ET! Throwback: Unpacking Call of Duty and the Pursuit of Authenticity

Prepare to be whisked back to the heyday of Verdansk and join us as we break down the seismic shifts in Warzone, where the latest Godzilla vs Kong event has us wondering if we're still on the battlefield or at a monster movie premiere. Amidst the weapon meta's evolution and the potential resurgence of Verdansk (rumored to be a mobile exclusive), we dissect the frustrations and nostalgia that come with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. From the desire for a remastered multiplayer experience to the contentious skill-based matchmaking, we're shredding the current state of gaming and calling for a return to the camaraderie of old-school multiplayer games where friendships were forged in the fire of digital combat.

Ever felt like today's shooter games are lacking a dose of reality? We're right there with you. We passionately critique the current state of first-person shooters, demanding more realistic physics and balanced player agility. Strategy is king in our book, and we're making a case for incorporating real-life tactics that could transform gameplay into an art form. As we tear apart the overuse of sprint and slide cancel, we champion for mechanics that reward skill over speed, and realism over regenerating health bars.

Exciting news interrupts our heated discussions – Joey Thurmond has the scoop on an upcoming event that could score you a Captain America shield. Yes, you read that right, a shield with all the vibranium glory you can handle (and by vibranium, we mean metal and leather straps). So, gear up for an episode packed with laughs, debates, and the kind of good-natured ribbing you'd expect from a team who lives and breathes gaming. Join us, Mitch, Joey, Tom, and myself, as we explore the landscape of Call of Duty, throw down on game mechanics, and maybe, just maybe, get you that shield.

Transcript

Speaker 3 0:15

Hello and welcome to an Entertainment this Podcast special where we talk about Wow, this song's not ending.

Speaker 1 0:21

Is it gonna end? It's still going.

Speaker 2 0:22

We have to play the full chorus Exactly.

Speaker 1 0:25

Hello and welcome to an Entertain, this Podcast special where we talk about things and stuff. I'm Tom.

Speaker 3 0:33

And I'm Hayden, I'm Mitch and Tom's running this, so you can guess what we're talking about. We're talking about Warzone.

Speaker 1 0:40

Of course we are, just because there's been a bit of updates that are worth discussing.

Speaker 2 0:45

That's debatable?

Speaker 1 0:46

Yeah, it is debatable. So obviously they've leaked the artwork for the new season Godzilla vs Kong event.

Speaker 3 0:52

Operation Monarch. They leaked it. They probably, like you know, secretly released this stuff. People are going to get so excited about it, I'm not going to lie.

Speaker 1 1:01

What are they doing Like?

Speaker 2 1:04

what is?

Speaker 1 1:04

this. This is a game. This is a shooter game. Yeah, that used to be based in realism. You know what? You're going to shoot the crap out of Godzilla Bullets. Don't do anything to Godzilla. If anybody learned that from the movies, you're just going to make him mad. He's going to do the pop at you and just incinerate the map.

Speaker 2 1:19

I think they're just trying to to make it a more adult version of Fortnite with just all this random crap thrown in.

Speaker 1 1:25

It really seems like it, instead of cartoony, crap, yeah, which they kind of started doing yeah Because you can be Attack on Titan. Yeah, they did do.

Speaker 3 1:33

Attack on Titan. But you can't like tether up kaiju and stuff can you?

Speaker 2 1:38

No, but you can have a whole suit where you look like one of the kaiju looking things of the kaiju looking things, the killers yeah.

Speaker 1 1:43

I want, like the little kid, godzilla costume, that's what I want to run around Godzuki, godzuki. Where he like blows the smoke rings until Godzilla steps on it, Like you don't see Godzilla, you just see his foot and he just steps on his tail.

Speaker 3 1:54

He's like and I cut up to his eyes and he's just like rolls his eyes like these kids.

Speaker 1 2:01

I would wear that suit, yeah.

Speaker 2 2:03

Or if it was one of those inflatable T-Rex things.

Speaker 1 2:05

I think that's what they should add. That actually would be pretty fun Just watching a bunch of T-Rexes with their rolling heads, like that's what they should do if you're listening Infinity Ward or Treyarch or whoever's running that.

Speaker 3 2:19

I don't know that mess. Billions of companies.

Speaker 2 2:23

It's like the Titanic and they're just trying to tread water to lift the boat back up.

Speaker 1 2:28

It's because they crapped the bed with Caldera. Verdansk was what? Two years?

Speaker 2 2:33

Yeah, they had two years to make another map and screwed it royally.

Speaker 3 2:38

I mean, it was a good game, I'm not going to lie. It got a little old after a while, but instead of I don't know, I guess they reinvented the wheel. They just kind of made it square.

Speaker 1 2:51

No more wheel.

Speaker 2 2:52

They devolved, yeah, they devolved.

Speaker 1 2:55

If Verdansk comes out, we played the crap out of it. I mean combined we probably have like 10,000 games.

Speaker 2 3:01

Well, it was a good map. It was well-diverse. You weren't just running through open area all the time.

Speaker 1 3:08

Yeah, it was a very good map. And then the pinnacle of Warzone, the zombies, the zombie event. The first time the first one, the first Halloween event.

Speaker 3 3:15

With the jump scare crates. It was good that it was temporary, because I was ready for it to go and it went.

Speaker 2 3:21

It would have been cool if they'd have left the night mode, like where you're playing at night. That's just a difference.

Speaker 3 3:27

I thought they should have just had a night mode in general, where you have to get like nods and flashlights and stuff like that, and just a completely different play style.

