UPDATE: As of 9/13/11 this video can be seen at THIS LINK
Ladies and gentlemen, the FIRST "Game OverThinker" installment created fully for the NEW ScrewAttack.com!
http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-A-Tale-of-Two-Games
"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" and "New Super Mario Bros. Wii." The two biggest games of the Holiday 2009 Gaming Season. Side-by-side, point-by-point... and they might have more in common than you think!
37 comments:
Some intresting points there Bob. And yes I'm glad the koopalings are back too :D.
I was a bit miffed that there was no female pressence in NSMBw. If they HAD to capture Peach the could have used Daisy or Toadette. And perhaps the choice at starting or contunieing a file of which of the four players you want. Like I'd could pick Mario or if I feel like it Luigi. Or my kid sister could pick Daisy heavens knows she has an unnatural love for the brunnette princess XD.
But anyway congrats on 30 eps, hope to see many more.
It's like an early Christmas present from the internets.
Quite possibly the best you've ever done Bob. Only you, amidst all this fanboy bickering, console wars, and property superiority could step in and offer so much well-rounded, and proactive insight on games that most of us would otherwise, though unintentionally not really see.
I especially found it to be enlightening with your outlook on Modern Warfare, a game that totally underwhelmed me, and felt like some late conspiracy theorist's wet dream. I was already put off by it from the start since I'm not too fond of shooters but playing it felt too easy, too brief, and too arcadey for a supposedly realistic shooter. And the "No Russian" deal; even if they wanted this to be taken seriously and even in an alternate comic book world where it could, there's no way it could be. It's particularly maddening when in the prelude to that level, you have a gun and you're talking face to face with the bad guy... you could shoot him, but the game kills you if you try. BULL SHIT!!!
I'm rambling. Great episode, and I'll be sure to keep all these fantastic points in mind when and if I'm approached about them
Good valid points as always. I find your overthinking to be right on the money in most cases, or, when it's not perfect, still close enough.
I'm pretty far from MW2's target demographic (a Russian guy, and rather internationally-minded one). And come to think of it...
Does the world as-seen-through-the-eyes-of-masturbating-Glenn-Beck strike anyone as... erm... a bit scary? World War Three may be the ultimate fantasy of some right-wing nutjobs (American and Russian ones - both sides expect to win if it breaks out), but it does not strike me as a "cool thing" in any way, shape or form.
Excuse me Bob, but I have a major bug to pick with you over the contervsy section.
You state very clearly that the game "FORCES YOU TO PLAY THROUGH 'NO RUSSIAN' " - which is frankly FALSE. As soon as you load up the game for the first time (on PC, not sure how it was done on XBox) you are prompted with a box that says, 'There are scenes which some players will find disturbing; do you wish to skip them?'.
So no, you don't HAVE to play through No Russian
bob,
great work, as usual. i haven't had a chance to play through either of these games yet (finances make me a buy-it-when-the-price-drops gamer), it seems to me that your comments are right on the money.
keep up the good work.
Oh, Doug. If you finished his segment on No Russian (which you clearly didn't), you would have heard that he DID mention that and was insulted that that was the only heinous thing in the game that you could skip.
Wow. Right-Winger bashing all up ins. I don't think it is as simple as you put it though. I mean, they rounded it pretty well. It wasn't so much that the Russians and Americans decided to duke it out, as much as it was an American general staging the whole thing Senator Palpatine style in order to force the two sides to go to war. I mean, given the fact that it was an internal American conspiracy at the root of the whole thing, wouldn't that plot it pretty close to 9/11 truther territory? Ask some of your Right-Wing friends how they feel about THAT camp. I'm just saying it takes more than an anti-Glenn Beck circle jerk to claim that this game is some kind of GOP indoctrination ploy.
I also disagree with your reasoning behind WHY people got so stoked about the idea of Modern Warfare taking place during modern times. I can speak for myself and most of my buddies when I say that we are just glad to be playing in a setting that isn't WWII. I mean, how many times have we stormed Omaha beach? We don't need or want Saving Private Ryan Act I v19.0. It's refreshing to do something new. The weapons, vehicles and gadgets are also a lot cooler, and way more interesting.
