Call of Duty: Vanguard - CoD goes back to WWII

Nah. The beauty of this series (for me) has always been that it’s not built around classes. Everyone can have whatever tools they prefer. You just pick how you want your dude or dudette to look in game. Some character skins are better for camouflage while others are gaudy and silly. Still others are based on characters from films. There’s one MW guy named Ronin who comes with Kodachis in his Crimson Ronin Pack for example…

I’m sure in the single player campaign that each of the characters will focus on their specialty and have guns built for that to start with, but that won’t mean squat in multiplayer or Warzone. In MP and WZ, you pick the guns and you bring your skill.

Sure, I understand the compromise.

This is exactly what I’m worried about:

The biggest challenge facing CoD is figuring out how to make the yearly releases something more than reskins without making changes that are too noticeable and anger the rabid, possibly dangerous, hardcore fans. Whoever is making this year’s CoD doesn’t have the courage to step back from gunsmith and make their guns feel clunky and limited like real WW2 guns, and I can’t blame them, but that’s one of the main reasons I won’t be playing this year’s release.

That’s odd of them to say that Black Ops Cold War is the same as Modern Warfare 2019 because a lot of people hated (or loved) Cold War because it was so different from MW. Cold War plays like Black Ops III and BO4. It has very specific Treyarch roots that are very different from MW. They’re like two different games in multiplayer. Personally, I’m very happy they’ve decided to hew closer to Infinity Ward’s game as it’s the best CoD they’ve ever produced IMO.

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say they feel like two different games. They definitely share CoD DNA. I’ll agree that the Black Ops line has distinct “gunfeel” and movement qualities that are just enough off from the rest of the CoD line to matter to hardcore players. I think it’s just one of those things that matter a lot more to the folks that play a ton of CoD and therefore impacts their playstyle a lot more than the casual players.

I highly recommend playing them back to back. They have a completely different style and feel across all the guns. I’ve been playing some MW2019 multiplayer lately as I needed to unlock the recently added CX-9 and after months of Cold War it felt like a very different game.

CoD games are like platforms unto themselves anymore given the proliferation of modes and gameplay options. It’s easy for me to understand why some people really like or dislike one game over the other as they feel very different. I like both styles so I’m ok either way. I excel in Cold War mp, but had to recalibrate big time to be good at MW again.

So this is available in Beta form right now and I like it. It’s CoD and it’s WWII. Feels a LOT more like Modern Warfare 2019 than Black Ops did. Most notable is the amount of penetration you get through various surfaces. It has an almost movie like quality at times. Wood is breaking and flying all over as you run through a corridor. It’s good times.

Free on PlayStation already. Free for everyone else on Saturday I believe. If you have it preordered on Xbox or PC you can also play now.

I’ve never understood why aiming down sights in games gets you a sight picture in the centre of the screen. When you do this in reality, you don’t somehow lose the sense that the weapon’s in your right shoulder. I think it should be offset to the right a little (or left for you lefties). The centred version should only be used for binocs, night vision googles or equipment that has that kind of sight.

Same for iron sights.

Most first person games don’t actually have the player’s eyes at eye level in the model. If they did, you’d likely have even worse issues with motion sickness than people already do. Also, aiming down sights in real life requires a head tilt, which again would add extra motion that is unnatural when it comes to computing even if that would be more realistic. It’s likely something that would again add to the possibility for motion sickness.

For gaming purposes, it makes sense to keep everything on a single point in the center of the screen. If you were able to move as quickly and as efficiently as you can in a video game, you’d likely feel like it’s just the same as it appears on screen in the games anyway.

The eyes in the model thing is huge though, and something most people don’t really know about. They’re usually in the chest, not the head of the character.

Yeah, it’s like physics. No one really wants “real” physics, except in rivet-counting high-end sims maybe. We want game physics, physics that feel right and satisfying. Same with POV. We don’t want an accurate simulation of humans in motion or doing things. We want a view that works within the artificial limitations of the game platform.

Exactly, and IMO that’s the brilliance of the Modern Warfare engine. It gets human mobility so perfectly right that I’m always comparing everything else to how MW does it. It’s so natural an extension of what I want to do physically, and of course no human would have the endurance to do as it exists in the Warzone world, but man, it sure feels like you could because all the movement and weights, and visuals match up so perfectly to the idea of being a top level soldier in my head.

Battlefield 1 is the standard in those games and holds up well to MWs implementation. BFV throws in the legs stuff where you see yourself as you mantle and it’s weird by comparison.

Here’s your story:

So much cliché dialog packed into a couple of minutes.

Dialogue is cliche, but it sure looks pretty. Let’s also be honest, is there anything better in videogames than taking out wave after wave of Nazis? I don’t think so. Zombies pale by comparison… unless they’re Nazi Zombies… then I’m torn.

And here is the franchise mandated zombies mode trailer.

https://youtu.be/8swCrPIt4nY

looks like the current battle pass for modern warfare/warzone/cold war has vanguard unlocks in it.

Yes. There are new XP tokens too that are apparently tied to “Operator Unlocks”. They say to hold onto those until the new game ships of course.

Zombies is its own entire storyline now in case people don’t know. There’s serious Lore in there with a capital L. Treyarch is basically making a whole other game alongside the standard CoD releases year after year. It’s at least three games in one these days.

Rut roh. Zombies appears to be very very bad right now.

Sounds like it’s undercooked. If that’s your primary way to play CoD these days, you should wait. The rest of it sounds amazing though. Lots of improvements to multiplayer from the beta apparently. I’m ready.

I’m away this weekend and won’t play again til Sunday, but so far I am seriously impressed with the Vanguard campaign. It is amazing to look at and a blast to play. I streamed the first 1.5 hours so if you want to watch a little on the second hardest difficulty, you can find it at my Twitch.

I kinda like the real WW2 parts (loved the first CoD and MoH for that), not so sure how I feel about the fictional post-Hitler episode. If I were to buy this, it would be for single play only (too old for multiplayer), so I guess I’ll watch more Twitch first!
Is it always this dark? Or do you get daylight episodes as well?