Speaker 2 3:38

And I've been waiting for a game to do that. You can equip flashlights away. Your position Right.

Speaker 3 3:41

Yeah, you know, but instead they're just like no, we're going to tweak the stats for this. You know, yeah, the bison gets 70% whatever.

Speaker 1 3:50

Yeah, they buffed that 70% in damage. So, I just watched a video of Z-Lander playing with it and he dropped 41 kills in Rebirth.

Speaker 2 3:57

So, in other words, just everyone's using that gun now.

Speaker 1 4:00

Yes, everybody got tired of everybody using the Milana.

Speaker 3 4:02

There's always one meta.

Speaker 2 4:05

They put a bunch of guns out, versions of that that you can buy and then give it a week and it'll be crap again, I think in the three years that Warzone and the new Call of Duty stuff have been out, shotguns were like okay, for like two weeks.

Speaker 3 4:19

Well the.

Speaker 1 4:19

JAK-12 was awesome because they dropped that right before the zombie event the first one Right and we leveled those up because there was one where we fought off prison and that's what we had as our secondaries. We all had Jack-12s with drum mags and we landed by the rocks and the zombies are just trying to kill us, while there's like one other player left that we couldn't find.

Speaker 2 4:38

And the next zombie mode. They made sure that you didn't have that.

Speaker 3 4:40

No more Yep now shotguns are terrible and they've always been basically terrible, except for that one awesome window.

Speaker 2 4:46

For the most part you've got to be within like four feet to kill somebody with one.

Speaker 3 4:50

Yep, yep. And you know it's not like a regular shotgun where you would think a spread would do reasonable damage. It's like every single pellet has to hit a person for like a third of damage. Yeah, so stupid shotguns, and for like a third of damage.

Speaker 1 5:05

Yeah so stupid shock, very dumb. But also in a bit of news they announced they're bringing back Verdansk.

Speaker 3 5:09

Yeah, they said for a platform. Yeah.

Speaker 2 5:13

It'll be Steam only.

Speaker 1 5:14

Like the mobile game.

Speaker 3 5:15

That's what people are assuming. They're thinking they're going to try and bolster their mobile players.

Speaker 2 5:21

No, matter what they do.

Speaker 1 5:22

I will never play the, I just I'm not a phone game kind of I play pub g mobile. Why would you?

Speaker 3 5:25

play a game on console where you have all the peripherals, all the 4k big screen, you know in intensity in the fun, and downgrade to your phone yeah, you know it. Just it's a that's so dumb. Maybe I'm old, I don't know, but I don't. We're angry gamers now at this point.

Speaker 2 5:45

I'll be honest. If I played something on my phone, I could play it for maybe 30 minutes and my phone's going to die.

Speaker 3 5:49

Right.

Speaker 2 5:50

Yeah, all that streaming the game.

Speaker 1 5:52

The last game I played on my phone. A lot was Among Us because that was only on the phone.

Speaker 3 5:56

Yeah, plus, I hate doing crap on my phone for too long because I just start getting messages and crap coming through and I'm just like distracted. I get on their work email. Oh yeah, I want to put my. When I play video games, I throw my phone away and then I don't have to think about it anymore.

Speaker 1 6:14

So it's great until your Internet crashes and we go what happened? Hey, then we get a message yeah. It takes me like 10 minutes to find my phone because you chucked it or your cat stole it or something, but I think them bringing back Verdansk is something that's a day late and a dollar short.

Speaker 2 6:30

Yeah, they should have never gotten rid of it. They should have just spent it on another map. I mean as much as we've downloaded in gigabytes for this game, it should be able to contain it.

Speaker 3 6:42

What would it take to save Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

Speaker 1 6:46

Okay, so the same game that's already come out. No, it hasn't come out yet. This is the new continuity of Modern Warfare.

Speaker 2 6:53

It's about the next game.

Speaker 3 6:55

The next one.

Speaker 1 6:55

It should be Modern Warfare 2 from what they've been saying.

Speaker 3 6:58

Okay, what would be changes to that game that would make it good?

Speaker 2 7:02

I think Warzone needs to go to the PUBG and Fortnite style, where everyone is on equal footing. Everyone picks up a gun and they have to pick up the attachments, or a gun that has those attachments. You can't just oh, I'm going to bring in my gun that I've leveled up to max level with all these different attachments.

Speaker 3 7:17

They'll never do that.

Speaker 2 7:19

I understand they won't.

Speaker 1 7:20

But that was a plus to Verdansk, whereas you could pick up ground, loot guns and, yeah, you could fight people or, if you've been playing the game, you can have your own stuff that you've been using.

Speaker 3 7:30

Yeah, and that was their shtick to get you to buy the game to play their battle passes and level up their guns and all that crap.

Speaker 1 7:34

In the early days that was a lot of. You had to play multiplayer level stuff up. Figure out what attachments you liked for the bigger map.

Speaker 2 7:41

But that's why I like PUBG and that stuff a little bit better now, because all that stuff is equal. Though you find your attachments or you don't, but the guns you don't have to tweak them all the time. This is what they are. Everybody has that same access to the same stuff.

Speaker 3 7:55

Yeah, purely skill-based.

Speaker 1 7:58

Yeah, but the other thing they should do is remaster old Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer, what I think they should do is remaster old Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer. I mean you could do a new story or whatever, but I want those maps with those same guns. Don't touch them, because they were all overpowered to the point. It was almost ridiculous, In fact. It was. Release that as a multiplayer and then do a new map for Warzone and don't integrate anything into it.

