Jeff Deliverer of Mail
Money for nothin, chicks for free
-----Mailbag Thoughts------
CALL of DUTY - WW2
I purchased COD WW2 a couple of weeks ago for the Xbox One. I was expecting a throw back to the original Call of Duty (PC), my expectations were pretty high considering COD for the PC is one of my favorite games of all time. I was pretty disappointed in this game at first. There seems to be a muffled layer of laziness in the graphics department for some reason. This doesn't really feel like a next gen game, that was my initial reaction to it. I'm a pretty big fan of the franchise and I usually get the games for the multiplayer part of them.
I played the Campaign to start out and that's where my problems started. The game starts you out on D-Day, the hectic beach battle that was done BETTER on Metal of Honor- Frontline-. You can't really compare the graphics 15 years ago to COD WW2's but the experience playing that for the first time back in the day was pretty mind blowing. I was expecting that times 5 here, so much potential for an awesome D-Day scene wasted. It was almost boring to be honest! How do you make D-Day boring?
That ruined me for the Campaign, it was just wave after wave of uninspired battle after uninspired battle. I didn't bother continuing so I switched to the meat of the game..multiplayer.
Multiplayer was pretty fun. It still had that muddled, less graphical feel to it for whatever reason but I soon got used to it. Then I realized something after goofing around in team deathmatch....there's only 9 fucking maps.
9
What the fuck? To be honest, after playing for awhile you really start to realize that these maps are really good, but only 9 of them sucks the big one. I REALLY hope they come out with some free fucking map DLC's to apologize to the fans for fucking us over with 9 maps. Anyway, the multiplayer has enough games to keep you busy - Team deathmatch - War- Domination- Search and Destroy - Kill Confirmed - Gridiron- Free for all - Hardpoint - Capture the flag-
All pretty decent modes except Capture the Flag. I joined a round of capture the flag to see one team with players having 56 to 70 kills and the team I joined with 2/25 like ratios then I thought uh oh. Yep, big respawn problem in CTF allows a skilled team to camp your respawn and gut you like pigs for as long as they like, it was pretty dumb. How stuff like this gets overlooked really baffles me.
Gridiron is a pretty fun mode, where teams have their own goal and a ball spawns in the middle of the map. You have to grab the ball and throw it in the enemy goal. Kind of like CTF in a way but more fun.
My preferred mode is Search and Destroy.
Character builds and unlockables are done well in this game. I like the different classes and perks that come with the different divisions (Leveling up also adds extended perks to the divisions as well) They've decided to give dropboxes again for whatever reason for unlockables but its not really a big deal, I could care less if I get a dropbox.
Another little addition to Call of Duty is headquarters and firing range. Press the start button launches your character to the headquarters where there's dozens of other players just farting around, opening drop boxes, going to the firing range, opening mail for coins, checking out kill streak usage, getting in one on one fights, ect, ect,ect. I kind of like it, its charming in a way and I find myself going in there alot to use the firing range and goof around.
Weapons:
I love World War 2 weapons, that's one of the reasons why I loved Call of Duty PC so much. The weapons done here in Call of Duty WW2 are excellent. Once you get used to using all of the weapons, they each have a unique feel, sound and kick to them. My preferred World War 2 weapon has always been the M1 Garand. It's done well here...and even improved. Now you can have an M1 Garand with 11 different unlockable attachments, 15 unlockable camouflage and even more stuff after you get prestige. The weapons in this game are done so awesomely, the sound and spray are the best I've seen in a WW2 type game.
Here's a few things I wish they would have done with this game.
(1) More Maps: This is the big one here for me, the maps they do give you are wonderful, gorgeous in design really....but not enough of them. None of the maps are destructible either. We're in an age of next gen gaming, these maps should be interchangeable with destruction, there's no excuse not to give us maps that Battlefield does or Rainbow Six Siege. Give us some more beautifully redone Call of Duty PC maps like Carentan (That's now behind a DLC paywall sadly enough). Give us revamped Brecourt, Dawnville, Chateau, Ship, Harbor, Rocket, Tigertown...ect ect ect. They don't even have to be revamped that much, just give us more maps. A lot of these old COD maps would work great here for CODWW2, most of them are tactically great. Give players a bigger community option! Have a big, option heavy map creator that players can create their own maps and display them in cheap rental servers. COD 1 had so many excellent MOD maps that after a couple of years on the market, I was playing the game on a 35-50 map rotation and a lot of the MOD maps were as good as the regular maps or better. Its really sad that they won't come out with a 5 to 10 map DLC download for this game without slapping another 70 dollar price tag on it. Fuck that noise.
(2) Stop pandering to the *****es. This might sound cruel but I'm sick of seeing potential wasted on something as gruesome as WW2 get watered down because a bunch of 5 year olds play it. Ya, they still have blood splash everywhere but it's super lazy, its just a little spray and suddenly the character model has blood splashes on the parts he got shot and down he goes like a rag doll, even after eating a shot from a fucking mortar round. Shake my head. Go and watch game play from Soldier of Fortune 2 PC (Another game that did it better 15 years ago). If I snipe somebody with a Lee Enfield right in the face when they pop out of a bush in front of me I expect for that son of a bitch to not have a head anymore, not have a blood splatter job on his face and fall like a rag doll. I want a close range shotgun blast to rip a soldiers arm right off, then he can flip sideways like a rag doll and die if he wants. I want a grenade to rip a player in half and send his burning torso flying over my head while I laugh like a crazed maniac. I want a shovel to get stuck in a players neck and you have trouble digging it out while the head is nearly falling off, its World War 2 folks, it shouldn't be pretty!
(3) Split Screen Campaign, fix the Campaign: Like I mentioned earlier, I was really, really damn bored of the Campaign after awhile. Split screen might have helped with that, I always found campaigns twice as fun with a pal in the room helping me with it. But alas, split screen gaming is heading out the door and becoming extinct in today's gaming world. Also, with the split screen added, give us more of a challenge for crying out loud. The campaign feels (for the most part) to trudge forward, fight a wall of enemies, trudge forward again to activate the next cut scene, fight a wall of enemies, repeat, repeat, repeat...BORING! Have a rescue mission or something in there. I remember a split screen game on the PS1 ( or PS2, can't remember) called Desert Storm, simple enough game split screen, fun as hell to try and get through the levels with a friend. The first level had one player play the prisoner and he had to sit there and wait 20 plus minutes while my guy came and freed him from prison, it was hilarious. Call of Duty could do stuff like this EASILY now-a-days! It's called -fun- COD! Look it up!
(4) Auto commands: Not everyone plays with the mic turned on. I hardly ever do anymore, there's just way too many assholes and bullies that play the game now that I can't be bothered to listen to juveniles telling each other how much they'll suck this or that or bed someone's mother. Ugh. Give us a collection of auto commands or even a text bar to communicate by text like the old days. Yes, no, sniper, attack left/right, flank L/R, get down, grenade, ect ect ect...another super easy thing to do. I do like the auto call outs when a character sees the enemy though.
All in all, it takes quite awhile for this game to grow on you. But it has even with the problems mentioned above. I like it more now that I've unlocked some weapons to use in Search and Destroy. Playing a lot of Domination will level you up the fastest.
Solid game, but could have been SO much better.
