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Released on October 25, 2019, by Activision, comes the sixteenth installment of the Call of Duty (COD) franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
This reboot of the Modern Warfare variation is everything that you remember, but a little better. While there are a lot of technical revisions to the game engine, they basically translate into a smoother game experience, a relatively glitch-free gameplay, and game lobbies that you don’t wait in forever. Well, forget the lobby thing — if you and your squad are looking to put in some work, you may want to stay away from most options in Quickplay.
The return to the tried
and true mechanics of COD, instead of trying to be Fortnite, seems to have
worked; however, there are a few new things. One major one is the ability of
the personal computer (PC) and the console players to compete together. The
perks have been slightly reworked so that a few have been designated as field
upgrades. You may lament the loss of the specialist classes a little, but their
absence makes for a lot more skill-based gameplay. Of course, not as much skill
as was needed playing COD: WWII, but 21st-century
technology can still be fun.
Do not be dismayed
— the season-themed game mode variations that were found so entertaining with COD:WWII still come and go with the
wind. Christmas time saw the Gunfight mode devolve into a snowball fight. Time
will tell if they can outdo the Saint Patrick’s Day COD:WWII mode where
eliminating the leprechaun grants an awesome killstreak. In between the
seasonal modes, they drop other modes in and out. There are many that we have
all grown to love, like Dropzone, which is sort of a killstreak free-for-all
except you have to secure the dropzone to get the goodies. Also the Grind Mode
(behave yourselves) makes an appearance, which sort of merges the tag retrieval
of Kill Confirmed with the objective-based modes like Domination, as you have
to take any tags retrieved back to one of two locations to score.
Many of the maps will be remembered by the COD loyalists, while the new maps deliver great opportunities to scope out the snipers, eliminate campers, and get your chase on while running and gunning. The main maps are subsets of larger maps played from the Campaign and in the Ground War modes. The Campaign maps are slightly different as some access points are blocked. The Ground War mode plays and feels a lot like any of the Battlefields that you have played. It includes tanks, all-terrain vehicles, helicopters and the like. The teams are large and allow for four-person squads.
Another of the
technical innovations makes for a really awesome night game experience using
night vision goggles in the realism moshpit on certain maps. From the beta,
there is the Gunfight mode, which is a small team versus mode and was not
particularly impressive then and hasn’t really improved. This mode can be
challenging, if you are just jumping in for a short time waiting for the rest
of your crew. It seems like an opportunity to practice camping more than
anything else. The cooperative mode is a series of squad-based operations that
make unending waves of zombies feel easy. Each operation has specific
objectives, and the enemies seem to never stop spawning. On one mission, about
halfway through, my squad spent more time reviving each other than actually
meeting the objectives. This is due to the very real circumstance of poor
planning regarding ammunition and little to no communication. While getting in
with perfect strangers may work, I recommend taking your squad and planning
well.
The issues with
loot boxes potentially being gambling are sidestepped with the Battlepass. Progression
on the Battlepass level allows extra skins, weapons, operators, etc. Some of
the rewards are free, but most of the better ones require purchase of the
Battlepass. Also experience gains the player tickets that can be used in the
Trials. The Trials resemble boot camp, but with rewards for timely completions.
After 500 games or
so, the game holds up pretty well, and the first group of content upgrades is
underway. Unlike Destiny 2 you are
not shelling out another $60 bucks for the new content. At this point there is
no feeling that too much was spent buying it, unlike another franchise title
that is not Star Wars: Battlefront II.
This version of
COD really packs a punch with visually stunning graphics and enhanced sound
effects with corresponding controller sensations, but is really nothing new. The
ability to hear footsteps from the room above or around a corner brings the
Doppler effect into a chilling excuse for missing a shot. Science aside, the
awards this game has received are well-earned. The $600 million in sales for
its first three days of the release eclipsed opening sales for Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker by almost three
times (but who’s counting).
So if you haven’t already, gather together those bucks that your grandparents, aunts, and uncles gave you for Christmas or Hanukkah and pick this one up. Also if you’re interested, we posted some gameplay videos on the BGN Youtube Channel. See you there!
The post BGN Plays ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’: Why Change? appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
Released on October 25, 2019, by Activision, comes the sixteenth installment of the Call of Duty (COD) franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
This reboot of the Modern Warfare variation is everything that you remember, but a little better. While there are a lot of technical revisions to the game engine, they basically translate into a smoother game experience, a relatively glitch-free gameplay, and game lobbies that you don’t wait in forever. Well, forget the lobby thing — if you and your squad are looking to put in some work, you may want to stay away from most options in Quickplay.