Speaker 3 8:27

I don't know.

Speaker 1 8:28

Because that's where it started going off the rails when they integrated Cold War and all those guns were broken.

Speaker 3 8:33

Well, I think the game's just got such a bad taste in my mouth right now that they're going to have to figure out a way to redo the entirety of the game.

Speaker 3 8:40

You know, like they have to figure out. The gunplay is fine, whatever. It's not my favorite shooter, you know, because everything is a lot to you know. Yeah, it's mostly skill, but every once in a while your sniper bullet just will not go where you put it, you know, and things like that. But besides that, I think that 90% of the issue is that there's nothing new to the mechanics of the game, the looting and stuff like that and what you do. It's just so exhausting, like you drop into a map, you get all your crap and then 30 seconds later it doesn't matter anyways because you're dead.

Speaker 3 9:22

Well, you were yeah but you know, I don't know. They have to find a way to like make it If they change, like, the player count. If they upped it to like I don't know 300 players in a map, they made the map ginormous and they had a whole different kind of like I don't know made vehicles a bigger deal or something like that. They just I think that would be something.

Speaker 2 9:48

That's just me. One thing that I've always thought, which other people have said too they need a ranked and a casual. That way, all the people that want to play that ranked and like all the streamers and stuff, all the sweaty dudes, yeah, let them play that and let us that want to just play the game and have a little fun for a little while. Play casual Right.

Speaker 1 10:03

Where we're not having to worry about all the people like fly. And they should get rid of skill-based matchmaking.

Speaker 2 10:10

Yes.

Speaker 1 10:10

They'll never do that too, because that's their what are you talking about.

Speaker 2 10:13

They don't do that.

Speaker 3 10:14

They do that yeah.

Speaker 1 10:16

There's a website that proved it. They made them take it down and they sued them to make them get rid of it.

Speaker 3 10:23

That's their shtick for like. Faster networking is skill-based matchmaking. It's an algorithm that makes them design lobbies a lot faster, which is annoying.

Speaker 1 10:35

But the old lobbies used to not have that like back in multiplayer days.

Speaker 2 10:38

Yeah, just put you in a lobby. First come, first serve.

Speaker 1 10:40

Yeah, you ended up in a server with the 12 people you were going to be with. Some of them might have been really good. They all might have sucked.

Speaker 3 10:48

You just found that out when it was 12 people you know, when you have 150 people, you know there's no way that they can just.

Speaker 2 10:54

But like their early war zone, when they had the numbers, like you know, a million people playing, they could easily have done that because you've got enough.

Speaker 3 11:02

Yes, but for today no. They have to have some sort of computer software that finds a reason to put you in wherever you're going.

Speaker 1 11:11

It's like oh, your KD is this you average X amount of kills per game. You're going to play against these people who are roughly on the same footing, which doesn't seem like it, because we'd end up in that lobby and get schwacked.

Speaker 3 11:21

No, no, so I don't know, man, I got nothing. I think Call of Duty comes in phases for me Like I peaked at Modern Warfare 2 back in the day and then years and years went by and I played like. I think I played Ghosts once. I liked. Ghosts, I liked Ghosts. And then years and years went by, and then the Modern Warfare reboot Is that what that was? Yeah, yeah. And then Warzone. And then after Cold War, which was I?

Speaker 3 11:54

uh, I just kind of gave up I didn't buy vanguard, yeah I played vanguard and I regret getting it yeah, you'll probably buy the next one too, whatever it is, if it's modern warfare 2 I might so I mean I'm glad they stopped with the in space crap like infinite warfare, like advanced warfare, and they put a lot of money in black ops 3 and 4.

Speaker 1 12:08

They had they had kit harrington they. I'm glad they stopped with the in-space crap like Infinite Warfare, like Advanced Warfare man. They put a lot of money in that game Black Ops 3 and 4.

Speaker 3 12:15

They had Kit Harington it sucked they had Kevin Spacey.

Speaker 1 12:19

It's because nobody wanted to play that crap. The pinnacle of Call of Duty was a World War II game. Right, for the first four or three it was like Call of Duty 1, 2, 3, call of Duty 2, big Red 1. I think there was another one.

Speaker 2 12:33

Well, they had Modern Warfare all the way through Ghost and they had made so much money that when they started making Advanced Warfare with these special Kevin Spacey and Kit Harington- they paid all this money? All these are special things. Kids are into the new stuff and then everybody was like this is stupid.

Speaker 1 12:47

The only one that was like modern and like kind of future was Black Ops 2 that everybody liked. Yeah. Where like you had like AI stuff Like you could deploy, like some drone bot thing with a cannon and it would just walk around the map.

Speaker 3 13:00

Yeah Well, I don't know If they had. If they're going to do something weird like that, that's so far out of the vein of what you would think Call of Duty is. They should just call it a different game.

Speaker 2 13:11

I mean you could call it like a spinoff or something that's when they got to like the Infinite Warfare and Advanced Warfare, I was like, well, if I wanted to play these, I'd just go play Halo or whatever else.

Speaker 3 13:23

What was it? Titanfall. I think they were trying to jump on that super sci-fi bandwagon.

Speaker 1 13:33

It. I think they were trying to jump on that super sci-fi bandwagon. It just didn't work. I think they're still winning in the AAA platform across with shooters.

Speaker 3 13:38

Well, yeah, because Halo had the opportunity.

Speaker 1 13:41

Halo, crapped the bed.

Speaker 3 13:42

They had it in their hands.

Speaker 1 13:44

Look how mad he's getting.