Regarding the rest of the stuff- The fact is that the appeal of the MW franchise is largely based on its multiplayer game. The single player for the most part is just built in as an afterthought. It isn't really fair to put them side by side and compare based solely on their single player gameplay. The multiplayer game in MW2 is where the focus is. I do understand how one would want to just write off the multiplayer game because of XBL, though. The majority of XBL players that you encounter are the dregs of the gamer community. (Which also makes it OH so much more satisfying when you send that 7.62mm round through their skull.) However, there are workarounds in the privacy settings to automatically mute and ignore everyone you encounter on XBL that isn't on your friends list. That is the saving grace right there.
wow that thing pissed me off. having to kill innocent civilians but if u skip it you miss an important part of the plot. what is that crap. tbh i beat mario bros wii in one sitting with my friends and had a hell of a fun time doing it and i am probally not going to buy either once since i really hate fps games and the other one, even though fun as hell, i didn't feel to much of a replay value in it but then again i didnt do it single player though.
Oh my god, excuse the clich'e, but that was Epic. Sure I can't really agree or disagree to it (I've only played the first four levels of Modern Warfare 2) I can still post my two cents.
Personally... I love guns. Let me get that out of the way... I'm somewhat of a gun nut (among gun nuts probably not,) and... well I never was interested in Call of Duty. Maybe it never caught on to me... I don't know and I'm trying to keep this short, but I do know with the exception of Rainbow Six, I dislike realism. It probably helps explains why I love Borderlands and S4League. They're both shooters, and, well, S4League at least isn't afraid to be gay. It Loves it in fact! As for Borderlands... Gun Nut... Many. Many. Guns. Neither of those games have real world issues either. You shoot entirely one-sided villains in Borderlands that don't exist in todays world, and S4League has no story.
Also, real quick... I think I know why MW2 didn't have any girls in it. Infinity ward may have just found that people wouldn't wanna play as a girl in a game like this. I disagree, it should have been optional at least, and the NPCs could have been girls too. Their only other reason I can think of is the fact that guys (unless I'm wrong and abnormal) don't like seeing girls die, and... this kind'a is a guy's game.
Anyway, hope I kept it short enough without cutting anything major! :D C ya Bob and keep up the good work! Oh, as for Super Mario Brothers Wii... I don't own a Wii... sorry...
Turtle chromosomes do not work that way. Their gender is temperature determinant, not chromosome determinant. So the Mario game wouldn't actually have more X chromosomes.
That's assuming Bowser is some kind of radioactive mutant turtle creature.
This brought to you by a girl who watched your video and made me write this. Maybe that's why they didn't put any girls in Call of Duty.
Excentricat-
y'know, I'm honestly dissapointed in myself for not looking that up and mentioning it.
Honestly, I didn't like this video. First: is MW2 really such a big deal? All I see is a big launch, lots of industry masturbation, paid-off reviews and people either pissed off about the singleplayer being to short or the multiplayer lacking dedicated servers. I don't blame you for giving it a bit of attention, though, since there must be a lot of hardcore watching the video's.
But...
Then there's New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Holy Shit. After EIGHTTEEN YEARS, Nintendo releases a true new Mario game. No port or remake, no handheld game lacking content, no 3D star-finder puzzle game, no, JUST SOME MARIO. We waited for this for many, many years. Hell, you waited way longer for it than I did, since you're twice my age, but put that aside.
Btw, technically this game would be Super Mario Bros. 5, because New Super Mario Bros. DS is a handheld game, which connects it more closely to the Mario Land series than the Bros. series. Yoshi's Island isn't a main-series Mario game at all since it doesn't play like a Mario game(way too much stuff to collect). So that leaves Super Mario World as Bros. 4(the Japanese version was right:P), making this number 5.
What bothered me the most in this video was how critical you were of the characters. Why are the toads so bad? Mario and Luigi are just two plumbers, it isn't like they're more ''original'' or ''interesting'' than two mushroom-headed little people who apparantly are on-par in skills with Mario and Luigi. Maybe they're the same Toad Bros. as those in SuperStar Saga!