The return to the tried and true mechanics of COD, instead of trying to be Fortnite, seems to have worked; however, there are a few new things. One major one is the ability of the personal computer (PC) and the console players to compete together. The perks have been slightly reworked so that a few have been designated as field upgrades. You may lament the loss of the specialist classes a little, but their absence makes for a lot more skill-based gameplay. Of course, not as much skill as was needed playing COD: WWII, but 21st-century technology can still be fun.
Do not be dismayed — the season-themed game mode variations that were found so entertaining with COD:WWII still come and go with the wind. Christmas time saw the Gunfight mode devolve into a snowball fight. Time will tell if they can outdo the Saint Patrick’s Day COD:WWII mode where eliminating the leprechaun grants an awesome killstreak. In between the seasonal modes, they drop other modes in and out. There are many that we have all grown to love, like Dropzone, which is sort of a killstreak free-for-all except you have to secure the dropzone to get the goodies. Also the Grind Mode (behave yourselves) makes an appearance, which sort of merges the tag retrieval of Kill Confirmed with the objective-based modes like Domination, as you have to take any tags retrieved back to one of two locations to score.
Many of the maps will be remembered by the COD loyalists, while the new maps deliver great opportunities to scope out the snipers, eliminate campers, and get your chase on while running and gunning. The main maps are subsets of larger maps played from the Campaign and in the Ground War modes. The Campaign maps are slightly different as some access points are blocked. The Ground War mode plays and feels a lot like any of the Battlefields that you have played. It includes tanks, all-terrain vehicles, helicopters and the like. The teams are large and allow for four-person squads.
Another of the technical innovations makes for a really awesome night game experience using night vision goggles in the realism moshpit on certain maps. From the beta, there is the Gunfight mode, which is a small team versus mode and was not particularly impressive then and hasn’t really improved. This mode can be challenging, if you are just jumping in for a short time waiting for the rest of your crew. It seems like an opportunity to practice camping more than anything else. The cooperative mode is a series of squad-based operations that make unending waves of zombies feel easy. Each operation has specific objectives, and the enemies seem to never stop spawning. On one mission, about halfway through, my squad spent more time reviving each other than actually meeting the objectives. This is due to the very real circumstance of poor planning regarding ammunition and little to no communication. While getting in with perfect strangers may work, I recommend taking your squad and planning well.
The issues with loot boxes potentially being gambling are sidestepped with the Battlepass. Progression on the Battlepass level allows extra skins, weapons, operators, etc. Some of the rewards are free, but most of the better ones require purchase of the Battlepass. Also experience gains the player tickets that can be used in the Trials. The Trials resemble boot camp, but with rewards for timely completions.
After 500 games or so, the game holds up pretty well, and the first group of content upgrades is underway. Unlike Destiny 2 you are not shelling out another $60 bucks for the new content. At this point there is no feeling that too much was spent buying it, unlike another franchise title that is not Star Wars: Battlefront II.
This version of COD really packs a punch with visually stunning graphics and enhanced sound effects with corresponding controller sensations, but is really nothing new. The ability to hear footsteps from the room above or around a corner brings the Doppler effect into a chilling excuse for missing a shot. Science aside, the awards this game has received are well-earned. The $600 million in sales for its first three days of the release eclipsed opening sales for Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker by almost three times (but who’s counting).
So if you haven’t already, gather together those bucks that your grandparents, aunts, and uncles gave you for Christmas or Hanukkah and pick this one up. Also if you’re interested, we posted some gameplay videos on the BGN Youtube Channel. See you there!
The post BGN Plays ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’: Why Change? appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
Source: Slaven Vlasic / Getty
Actor Sterling K. Brown was overwhelmed to the point of tears when he found out key details about his lineage on a recent episode of Henry Louis Gates’ show “Finding Your Roots.”
Before Gates dove into Brown’s deep past, the Emmy-Award winning actor had to come to terms with the loss of his most recent ancestor, his father.
The “This Is Us” star spoke about losing his dad at ten years old and the last memories he has of his father.
“I remember him like winking as they pulled him out into the ambulance,” Brown said of the last time he saw his dad on the episode.
“I remember thinking in my mind, That’s probably it. That’s probably it. It’s just something unsaid.”
Even though young Brown was overcome with emotion, he immediately felt compelled to “hold it together” despite his grief. But as an adult, the father of two learned that letting the tears flow was the best thing for him.
He no longer “holds it together” when he feels the pains of the loss.
“Not anymore. Now I just look at a picture and I’m like, Wah!” Brown revealed.
So it was not surprising that learning the birthplace of his ancestors led Brown to be visibility moved to tears. As Henry Louis Gates read off the birth place of his ancestors, Brown was stunned.
“Wow, man,” exclaimed Brown. “Wow. That’s, uh … That’s cool,” he said while weeping.
You can watch the clip below:
During the emotional conversation, Brown learned that his lineage goes back to Africa. The actor’s great-grandmother and grandfather was born on the continent. It’s very rare for African Americans to find native-born Africans on their family tree, but Brown has someone in his bloodline born on African soil just two generations away. The documents did not disclose where on the continent his family is from.