Speaker 3 13:46

And then they just released not a complete game. Granted, the game itself was solid, but not the uh, the features that they promised to release with the game, like co-op or forge, and then they just stopped putting content out. It's like they just gave up here.

Speaker 2 14:03

Here's a season that lasts for five months almost, yeah five months and I was done with it in febru.

Speaker 3 14:09

Right, and you know I think I bought one battle pass and you know the whole. You can get cat armor and stuff like that I was just no. What's the point? I'm tired of these same six maps that I'm playing over and over again. Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 14:27

And then Battlefield.

Speaker 3 14:29

Yeah, I'm glad I didn't buy Battlefield.

Speaker 1 14:31

I'm really glad I didn't buy Battlefield. I'm really glad I didn't buy Battlefield. Y'all tricked me. You're like yeah let's play Battlefield.

Speaker 2 14:35

Yeah, we're going to play Battlefield. I pre-ordered it just so I could get the little extra five bucks off, and it sucked. I played it twice, literally twice, and I was like I'm done.

Speaker 1 14:46

I'm not playing this anymore. I watched a video today just like, oh yeah, there's walls that don't actually exist and he just goes into a building and like the whole building's hollow and there's another helicopter in there, just like hiding.

Speaker 2 14:55

I saw some article I didn't even bother reading. I saw the title and it was like the advancements to make Battlefield so much better nowadays.

Speaker 1 15:01

You can throw grenades 100 meters.

Speaker 3 15:03

I think the problem is these AAA companies. They know that if they release anything at a certain time, their marketing strategy is like hey, if it's been two years since you put out a game, it's prime, all right. It doesn't matter what the game is or how bad it is, just release it and you will make buku money more than what you.

Speaker 2 15:24

They'll at least make their money back.

Speaker 1 15:25

I think that's why Warzone was so popular, because that was right during the lockdown, like the beginning of the COVID lockdown. It was just like everybody, just stayed home playing Warzone.

Speaker 3 15:33

It was a solid game. It didn't have any issues. They just kept tweaking it and tweaking it and making it worse and worse and worse.

Speaker 2 15:39

Yes, the more they worked on it, the worse it got.

Speaker 1 15:42

At first it was like, oh, this is better, All right, this is cool, yeah, this is a good update. And then it I mean.

Speaker 2 15:48

To me it was good until they tried to integrate Cold War into it, because it's two different mechanics and two different play systems that they were trying to put into one game and it just either made one bad or one, you know.

Speaker 1 15:59

Yeah, modern Warfare gun takes me half a mag to kill somebody. But Cold War guns I could take the M14, shoot somebody twice across the map and kill them.

Speaker 2 16:06

Yeah.

Speaker 3 16:08

I don't know, I just don't have the time or the patience to research which gun does better for this. I'm just like that's a cool gun. I'll use that.

Speaker 2 16:17

Again. That's why I go back. It should be where you just kind of like PUBG. You just find the stuff out in the wild.

Speaker 3 16:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2 16:23

Because then you don't have to worry about it, I don't have to have the time to level this gun up to max level, so I get all the attachments.

Speaker 1 16:36

Yeah, level, so I get all the attachments. Yeah, I just yeah. I don't have the time for all that stuff. If you were going to design warzone like they're, just like hayden we need your input. What do you want in a map? What do you want with player count? What do you?

Speaker 3 16:39

want weapons. Wise, first off, I would say you're very wise to come to me, all right. Second off, I would say no, I would say, uh, all right. First thing you do is just stop doing what you're doing.

Speaker 1 16:52

Just stop, stop it all, everybody stop Just stop.

Speaker 3 16:54

All right, no more. We don't need 30 billion guns to choose from and then have like these insane you know numbers nerds on YouTube that just like put out a video every day about some stupid update that you did that gives you I don't know .4 faster TTK than the last meta, and all that sort of crap. We don't need any of that crap. We just want a simple basic system like Halo, where each gun is powerful in their own strengths and depending on where you are in a situation and in a location and what you're good at, that's what works for you, okay. And then, yes, you can tweak them and add modifiers and stuff like that. If you want to make a gun super slow and super weak, whatever that's yours, you know. But there's a mechanic in there that would make that from I don't know close to mid-range, a shotgun always the most powerful weapon. That's just ridiculous. That's how preposterous. Why would a shotgun?

Speaker 1 17:51

do that, get out.

Speaker 3 17:52

You know. So, like slugs, for instance, slugs should kill you in one shot, I don't care how powerful you are, it's a one-ounce piece of lead, exactly it will go through you and then some. So it should drop you in one shot, it should blow your leg off and you should be dead. So things like that just bother me. I would start with the gun mechanics in that aspect, the way the game plays, where you're shooting and sometimes the bullets can go randomly in different directions. Fine, whatever. I get that, some guns have better accuracy than other guns.

Speaker 3 18:28

But I would start with the stats for the weapons for one thing, and then two, I would, instead of adding more crap like more maps and you know, more guns, I would add more physics to the game. Why not make everything destructible? Why not have every building be able to, so you can blow it up? Why don't you add like actual next gen kind of cool things instead of just more of the same crap and just a wider? I don't need 13 peanut butter jelly sandwiches, I want a freaking steak, all right. So there you go.

Speaker 2 19:03

There's my rant and dissertation on colin duty well, they could do something kind of like rainbow six. Take the physics from that game and just put it on a broader scale where, like, you can shoot through those certain walls. Like if it's a wooden panel wall, you can shoot through it. Okay, but it should make sense.