And oh boy, the women. NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII IS NOT SEXIST. Come on. Do you care about playing as Samus in a Metroid game? Then why would women care about which sex the character they play is?
You've gotta believe me. Everyone is playing this game, women included. In fact, if I'd have a girlfriend, I'd play this game with her all the time. This game actually made me want a girlfriend more badly! There aren't many games that I can play for hours on end that most girls also like! Last year had Mario Kart Wii, now we have something even better, 2D MARIO! Hell yeah. One of my favorite ''species'' of games, dimention secundi fattus plumbia, in other words: 2D MARIO!
I'm extremely excited.
...That makes it even more embarrassing that I don't even own the game yet :( I'm really short on cash right now. Plus, the game is full-price and will be full price for years to come, judging from other big Nintendo games. And full price isn't just full price in Europe. If I want the game, I'm going to have to pay a whopping $73,78, according to the latest exchange rates, and THAT, is bullshit.
I will get the game eventually though. Maybe by then, I'll have a girlfriend :P
I DID fully agree with you on the part where you said that you would've liked the game more if it were true 2D, including badass 16-bit artwork. THAT, would've been awesome.
Well, this post has become a bit long, I'm afraid :P
Keep up the good work! You're doing great being a neutral person on this console war-ridden internet. An old-school gamer, who's still up to the latest trends, stating his opinion on everyday (gaming) subjects with a good sense of humor. I like that.
Hey Game Overthinker (G.O.?) I was originally linked to you via a Something Awful thread about the Zelda series, and I fell in love. Well, okay, I fell into enjoyment of your videos. Let's not get crazy here. Congratulations on your apparently recent success via Screwattack!
Anyway, I think you raise a good point about New Super Mario Bros. being solely based on nostalgia (I have no interest in military FPS and have never played a Call of Duty so I can't comment), and it totally reminds me of the whole Megaman 9 thing which, while cute, was such an obvious pandering to nostalgia that its a little embarrassing.
Its like how in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back that guy from Mallrats came out and said his catchphrase from Mallrats. Its the principle of referencing something but not providing any additional content, and we're expected to laugh because, hey, we watched Mallrats! Its also the sole foundation the Epic Movie/Date Movie/etc franchise is founded on, and the fact that I just somehow connected the Mario Bros. to Epic Movie is a little sickening.
Of course, its not that cut and dry, since preying on gameplay nostalgia is a little different than preying on humour nostalgia, but its still a bad direction to be moving in (backwards).
Err....I'm sure this was just oversight on your part, but the difference between 2.5 and 3 isn't "one fifth", it's one half, or .5
One fifth would be .2
Nice review and I agree with most of your points.
One thing I didn't agree was the thing about the one-dimensional villains. You're right on it but I expected a bit of analisys, the villains on CoD games are just certainly boring and flat. Bowser is still a interesting character even if he's still doing the same thing he started doing in '85, he's timeless, but who the hell will remember who's "insert-here-the-name-of-the-villain-of-MW2-which-I-already-forgot" in one year?, it's a disposable character.
I'll be honest on CODMW2, I've already played it on my pc, pirated. ¿Why pirated?, well, because I bought the first MW original one year ago and it really, really disapointed me, I paid $170.000 pesos (I'm from Colombia, it should be around USD $85 dollars which is a theft for a game that lasted me a bit more than six hours), thinking "ok, if it's good enough, I'll pay the full theft price". But guess what?, SAME BULLSHIT.
Let's face it, both CODMW 1 & 2 are multiplayer games with a six hour tutorial mode disguised of a history mode with absolutely no replay value. I don't give a damn about playing online multiplayer matches with 13 year old kids that keep saying "I POWNED YOU NOOB" and disconect when they aren't winning. Replay value of the history mode can't be a secondary thing on a game that costed around USD $200 million dollars (that's an insane amount of money), it escentially offers the same of the first MW with a couple of aditions, I'm still expecting they justify that amount of money.
Let's face it, MW2 is a game that was incredibly well marketed to create hype, contrary case with NSBWii, the later one will reach (and maybe outsell) MW2 in a couple of months for sure, without investing a lot in marketing nor paying for good reviews (on the line of recent scandals among gamers..).
