Update: In the time since this post went up, I managed to get into contact with @JD_2020 about this issue of being booted from matchmaking. He explained why the game does this, and why other methods wouldn’t work as well. Although I don’t agree with him on some of the points, I’m glad that he took the time to chat with me about it.

I’ve decided to do a rant. It is almost completely pointless, and likely won’t accomplish anything, but it will make me feel better.

Before I start, I want to make it clear that what I’m about to write is my opinion only, and is not meant reflect the opinions of anybody else. I am in no way speaking on behalf of WouldYouKindly.com, Nuka-Cola.net, or any of the other writers/staff here.

I’d also like to make it clear that I’m turning off my filter for this. Expect some turbulence ahead.

Tonight, I loaded up Call of Duty: World at War, which I have been playing alot recently. I’ve had the game since it came out, but I never really played the multiplayer until about 2 weeks ago. I would rather play Modern Warfare, but my copy was stolen and I never replaced it. So I have to settle for this.

World at War is the 5th full-fledged title in the Call of Duty series. The first 2, made by Infinity Ward, were absolutely brilliant. They weren’t perfect, but they had a certain polish that many titles nowadays lack.

After the enormous success of the first 2 games, Activision (who owns Infinity Ward) decided that they would like to have a new Call of Duty title out every year. And since it would be almost impossible for Infinity Ward to accomplish this, they outsourced it to another company – Treyarch.

Since Call of Duty 2, the games have been alternating between these 2 developers. We got COD3 in 2006 from Treyarch, COD4 in 2007 from Infinity Ward, and finally World at War in 2008 from Treyarch. And the pattern will continue, this year Infinity Ward is releasing Modern Warfare 2, and next year we expect COD7 from Treyarch.

While this gives the devs more time to make the games, and it gives us more games to play, we are ultimately presented with a problem. Treyarchs game never stand up to the ones that Infinity Ward put out. They aren’t necessarily bad, but compared to their IW counterparts, they are just lacking. COD3 wasn’t as good as COD2, and World at War wasn’t as good as Modern Warfare. And yes, I realize that they are set in different time periods, so a direct comparison isn’t possible. But I don’t think there is anybody out there who can honestly say that World at War was as well written, as well presented, or as well polished as Modern Warfare.

Now that that history lesson is out of the way, I can move onto to my main points. I’ve decided to break my rant into a list of things that piss me off, with some obligatory commentary thrown in for good measure. These aren’t in any specific order.

1. The spawn system. Spawning is the act of being placed into the game after being killed. Simple enough, right? When you die, the game needs to put you back into a spot that is currently unoccupied, and safe. But World at War fails at even this simple task. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve spawned in an area being hit with an enemy artillery strike, an area filled with enemy dogs, or right in the sights of an enemy sniper. I understand that if there are dogs and artillery on a level, it might be hard to find a place that isn’t in direct line of sight with an enemy, but it shouldnt happen consistently.

Here is a simple drawing. It shows a made up level, with red X’s representing enemies, the red shaded area is artillery, and the blue shaded area is an area currently infested with dogs. I’ve marked a couple of possible spawn points with the letters A through D. Without giving this too much thought, which of these is likely the best place to be placed? Chances are you will have no trouble with this.

If you chose A or B, then you must be the one who programmed the spawning system in World at War. If not, you should get into contact with them, they might have a job for you. If you chose D, then you must not have seen option C, as it’s the obvious choice. A and B are currently full of activity and therefore should never EVER be chosen. Option D isn’t nearly as bad, but is still not a very good choice. Option C is away from all of the dogs and artillery, and is not in a direct line of site with any enemy. What’s sad is that if presented with this exact scenario in World At War, you would be placed into A, B or D nine times out of ten.

2. Dogs. I fucking HATE the dogs in this game. For those of you that have never played this game, you are awarded with certain abilities for killing a set number of enemies in a row without dying. At 3 kills, you are awarded with a Recon Plane. At 5, you recieve an artillery strike. And at 7 you get to “unleash the dogs”. If an enemy gets to 7 kills and uses this ability, a horde of angry, vicious, super dogs jump over the edges of the map and proceed to attack you and your teammates. And while I’m not a history buff, and therefore can’t vouch for the use of dogs in World War 2, I can say that it would be pretty much impossible to train a horde of dogs to surround a large area and jump in on command, and then only attack the “good guys”. What’s worse it that these dogs must be the result of some nazi experiment, because they can take a severe amount of damage. Imagine being shot 3 times (not in the head) by an M1 Garand. It may not kill you, but you definately wouldn’t want to keep running around attacking people. If it were me, I’d lay down. But these dogs take 3 shots and just keep on going as if nothing happened. I’ve never shot a dog, but I can’t imagine it would be too keen of chasing you after you shot it a couple of times.