Speaker 3 19:17

You know, like if I'm, if I'm in a one door entry closet and I just start getting red markers, okay, you know, I should be able to see. Oh, there's bullet holes over there. You know, I'm being shot from that direction instead of just like I'm taking damage for some reason, you know so oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 19:34

Well, I mean in rainbow six, if you shoot you, the bullet holes will start to come through. And if you shoot enough bullet holes, just big holes, yeah, chunks exactly.

Speaker 3 19:41

You know, instead of like, somebody will throw a molotov outside the building that you're inside on and just fire starts creeping up at your feet. You're like why am I on fire? Fire the issue. Climb up the building first and set the building on fire, and then it starts raining down on you or something like that. Things, things that make sense, you know.

Speaker 2 19:59

And then, granted, maybe it's just because I'm a slower player, but you need to get rid of all the all the, the sprint and slide cancel and all that, that you're not going to do that in a gunfight.

Speaker 1 20:07

I'd say get rid of bushes completely, no shrubbery.

Speaker 3 20:10

Or you could add in a kit loadout, like you know. Okay, you want more armor, but you're going to be moving slower.

Speaker 2 20:17

Exactly.

Speaker 3 20:18

You know? Or if you want to be like ninja, stealth and fast and agile, that's fine, but you'll die a lot faster, Things like that.

Speaker 2 20:26

Right.

Speaker 3 20:26

You know, add in an armor mechanic or something like that, more defensive strats and stuff.

Speaker 2 20:33

Well, just I know. I mean, granted, I'm going back to Rainbow Six again, granted, it's a smaller, like squad-based thing, but you actually had to use real-life mechanics. You had to you know, slice around the corner of the door. Yeah, slice the pirate doors, yeah you couldn't just like pop out and start shooting. If you did more than likely, you were going to die. Right, you can't just run into a room and eliminate five people.

Speaker 3 20:52

Yeah, I think that you should be able to go to buildings that people are hiding out in and be able to turn off the power, put on your nods, go in there and kill them. That way, you can have a water mechanic, you can have a scuba diver dude in your squad and stuff like that, or demolition.

Speaker 2 21:08

Just go up, put a bomb on the side of the wall and just blow open a new opening to the building.

Speaker 3 21:12

It's been 20 minutes and we already made a better game.

Speaker 1 21:14

You should be able to rappel off the top of buildings? Yeah, like you can in.

Speaker 3 21:19

Siege, Not just find the one zip line.

Speaker 1 21:27

I mean remember how long it took them to figure out. To make it so two people could zip down at the same time. Versus, I had to wait for you to get all the way up get through the animation and then I could zip up.

Speaker 2 21:34

How long did it take for them?

Speaker 1 21:35

to put in zip lines period. That's true, yeah, yeah, in the original there wasn't. I think there's like maybe one zip.

Speaker 2 21:39

Well, you could parachute and land on like the top of the airport and there's nobody's going to come up there with you unless you.

Speaker 3 21:43

They landed originally with you yeah, right, I, if in a game that like brags about it's realism, there's just so many stupid things, like, honestly, the whole multiple parachute things. Yeah, it's a fun mechanic, but I, if they took it out because they wanted to be more hyper realistic, okay, I could go for that you have one shoot.

Speaker 1 22:02

Choose wisely where you're going exactly I'd be.

Speaker 3 22:04

I'd be fine with that, you know, or it, you know, you get rid of the healing mechanic, like if you get shot, you either find a medic or you're going to bleed out and die, or you can't use that arm and now you have to switch to a sidearm.

Speaker 2 22:18

I would be okay with you having to carry med packs to heal your health back. Call of Duty your health just comes back.

Speaker 3 22:25

Everything is just too cut and dry you can be back to 100% like the best player, with no consequences.

Speaker 1 22:35

Yeah, you just pull your stem out, yeah.

Speaker 3 22:37

You're back off to the races, every interaction you have. If you beat that guy, you're back. Fine, no problem. You might lose some plates. Whoop-de-doo, you find plates everywhere. You find them more than you do bullets.

Speaker 1 22:50

It also is ridiculous that you put three armor plates yeah into the front of a carrier yeah, I don't know it should be one plate yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 23:00

And if you shoot the engine block of a vehicle, it should go down you know, if you shoot the tires, they should pop exactly, and stuff that, like pub g, had way before.

Speaker 2 23:09

Oh yeah yeah, you know, pub g, you shoot the tires out, they have a hard time controlling. Yeah, it's stuff that, like PUBG had way before. Oh, yeah, you know, pubg, you shoot the tires out and they have a hard time controlling the car.

Speaker 3 23:14

And stuff like that. Like you know, if it works for that game, you're not really stealing anything.

Speaker 2 23:19

It's a small mechanic, just take that it's a common sense mechanic, right? Yes?

Speaker 3 23:22

Make it work, you know.

Speaker 1 23:25

I don't know no rose skins.

Speaker 3 23:30

I mean, why not? Why not, why not have a skin that you blend into your surroundings? It makes sense. Now make their caveat to it like you're easier to kill.

Speaker 2 23:41

Yeah, because they're not wearing any armor, so you know, but the character that you're using should have some kind of involvement into the story.

Speaker 3 23:49

When you're wearing a wetsuit, you don't have armor involvement into the story when you're wearing a wetsuit you don't have armor, right, you know I mean and she probably can't hold as much ammo as other people can. You know like you have those like girthy, tanky looking dudes with magazine pouches all over their body you know, but they're also really easy to identify.