I also liked you gently expressed my point of view about military games and how they can be related to recruitment, you know, since 9/11 war games have just boomed.
I loved it! It reminds me of why I like your stuff. I can relate to your opinions more easily than any other internet personality.
I wish you an Happy Holy day Bob.
and """" I cant w8 to get my hands on New SuperMario wii (Yeah I bogth an Wii just for Super Smash:P and Marioparty whitch was a huge let down TT_TT)
Keep it upp;D
I loved it Bob! Thanks so much for such a great video!
I will say the lack of women in MW2 does make sense, at least a little. I'm both female and an Army soldier, and I can tell you for certain that there are no women in Special Ops, nor in Ranger battalions--we aren't even allowed to attempt to get into Ranger school, let alone special ops. That's a problem with the military system (and our society), not MW2.
That said, it is kind of sad to me that they showed an INVASION ON US SOIL and not ONE female soldier responding to it. Yes, they were following a unit in which there would be no women, but still, it makes me sad. I don't even get insulted by this kind of thing anymore, I'm just so damn used to it. Which probably answers your question as to why game creators still do this kind of thing--they know us female gamers will buy good games regardless.
It still irks me that you don't even SEE one female soldier fighting back during a battle IN THE UNITED STATES though. Sigh. :-(
soldierhawk -
First and foremost, thank you for serving.
As to the game... look, I'm not necessarily saying they should just go plugging female characters in just to have them, it's just an element that I noticed. Though I'd hasten to add, since Task Force 141 is (I'm fairly certain) entirely made up for the game, it might not have killed them to try a few in there...
The problem with Infinity Ward is that they are essentially a combination of developers who a) love shiny action films and b) want to convey a strong message with their games. The original Call of Duty is far more serious in tone and even with its military bravado seems to be a lot more respectful towards its subject matter. Modern Warfare 2 on the other hand tries to straddle the line of having to appeal to every single testosterone cauldron on the American continent, while still allowing the possibility for some thought in there.
Predictably, they fuck it up. Painstaking authenticity in military hardware? Check. Total disregard for the laws of physics? Check. Disturbing portrayals of violence and preying on political fears? Sure. James Bond snowmobile and boat chases? Yeah, there's those too. It's like putting a McDonald's inside the Louvre, or interrupting a kids' TV show for snuff porn. The contrast between tones is absolutely stunning, and pathetically poorly thought out. Managing mass market expectations and artistry can be hard, but they could have approached it with far more intelligence.
Oh, and if you think Modern Warfare 2 is the ultimate example of the shooter... think again. Go play Half-Life 2 and its expansions, as well as games like BioShock and Far Cry 2 if you want something with some sort of political message, engaging story, tactful handling of the subject matter, and interesting characters. They won't insult your intelligence in the process, either. The major difference, of course? BioShock and Far Cry 2 sold about 2-3 million copies each, while Half-Life is the Zelda of PC shooters. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has sold about twenty billion so far. I think that at least in part, it's pretty obvious what people want, and it does not make my faith in the human species any stronger.
I seriously believe that the lack of women on MW2 is a matter of "we can't make boobs look good on an uniform", not a thing about realism nor statistics about recruitment. Videogames usually objectify women in one way or another, the latest tendency is to make them "bounce" with the six axis controller. I will make it clear though that I respect women a lot, afterall they are waaaaaaaaaay important in everyone's lifes in infinite ways, but sadly that's the way the industry started to take since the early 90's, surelly there are games that have given female characters the weight they diserve, but generally women in videogames recieve the "hotness treatment", specially during the latest years.
Now I remember that in the first MW there was actually a women and guess what, she protrayed escentially the "damsel in distress" cliche, but her castle was a crashed helicopter. She was the only one I remember too far on the game.
Javier Ortiz: That's right, she's the only female in the entire game, although she does have a pretty important role. Most games seem to do that in fact: relatively passive female characters who are nevertheless useful, often in non-combat utility roles.