These dogs can jump over walls, through windows, and know exactly where you are – there is no hiding. The only way to protect yourself is to put your back into a corner and hope that more than 2 of them don’t run in on you. The dogs are annoying, and cheap, and I despise Treyarch for putting them in the game.

The Empire may have been taken down by Ewoks, but World War 2 was NOT won by dogs. I am certain of that.

3. Artillery strikes. Before you start accusing me of hating everything in this game, let me finish. I don’t hate the inclusion of artillery strikes. They are historically accurate, and I nice choice for a kill bonus. No, my problem with airstrikes is that their integration is broken.

Imagine yourself fighting a battle in World War 2, and you get word of incoming artillery. What do you do? Well you find some cover, duh! That’s why things like bunkers existed – to protect you from getting shelled to death. So why is it that when I hear about incoming artillery in the game, that finding cover in a bunker doesn’t help me? There is 2 feet of concrete above my head but somehow I’m still getting blown to pieces. Why have the in game voices shout “FIND SOME COVER” if this “cover” doesn’t actually protect me? The same way a wall protects me from a grenade, a good sturdy building should protect me from artillery.

4. The in game camera. I’m talking about the one you see 99% of the time – it’s your first person view. Logically, this camera should be placed in the characters head – just like our eyes. But it’s not. Cover your eyes with your hand. Then lower your hand until you can see again. If your hand were a wall, then to see over it, your head would need to be exposed. Not in World at War!

In order to see over something, your eyes need to be above it...

Here’s an example. There are 2 walls parallel to each other, a short distance apart. I’m behind one, and I know that an ememy is behind another. I poke around the edge and don’t see their head poking out and then all of a sudden – BAM! I’m dead. Confused, I wait for the kill cam to show me what happened. It comes up and shows that my enemy is in fact able to see over his wall – even though his head was not exposed.

This can also work the other way around. Let’s say that a sniper is trying to put a bullet through my head. I know where he’s at, so I take cover behind a wall. I move my view so that I can’t see the window he is shooting from. In real life, if my eyes cant see him, he couldn’t see my eyes. A second later I’m dead. Watching the kill cam, it shows that my head is actually above the wall and he had a clear shot at me.

5. The matchmaking system. If you asked me about this at release, I wouldn’t have had any problems with it. But now that map packs have been released, this is one of my biggest problems with the game. Here’s the scenario: I paid for and own a copy of World at War. I choose the playlist section called “Core” which is described as “Base game modes and maps”. That means that the playlist should be for only the maps that were included on the game disc. The fact that there is a section of playlists called “Map pack” only furthers that statement. So I click Team Deathmatch and wait for it to find a game. After a few seconds the Xbox Guide pops up with a list of all the downloadable content currently available for the game. When I close that, I see this screen:

Say what? I’m in the Core playlists. Base game modes and maps. Why did you try and load a map pack map? And even if you get into a game, 5 bucks says you can’t go more than 5 matches in a row without seeing this screen. I’ve contacted Activision support about this (since Treyarchs website fails to mention any kind of support), and received no response. I asked Treyarchs community manager @jd_2020 over twitter, and no response. I’m convinced that they set it up like this on purpose to get people to think they have to buy the maps to continue to play the game. It’s an incredibly cheap tactic, and Treyarch can kiss my ass. Why on earth would I give them more money when they don’t give 2 shits about their customers that already bought the game? “Hey, thanks for buying our game! Now buy all of these maps or you can’t play online anymore!!!” I’ve got a gift for you Treyarch, I picked it up at Target the other day:

6. Assorted glitches. There are too many to name, but I will give a few examples. The knife, when it works, is great. It’s very quick, and fluid. But have you ever snuck up behind an enemy, swung your knife, only to have them turn around and knife you instead? I have. It’s pretty awesome. Apparently there’s a stab proof perk I haven’t unlocked yet.

Or how about this: Have you ever played a match online where all of the enemies were marked as friendly? Normally, an allies name above their head is green, and an enemys is red. I played a match where everybody was green. I’d walk around a corner and see green, and relax since its a team mate, then they would shoot and kill me because they weren’t actually a teammate. Fun.

Well, I feel pretty vented (even though I really didn’t get angry), and I’m tired of typing, so I think I’m about done with this post. All in all, World at War isn’t a bad game. It’s actually above average in my opinion – but it could be so much better. 3 map packs and who knows how many title updates later, and it still has a ton of nagging issues. But I will continue to play it until Modern Warfare 2 comes out, at which point it will go back on my shelf, where it will just get odd stares, and never be touched again. Kind of like Lindsay Lohan.

And finally, Treyarch, you can do better. Maybe not as good as IW, but you can definitely do better.

Thank you for reading this edition of Really Angry Nasty Things to Say!