Speaker 2 24:05

Then you have some that are wearing it looks like a full, like stormtrooper, kind of armor, right Like Mandalorian stuff.

Speaker 3 24:12

They just move a full like stormtrooper kind of armor, right like mandalorian stuff, and they just be a lot slower like no, we want our flammy skull guy, because people spend 20 bucks for just that stupid looking skin because they want to look cool. You know what it works.

Speaker 1 24:20

It did yeah, it was cool. Yeah, it did look cool. Or the judge dread one yeah, and it works.

Speaker 3 24:26

And as long as people, people keep, like you know, fan servicing, they're just going to keep that. They're going to keep catering to that stupid mentality and then we'll continue to cry and gripe and Call of Duty will be like whatever, pay me money and you're like, okay, here's my money.

Speaker 2 24:41

I did see where they wanted to make it a subscription-based service.

Speaker 3 24:45

I'm out. I'm out on that one.

Speaker 2 24:48

They didn't say whether you would get the game as part of the subscription or not but it would be a monthly subscription price. I'm like what I think for one game.

Speaker 1 24:57

No what I think they should do, because Ghost had this where stuff you did in multiplayer you could unlock armors and masks or just different setups. That should be the basis for Warzone as well, because that would get people to play multiplayer for stuff you can use in Warzone. The same attributes would apply If you play this map and you get 500 kills on this map alone. With an SMG you unlocked this armor or this face mask, etc.

Speaker 2 25:24

This is something small, but I think it'd be cool to be able to personalize your character make him how you want to look.

Speaker 1 25:31

Well, but seeing somebody's just like, oh, he didn't spend 20 bucks to just buy that he actually had to do.

Speaker 3 25:34

Yeah, what's the problem challenges? What's the problem with unlocking guns? It takes forever it takes forever it used modern warfare. It did not take long well, and the original one, and to and yeah, and to be fair to Modern Warfare, they had like reasonable mechanics Like, okay, you know, kill three people while in smoke, you know that's not, it's challenging, but it's not going to ruin your day.

Speaker 1 25:57

No, it was just throw yourself a smoke grenade and just start spraying, as opposed to one of the submachine guns.

Speaker 2 26:03

You had to knife two people while sliding like 15 times.

Speaker 1 26:06

Yeah, to unlock it, and it only counted once per game. Yeah.

Speaker 3 26:10

That was after, that was like Cold War, yeah, and they're just like shut up, you'll play it and do it until you get it and people freaking did it.

Speaker 2 26:18

There were guns I never got because of that stuff.

Speaker 3 26:23

Yeah, there's still some I don't have. I'm like look All the.

Speaker 1 26:25

Modern Warfare stuff was. You unlocked it at a certain level and then you could use it, and the more people you killed and headshots you got, the more you unlocked Instead of having you can unlock a full weapon in two hours, instead of having this asinine weapons unlock mechanic that just is stupid for every.

Speaker 3 26:41

Why don't you have one streamlined one that makes sense, like if you kill the number one player in the game, it counts towards like 30 of your gun unlock or something like that you get?

Speaker 1 26:51

the xp boost yeah it's like he killed the guy on the team on the other team who has the most kills right now yeah, and how about you put that, those points or currency that you've unlocked towards whatever gun you want?

Speaker 3 27:02

you know?

Speaker 1 27:03

so you're basically saying like black ops one I don't know, just it easier. Because that had a currency system in-game where you would kill people, win games, whatever, and you'd get in-game money. And then you could go to all the weapons. It didn't matter what level you were. You could look at the very last SMG like I want that one and unlock it. Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 27:20

Yeah, and then you could choose the attachments and then maybe I'll play that gun that I thought I liked it was great, but you know what? The other gun looks better and I'll go back to trying to unlock that one. I think it would be a much more accessible mechanic instead of just the stupid stuff they have you doing now, like shooting people who are rappelling or something like that. It's just insane stuff. You have to have the perfect environment, the perfect scenario where things are just going to fall perfectly in place you play 15 games just waiting for somebody to go up.

Speaker 1 27:52

That rappel, exactly just camping waiting, you and four other people. This is it. I got no because your teammates shot.

Speaker 3 28:00

Yeah, somebody else kills them. You're just like well, there goes an hour so um, I don't know. Yeah, they. Well, obviously the the problem with warzone and call of duty in general is they. They don't care about their players. No, they've become like ea yeah and, um, they, they have a, they have this like I don't know. I call it like a heroin mechanic where, like you, get enough of a good thing at first and then all of a sudden they're coming down hard on you.

Speaker 2 28:28

They get you hooked and then it's gone.

Speaker 3 28:33

You want it bad enough, you'll go through all this crap to get a semblance of what it used to be. So you're going to spend $60 for this Godzilla BS and it's not going to be fun. It's going to be weird and stupid and not what you thought Call of Duty was going to be. And you're going to be weird and stupid, not what you thought call of duty is going to be. And you're going to play it because you're my, you're my you know what.

Speaker 2 28:52

So well, they have all these things like everybody's like, oh, single player games don't do any good anymore. You got to play these games to have a good player count and they showed like the comparison between something and what and they had like 750 000 current players playing at that time. Yeah, that's not the picture.

Speaker 3 29:07

And Elden Ring's smart because they put a game out. You know, in marketing-wise and stuff like that, all the game companies are like you can't make a game this hard and expect players to play it. But if you put a game out, that's pretty, it looks great, the mechanics are flawless, the weapon upgrade system works, everything's built in and sense you have a vast amount of personal right tailorization to your character right, and then they put it out and the players are more than willing to overlook the the challenge, because it's part of the experience it's the challenge.