Here's a few more similar games: in Gears of War, the only female is your (very attractive) mission operator person, who is seen for about 4 seconds at the beginning of the game and never again. In Halo, you have Cortana, who is quite essential to the storyline, but still basically a blue naked chick who plays a passive role. Looking down my games list on my shelf... aside from RPGs like Dragon Age and Fallout, the only game with a major, active female character is Half-Life 2... and it does the job excellently. All the others, from Dawn of War II to BioShock to Grand Theft Auto IV, have pretty much nothing. We really have made terrible progress lately.
I wonder if part of it is the whole "romantic tension" thing, which is expected if you have two opposite-gendered characters physically close to each other. It's hard to do, but it's also assumed that most players are male... and doing a romance from the male perspective is more agreeable for men, not to mention probably easier to do. I'd like to see a game where you play as a female and have a male romantic interest whose relationship with you blossoms over the course of the story. It'd be wonderful just to see how bumbling and silly guys actually are in those sorts of situations.
Oh I totally hear you Bob, and I actually agree with what you said. My comment was a little stream-of-consciousness-unfocused I guess heh, sorry about that.
I mean to actually express my agreement for wanting some female characters in (both) types of games, actually; I was simply expressing my semi-resignation and understanding as to why that hasn't (and probably won't, in the foreseeable future) happen.
Until then, I'll just stick to futuristic shooters where the military consists of gender-integrated Space Soldiers. At least in Mass Effect a female Commander Shepard could run the ship and be the equal of her male counterparts! I DO hope that is the genuine way of the future, both in gaming and real life.
¿Want a lesson about how you can make the women's part better?, go and see both Terminator and T2. Sarah Connor's character development is just right, a pretty weak woman in danger dressed in a pink waitress that gains strenght in order to teach his son how to fight. There you've got a master lesson if you ask me.
I mostly agree, except for when you claim new super mario bros. (wii) does not have intuitive controlls.
It uses a control pad and two extra buttons. (I guess the wii remote "wiggle" should also be included, however.) What more could you possibly want for simplistic controls?
Sure, you don't know EVERYTHING about how to master these controls, but that's the point. Something easy to pick up and learn but takes a little bit of practice and skill to master. We don't need an instruction manual to tell us how to play; but once you jump on a spiny, you know never to do that again.
I'm just saying, if you are not happy with the super mario control scheme I think you have just set a standard impossible to achieve.
What has the international space station done for me lately?
also I agree with you on the dogs, they were the only enemies in MGS3: Snake Eater I used tranqs on.
as a fairly liberal individual who laughed heartily at the "Masturbating Glenn Beck" crack, i have to back Phil up on his second paragraph. between the Call of Duty, Brothers in Arms, and Medal of Honor franchises alone we've had at least a dozen separate WWII shooters of varying realism, a good half of which helped render Omaha beach as ubiquitous to the genre as the Battle of Hoth was to Star Wars games. and by that point Infinity Ward and Treyarch were swiftly running out of major WWII allied battles to render, having gone through Canadian, British, and Russian fronts. setting aside the rather blatant leap to Flemming/Clancy land with MW2, the creation of the MW off-shoot in general has less to do with "wanting more brown people to kill(and are you seriously arguing that brown people are more fun to shoot than fucking Nazis?), than just having a change of setting as WWII was starting to wear thin, and where else were they going to go?
any war post-WWII's not going to have the moral certitude that allows escapism, and the best you can do prior to it is WWI, because everyone wants to know what it feels like to dodge mustard gas canisters. going to Clancyville was really the only legitimate narrative choice available outside of WWII.
do you want to know what the Matrix is Nathan?
I just thought I'd say how good these videos are. Also, I'm going to give a shout-out to Daniel Floyd (Talking About These), who linked me here.
If you put this statement on a t-shirt, I will buy it:
"HONESTLY... If I wasn't already a gamer, 30 SECONDS listening to how people "converse" during online-multiplayer FPS games would be all it'd take to make me NOT become one."
No, seriously this has to be a t-shirt. If you don't make it, I'll have to at least create one for myself lol.(seriously, consider it)
I say, screw new video games! Why do you need realistic games or fancy 3D that's not quite 3D graphics? All I need is my Atari 2600!
Of course, I'm joking. But still, I like stuff that had it's controversy sorted out 10+ years ago. It's a stress reliever.