A new profile of Jean-Luc Picard himself, Sir Patrick Stewart, provides us with juicy new information about CBS All-Access’s upcoming Star Trek: Picard as well as Stewart in a stunning red suit. What more could we ask for?
Although many of the finer details about Star Trek: Picard are still under wraps, the Variety cover story on Stewart fills in a lot more about the political situation an older Picard contends with. The retired Picard is living in semi-isolation, “estranged from Starfleet,” on a French vineyard (likely the Picard family chateau first seen on The Next Generation) when we meet him.
While this much we could divine from hints and previews, what’s fascinating here is the extent to which both Starfleet and the Federation as a whole have apparently shifted away from the “haunted” Picard’s ideals. It seems like Picard will be operating in this show without Starfleet sanction.
He’s haunted by a pair of catastrophes, one personal, the other societal — the death of his android colleague Lt. Cmdr. Data (as seen in “Nemesis”) and a refugee crisis spawned by the destruction of the planet Romulus (as seen in Abrams’ “Star Trek”). When those two seemingly disparate strands of his life cross, Picard returns to action, this time without the backing of a Starfleet whose moral center has shifted.
There seem to be real-world parallels happening in Picard, especially in terms of the Federation—and this stemmed from Stewart’s desire to explore echoes of our current international stage. Though the show will remain true to creator Gene Roddenberry’s more utopian dream of humanity’s future, that doesn’t mean it can’t explore the fallibility of human institutions.
“In a way, the world of ‘Next Generation’ had been too perfect and too protected,” [Stewart] says. “It was the Enterprise. It was a safe world of respect and communication and care and, sometimes, fun.” In “Picard,” the Federation — a union of planets bonded by shared democratic values — has taken an isolationist turn. The new show, Stewart says, “was me responding to the world of Brexit and Trump and feeling, ‘Why hasn’t the Federation changed? Why hasn’t Starfleet changed?’ Maybe they’re not as reliable and trustworthy as we all thought.”
Real-world politics and humanitarian crises aren’t far from Stewart’s mind, and Picard will reflect that; the themes are at least partially due to Stewart’s own interest and engagement. And, of course, the realities of what’s happening around the globe.
“I’m not sure which one of us is in the most trouble,” [Stewart] says of Britain and the United States. “I think it’s actually the U.K. I think we’re f—ed, completely f—ed.” He points to studies predicting decades-long economic damage inflicted by the country’s looming withdrawal from the European Union. Of the U.S., he says, “There is a time limit to your f—ed state, which is four years away.” He expresses hope that “the United States that has given us the Trump administration” can change, but adds, “He will likely get reelected.”
I can only hope that Sir Pat’s predictions about our own state of affairs don’t prove to be correct. The Variety profile is a great summation of Stewart’s past and his current pursuits, as well as further news from the show, so head on over there for even more Picard. The series starts on January 23, 2020.
These pics of Sir Patrick Stewart on @Variety magazine are just mind blowing!! 😍 #StarTrekPicard pic.twitter.com/NknDgxlIzM
— Rashid Uzzaman (@rashiduzzaman82) January 8, 2020
(via Variety, image: CBS All-Access)
- Required reading: “Top 10 books about toxic masculinity” (via The Guardian)
- Iranian Americans discuss what they think will happen next. (via CNN)
- “Elizabeth Wurtzel Took Up Space, Even When the Literary World Wouldn’t Have Her” (via Vulture)
- In a time of terrifying news, at least we have this quarter to look forward to. Some things are still good.
excuse me, i’m sorry, i need to yell this
NATIONAL PARK OF AMERICAN SAMOA **FRUIT BAT** QUARTERS ARE COMING NEXT MONTH https://t.co/M23AnYaPmR
— Doug Mack (@douglasmack) January 8, 2020
- Would you believe that “people are furious” because Regal Cinemas is switching from Coke to Pepsi? This is where we’re at. (via Comicbook.com)
- Some fans have launched a petition asking that Geralt/Jaskier be a playable couple option in The Witcher‘s video-game world. (via Metro)
- Speaking of The Witcher, our friends at The Portalist have compiled a masterlist of 21 of the best fantasy series currently on Netflix. (via The Portalist)
- Important Central Park squirrel census: there are 2,373 squirrels in the park! This has been your crucial fact of the day. (via New York Times)
- Nominees are in for the 31st annual GLAAD media awards, and include properties like Rocketman, Batwoman, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and many more. Bumping up all the nominated comic books to my must-read list. (via GLAAD.org)
What did you see out there today?
Yarn: BOUGHT. Needles: OUT. https://t.co/PyAOtBdjoX
— Knives Out (@KnivesOut) January 8, 2020
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