Speaker 3 29:43

Okay, like when you earn something in Elden Ring, you freaking earn it. You feel you heard about it. I haven't seen one video where somebody beats a boss and and in Elden Ring and just like no, okay. Everybody's just like wow, yes, I finally did it. You know they're like all party and stuff. That's a great feeling.

Speaker 2 30:01

I even caught myself yesterday playing by myself. Yeah, just me and my mimic. I killed that two-headed dragon that's at the bottom of the dragon world. I did it. It took me a lot, it's like when I beat the Elden Beast. I heard Tom Woo.

Speaker 3 30:16

Yeah, it's a good feeling. Warzone used to be that way, when we would win every once in a while. Nowadays it's just like God, finally About time. I'm tired of feeling like the game owns, owes me something, you know. Every time I get on I'm just like no, nothing's changed just the hit detection on some of it.

Speaker 2 30:37

Like I thought we played fortnight. I was like dude. This actually feels better because my bullets are actually hitting the people I'm shooting at yeah, we played.

Speaker 1 30:43

We jumped into fortnight and won like 20 games in a row.

Speaker 2 30:46

Yeah yeah, yeah, like I didn't understand, like because on Call of Duty your crosshair is dead on this guy. He's maybe 100 yards away and you're shooting him with a sniper rifle and you're like getting nothing.

Speaker 3 30:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2 30:56

Or you shoot him and he just runs away. It's like what that's not Hit him in the face.

Speaker 3 31:08

Well, you shoot at though your cursor's right on them and they just turn with an smg from sniping distance and kill you and like why? You know why? Because they're a freaking pc player. Yeah, all right, consoles.

Speaker 2 31:14

Consoles are always going to suffer in call of duty games compared to you. Can't just put your cursor on the?

Speaker 3 31:18

spot, all right, anybody can point and click. You know you and I used to do that for a living. Yeah, it takes nothing, so but if I want to and shooting in real life is nothing like that there's so many varying levels.

Speaker 1 31:32

It's like your whole body is involved.

Speaker 3 31:34

So they should have a controller-esque level of challenge when it comes to shooting somebody. Nope, pc players just point and click and then they all act like they're just hard badasses and it's not fair.

Speaker 2 31:47

And I know Warzone wants the game to be a fast-playing game, but you ought to make it. There's a consequence for getting shot. All these people. They'll just run out and take bullets just so they can get the one big shot with whatever their souped-up gun is. There needs to be a penalty for getting hit In real life. Even if you shoot this guy 16 times, if you get hit once, there's a penalty it's gonna hurt yeah, you got shot.

Speaker 3 32:11

Was it escape from tarkov?

Speaker 1 32:12

that does that, yeah, so and they're friendly fire no, no, no friendly fire it needs, no it doesn't matter, no it makes. I'll tell you exactly what's gonna happen. You got ammo, pow, I don't care.

Speaker 3 32:25

No, you didn't, I don't care I would only do like two or three times.

Speaker 2 32:30

It doesn't matter, because that's what all these other people they just like. Six of them have lmgs and they just fire across each other yeah we would. I guarantee we would be a lot better off if they had friendly fire on, because people couldn't just run in spam a gun with like three people running around a room. They'd actually have to take accountability for what they're shooting at.

Speaker 3 32:48

We played PUBG a couple times. How many times did I murder you, Tom?

Speaker 2 32:51

On purpose or accident, because Tom didn't run around the corner and shoot me in the face one time with a shotgun.

Speaker 1 32:57

That was pretty funny.

Speaker 2 32:58

That was one time I was waiting at the top of the steps. He was like hey, do you have any ammo or health? I was like, yeah, just come on up here, hey turn the corner and shout me oh, that's you?

Speaker 1 33:06

Well, no, because we knew the other team was still around. It was just like you startled me.

Speaker 2 33:10

I told you I was at the top of this desk.

Speaker 3 33:17

Ah, pow Tell Mitch's wife, he died battling in a battle.

Speaker 2 33:19

But yeah, I mean, just I do. I think they should put friendly fire in, just so people have to take accountability and can't just spam bullets when they run into a room with their buddies.

Speaker 3 33:29

Yeah, the ultra-real stuff like Tarkov. I think that's the future of Warzone or what do you call them? Battle Royale games and stuff like that. That's what the people want.

Speaker 2 33:40

And for that game. If you die, you lose the equipment that you've earned in that game. So that's pretty neat.

Speaker 3 33:44

I think the problem with Battle Royale games is it's such a new medium of multiplayer that nobody knows how to handle it and they're all looking at like marketing strategies from the past and they're like well, fortnite, you know, they're billion dollars, they know how to figure out how to make a game. Just make it stupid simple, make it for everybody and then loot, crate the crap out of it. Okay, sure, okay. And so Warzone bastardized the hell out of that system. All right, but even Fortnite learn Like, okay, let's scale back a little bit.

Speaker 2 34:15

Well, because if you look at Fortnite, it has like five things you can buy now.

Speaker 1 34:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:19

Where you know. Call of Duty's rows Warzone has like six rows of five things on each row that you can buy.

Speaker 3 34:32

Everything's rows of five things on each row that you can buy. Everything's so complicated it's almost like they're trying to trick you, yeah, into buying stuff. I just don't want to do that. I want to spend, you know, the, the, the base amount to get a game and just have fun with it. That's why I really appreciate a game like elden ring, you know like I mean what 700, some odd million copies sold or what, I don't know how many copies I think it's's up to 12 million.