Speaking of Mario nostalgia, I'm assuming you've seen the video here: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1926862
Sadly though, I think strong female game presences are going to be a rarity for a while. Going over my collection and looking for the games with women as the actual lead protagonist, all I can see are Metroid, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy 6 (which has 2 female leads, technically) and X-2 (Yes, I played it for the dresses) and at times Indigo Prophecy.
Oh wait, Bayonetta was just released, wasn't it? Anyway, Female main player character roles are something that the industry has been ready for, but reluctant to push given the audience they sell to is still primarily (straight, white) male.
Sorry bob, as much as I love you I have to call you up on this one, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 should not be called call of duty 6: modern warfare 2, that would be like calling GTA vice city GTA IV, (except call of duty 6 isn't out yet.)
I'm still expecting your next vid XD, I'm really hoping you help making it clear that the fking decade isn't over yet, just to prove all the countdowns and tops a lot of people did last december are pointless XD.
The only reason I ever liked the first Call of Duty game was because it was completely different than Medal of Honour. Medal of Honour was basically you and... you against the entire Wehrmacht and you know what? I'm tired of that, not to mention that it doesn't suit who you're portraying, you're portraying a soldier, someone who works in a group and never goes alone to do something unless it's the only economical way to do it or your superiors hate you and want you to die. This was on top of the fact that you could carry any number of weapons you found, you could carry a Sten, an MP40, a BAR, a Lee Enfield, a P-38, a Thompson and your trusty old .45 1911 Colt just to name a few. I'm sorry, but no human can carry that much and it still be useful, there's a reason why in the armed forces you have a pistol and a rifle, that's all you can actually carry and for you to remain useful (that and because of different ammunition types why the fuck would you pick up another rifle that's chambered in 7.62 NATO rounds when all you're carrying is 5.56 NATO rounds, it's a waste of time) there is no reason to have anything else.
Any ways, so to get to the point, I never liked Medal of Honour since it made WWII seem like it was fought by one guy who just would not die, no matter how many times you shot him. However, then the first Call of Duty came out and not only was it a dramatic shift from Medal of Honour (I played Frontline, so it was the one where you stormed Omaha Beach like you were fucking Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan) because you started in the middle of Stalingrad crossing the river and having your fanatic commissar captain tell you that "Mother Russia depends on you to fight and win" and shoot men who chicken out and leap out of the boat, but also because you actually felt like you were part of a team instead of doing things all by yourself. Ok I know that the Russia segment was basically just one long tutorial for you to figure out how the game worked but it certainly immersed you in the atmosphere didn't it? You didn't even have a rifle in the first part of that mission because you were the ammo person in the line up, you HAD to depend on the NPCs if you wanted to live.
Of course the next reason why the first Call of Duty was so awesome came in the form of the end of the first Russia mission because your sergeant sacrifices himself to save you from a sniper, then a female sniper shows up and takes out the German guy... guess who you play as in the next mission, oh yeah, that was fun.
However, these days Call of Duty doesn't feel as authentic as it did, sure you still only have a set number of weapons and we're trying to stay real here, but I just don't feel the comradery that I felt when playing the first one, that and fuck realism, if it was awesome playing as a female sniper in WWII, it would be awesome playing as a female sniper in Iraqistan, which is why I prefer MMO games because you can choose whether your avatar is male or female and if you're a gun nut, usually the weaponry is more than happy to oblige to your wish fulfillment
Super Mario Bros. 3 is near perfection. It has two flaws however. First, when you're falling a great distance, you can't see below, even if you're gliding down slowly. Second, the overwhelming majority of hidden things in the game are coins. Other than that there is literally no flaw whatsoever.
Also, who cares about villain depth? People get miffed at quicktime events because it takes them out of the story of the cutscene, but if you ask me, they shouldn't be getting into any stories at all. They should be getting into a game, which is a totally incompatible experience (my term for this kind of experience is "virtual quest"). So unless the game warrants it somehow, a three dimensional villain would be two dimensions too many.
I've officially been spending too much time on the internet. I just discovered Game Overthinker after watching The Big Picture and Escape to the Movies for about a year. I have some questions for Bob that don't relate to any particular video lesson. Is there any Bob Forum or private message system?
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