and cynical.

At any rate, great episode as always. I've never played Call of Duty, but I'm always for appreciating games for what they are and not setting my expectations way outside reality.

Also, seeing the "Truth, Pride, Garme Jurnalizm!" slogan made me happier this week than the previous ones thanks to Fox News attacking the NEA for classifying games as art. I read Kotaku and The Escapist's articles on it and it's hilarious to me how these "journalists" can't hold their indignation in when writing about it. It's always been a pet peeve of mine to see opinions bleed into "news" items. That's what editorial columns are for. When articles like that show up it always serves to remind me that no, blog columnists are NOT journalists.

The reason I dislike Call of Duty isn't because of it's gameplay, story, or even graphics. I dislike CoD because of it's business model. Releasing a short campaign paired with a practically identical multiplayer is down right criminal in my opinion, and I hate how consumers enable Activision by repeatedly purchasing the same game.

Because of the success of CoD, other developers are taking on this mindset of quantity over quality - yearly, subpar releases to bring in large amounts of money. All you have to do is look at Dragon Age 2 and how rushed it was to see an example of this.

Oh, and n00btubers. God I hate those guys...

I don't hate COD or its player-base (well the elitist idiots that jump onto whatever the newest COD is and claim it to be revolutionary kind of annoy me) and I get that you don't like being looked down on for playing it. But come on, you can't expect to be taken seriously with both 'Black Ops' and 'Well paced narrative' in the same sentence. And you seriously can't believe that knowing the pickups in an arena shooter is anything close to the grind-fest that is the weapon system in Call of Duty.
People that expect every game, especially multiplayer centric games like COD to be artsy are about as worth listening to as the people that give COD a bad name. Responding with what looks like a temper tantrum in order to sate your own wounded ego about a video game you play just makes you look childish.

I don't hate the Call Of Duty games that much, I just don't like FPS warfare games where I'm killing people. Stick a space pig, covenant or zombies in the game and I'm happy. I also live in Australia where guns aren't popularised or a huge part or our culture so war games aren't really cared about.

What I do hate about Call Of Duty is the online community. The community target new players for easy kills and don't give them a chance. Ever since I played the first Modern Warfare game online I just despised the player base that permiated the arenas. I play the Halos online and even though I have a low skill level for the most part (since the FPS genre is not my primary genre) I can still have fun because it's a little better balance and I can filter the quote Yahtzee "Hooting Dickhole" from my games and play with fun focused players.

Oh and in case you're wondering my primary genre is the JRPG. The genre almost no one seems to like.

RepeatAfterMe:

Maraveno:

Couch Radish:
Well I can't say that Call of Duty is not a absolutely horrible series (I, myself, adored CoD:MW) but I really don't like where Activision is taking the game.

And my problems with the game are (I'm limiting this to the Multiplayer):

1. The players are too bullet-squishy.

I play Team Fortress 2 and Brink, which is probably where this complaint comes from. In the CoD series, if someone is under another person's crosshairs, they're dead. Nevertheless this happens in real life, but it's important to give players a chance to fight back if they're ambushed.

So in CoD, no one really bothers to venture out in groups, because three bullets to the leg can kill you. So people usually just sit in a corner, waiting for some unlucky sort to pass by.

2. No sense of teamwork.

I never get a feeling of teamwork in CoD games. People always seem to go on their own, because there's no real way of defending your team-mates because of how easily they die (See #1)

3. Everyone looks the same.

There's no real differentiating looks between enemies and allies alike. The classes in TF2 are all easily recognizable, as you're near always able to tell what weapon they have and what team they're on (classic red/blue contrast). I can never see this in CoD games.

4. Health regeneration.

Yep, this little nugget again. Another problem with the lack of team-work is this. Medics on multiplayer games are always important, and games winning or losing can be determined by Medics. People will protect them, making an objective for both teams, helping ensure team-work.

But when you can just sit in a corner, suck your thumb for 4 seconds, and grow both your legs back, this can deter team-work and have people go own their own, not needing anyone's help.

While I'm slightly okay with it in single-player games (begrudgingly so), multiplayer games never work with health regen.

Luckily each issue you named is clear in the battlefield bad company games

So

Ehm

_{guys I don't know what to do now!
you tell 'm to clap
Like this?
yeah...no but nevermind}

There are Medics in BC2
Squads create a heavy sense of teamwork
People look different based on their class and faction
Players don't go down nearly as fast as they do in CoD

I think he was trying to say that Bad Company 2 didn't have any of those problems mentioned.

I understand the spirit of what Jim is saying here, but I have to mention a few points where I disagree.

I have in the past criticized the COD fanbase, even though I myself am apart of it to an extent. When I do attack it, I'm referring exclusively to the little twelve year old turds that spew racist remarks(I know you get them from all ages, but the maturity level is about the same), rather then the whole fanbase. After all, I'd be referring to nearly every gamer out there by this point.

I'd also add, that while I agree with your examples of the moving moments within the games were accurate, they were all from Modern Warfare 1. You know, the good one? Before the story reached James Bond levels of absurdity? Before the multiplayer was infested by the hoard of hate spewing ex-Halo fanboys? Yeah.
See, while the basic COD system is still there, its really lost the spark of originality that made the Post-Modern Warfare games great.
That isn't even getting into Activision's abuse of the games popularity, which Jim mentioned.

The main thing that pisses me off about COD though is not the games fault itself, but rather a problem with the economy and industry as a whole.
My beef is with the follow the leader attitude.
And this ain't just effecting other shooters, oh no. It's it's damaging games of all genres.
See Dragon Age 2's attempt to dumb itself down enough so the hoard of morons that play COD would "get it". Again, let me reiterate that I am not calling all people who play COD morons. Just the people who are already morons and happen to love COD.
The game just makes so much cash that other developers can't argue when marketing teams pull out the statistics and have to compromise themselves. This leads to homogenization, kills originality and creative flare and ultimately destroys what could be a great new culture.

However, having looked at Jim's other articles, reviews and videos, I can tell me and him just don't see eye to eye on gaming as a whole.
He see's it as a means for entertainment exclusively, and mocks the idea of it being anything more.
I'm more on the "Extra Credits" side of the fence.

Wow, for the very first time I agree with Jim. I turned my nose up at CoD for ages for basically the same reasons he outlined, but when I finally gave it a chance it was surprisingly excellent. (Of course, I hadn't invested myself in hating as part and parcel of my online persona either, as I suspect many people have.)

And again, why all the Battlefield rivalry? They're two very different things. When I want to play as a team I play BFBC2, when I want to run and gun I play CoD. The larger maps allow for more intricate tactics, the smaller ones more visceral combat. If you prefer running and gunning or you prefer team play that does not make the other one DURR HURR STUPID.

But that's what the arguments always boil down to. In other words, Jim's right.