Speaker 1 34:46

I think it's pretty much going to be game of the year.

Speaker 3 34:50

Yeah, and then they're just ignoring all the crap they're getting from these AAA publishing companies out there, like how come you don't have a season pass or a loot crate system? They don't need it. They don't need it, they're doing fine and people are still playing the hell out of that game and they will.

Speaker 2 35:09

I mean, they could probably pump out a dlc here, pretty quick but I think they've announced one yeah, supposedly they're working on one, okay, so but I mean, I'm just excited to to finish the game and go to new game plus and to go through all these bosses that beat me down with a little stronger character. Hey, there tree sitting, don't remember me, I just went, big I'm waiting on both y'all to be caught up so that we can play and have the same kind of graces to go through.

Speaker 1 35:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2 35:29

Instead of having to.

Speaker 1 35:29

With my giant bonk swords.

Speaker 2 35:31

I'm going to get my faith built up. Nice, get that big wave of power that he finally got to see. Yeah, I sent him a photo or a video of it.

Speaker 1 35:38

You should do an Elden Ring special too.

Speaker 2 35:39

Yeah.

Speaker 3 35:50

Yeah, know, I think that, uh, shooters in general have me concerned. Um, honestly, every shooter that I got excited about sucked in these past five years have just been a letdown, like I mean. Uh, you know, even even after the game comes out, sometimes I'm like you know what halo's doing? Great, it's a great game, solid game. You know great mechanics. It feels like a good old-fashioned halo game and then just nothing to me.

Speaker 3 36:09

I mean, halo was great, it just got old quick very quick, and I guess it's a problem with our updated sense of what a game should be is that there should be constantly feedback and content coming through um, especially if you have a battle pass and I'm paying currency after the game comes out. It should be catering to everything that I want, um, which is more content, more content. And oh, we got a new multiplayer map where you can kill 50 people in this one no, that's stupid.

Speaker 1 36:37

The last time I cared about a battle pass item was the cold war one, where they had the 80s mixtapes you could put in your vehicles, because I wanted africa by toto yeah well, now I understand them, having stuff that you can buy because Warzone is free to download the game. Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:52

Now, granted, you can't level your stuff up like you can if you have the actual Modern Warfare, but I understand them having some things to buy, but to push it so hard, you know you got to have this gun because out what the next one is, yeah, the next thing that you can buy, that'll be the next one.

Speaker 3 37:12

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the future, and even in single-player shooter games like Cyberpunk and stuff like that, there's just not much that as far as the first person experience that I'm super excited about, I don't know what's.

Speaker 2 37:31

Starfield going to be? Is that third?

Speaker 3 37:32

person or first person, I don't know. It's Bethesda, so I assume it's first person, or you might be able to do both. Maybe it'll be good, maybe not. I mean, my professional experience with video games at this point is don't trust nothing.

Speaker 2 37:43

Wait until you play it, wait until it's come out and you can review it.

Speaker 3 37:46

Yeah, so you know, I don't know. There's not much else to talk about except that everything's just disappointing. The world is a terrible place.

Speaker 1 37:56

Welcome to melancholy. Well, that was another special If you think we're idiots and you think Warzone's amazing, let Mitch know on our social media. Yeah, if you have ideas of what you think a good Battle Royale would be, or one that you're playing that we haven't and we should check out, that would put Hayden into some perspective. Yeah, you got to understand.

Speaker 3 38:18

we're not like elitist gamers we don't have besides Tom, but he doesn't even use his awesome PC and stuff that much anymore. Like the Escape from Tarkov games and stuff like that. That sound interesting. I just don't want to spend the money to get a computer to play that stuff.

Speaker 2 38:31

Yeah, I haven't played it. If it came to a console, then yeah.

Speaker 3 38:36

I bought a $600 Xbox so I could just have the convenience of games just load up whenever I need them.

Speaker 1 38:41

I don't need to go to Steam, I'm still waiting for games that will push that thing to its potential Right, which still hasn't happened yet.

Speaker 3 38:47

No no.

Speaker 1 38:48

But that's a conversation and a rant for another day.

Speaker 3 38:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:53

Well, if you're still here, come join us for a free comic book day, if you live around here in Georgia.

Speaker 1 38:59

Or not.

Speaker 2 39:00

You can fly here on your expense.

Speaker 1 39:02

You can take a boat, but come join us on May 7th.

Speaker 2 39:05

We're going to have a panel at 10 am for the start of the day where we're going to talk to one of our previous guests that's been on the show. He's been on a bunch of other things.

Speaker 3 39:14

Joey Thurmond.

Speaker 2 39:16

I was going to be that surprised, but yeah, it's not a surprise.

Speaker 1 39:19

He posted it on the Facebook page. If they go to the Facebook page they'd find out.

Speaker 2 39:22

But we're also going to have some raffles. I know one of the prizes is the Captain America shield.

Speaker 3 39:27

Oh yeah, I brought my stuff.

Speaker 2 39:29

It's full of metal and leather straps on the back.

Speaker 1 39:32

Captain America's mighty shield, yeah.

Speaker 2 39:34

So we're going to have a bunch of fun. Come see us out there.

Speaker 1 39:38

Bet you won't.

Speaker 3 39:40

Okay, well, there we go. We talked about Warzone, tom, that's your special. Now I'm good for about a month, uh-huh, all right, that's it for this special. Goodbye from everybody. Mitch, bye, time, time. Give me a goodbye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.

Speaker 1 40:03

Bye, oh, okay.