Episode 16: Back to the Days of Future Past (with special guest Shnickerman)

[00:00:04] War... War game. War games with propaganda, guns, zombies and other things. This is Call of Duty Thrak Ops reporting for duty.

[00:00:54] Greetings everybody. Welcome back to another edition of Thrak Ops. Hello, my name is Thrak. I hope you all are doing great. I'm doing just fantastic because after however many episodes of like futuristic sci-fi bullshit we are returning to our roots this time. That's right. It is time to look at Call of Duty World War II. And since it's the second World War, I figured I'd need a guest for this.

[00:01:20] So, and he specifically asked to come on for this one. So we'll figure out why. He has, he's most famous for his YouTube channel with over 23,000 subs. I'm pulling in the big guns. But he's been on the 3DO experience before. He's a super cool dude with some esoteric knowledge. So maybe that'll be a big help here. It is Shnickerman. Shnicker, how you doing my man? I gotta be careful saying that. Otherwise I'll get in trouble. Yeah, what's up? How's it going guys?

[00:01:51] I'm doing good. How are you doing? It's very good. I'm ready to talk about some World War II. Well, that's good. That's why I brought you in here. So before we get too deep into it, I like to ask all my guests, what is your prior experience with the Call of Duty series before this?

[00:02:10] Right. So I think the first one I played was Call of Duty 4 back when that came out in high school. So I played a lot of that, played some World at War and Modern Warfare 2, the old ones. And I think that's pretty much it. And then I played this one. So this one kind of brought me all back to the series after many, many years. So you haven't touched the series since what, like Black Ops 1?

[00:02:38] I didn't. I never played Black Ops. I think I maybe played multiplayer for like an hour at one of my friends' house. So it was literally Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare 2, World at War, and then this one. All right, then. So maybe then that's why you were so attracted to this one, you think? I think so. Yeah.

[00:03:02] Okay. We can get into that in a second. But yeah, this week we are covering, or this time, I can't say this week. This ain't a weekly show. I can't do that. Anyway, this time, yes, we are covering Call of Duty World War II. That was released on November the 3rd, 2017 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Development. This game was developed by Sledgehammer Games, and this was started shortly after their last game, which was Advanced Warfare.

[00:03:30] And yeah, in Advanced Warfare, I remember really enjoying. I thought that Sledgehammer brought a nice freshness to the series that hadn't been there in such a long time, considering it was Infinity Ward and Treyarch kind of, you know, hot potatoing the series for many years. To see a new developer with sort of a new perspective really helped that game. And they had a desire to return to that classic World War II setting that Cot originally had cut its teeth on, which it wasn't there for at the time.

[00:03:59] You know, because if you remember back then when Call of Duty started, it was all the rage. You had various series like Medal of Honor, Brothers in Arms, Day of Defeat, and even Battlefield had us all, you know, shooting Nazis and toppling fascism every game. Back when fascism was considered bad. You know, and Infinity Ward and Treyarch were able to do that, but Sledgehammer missed out since they just weren't around then. And I remember when this game was announced. I don't know if you remember that.

[00:04:28] In 2017, I was not in gaming the way I am now because I was just busy doing other things. But I remember hearing about Call of Duty returning to the World War II era, and that had me very excited because, you know, I grew up playing Call of Duty 2, Big Red 1, even played quite a bit of 3. So I had an affinity for that era of shooter, you know?

[00:04:53] So it was really exciting to see them return, but yet I did not play this one at the time. I think I just, I'm trying to think if, I think I had my PS4 at that point because I did play, I think Sonic Mania was the same year, and I played that day one, of course. So, I don't know, maybe I just didn't want to pay that much for a COD game. I'm not quite sure why, but I kind of wish I did, but especially with how it is now.

[00:05:23] But, but, Nick, do you remember when this game was new or when it was being talked about? I don't really remember too much of when it first came out. I just remember, I think in 2020 or so, I just heard about this game. I think I just totally missed it because by the time I played it in 2020 or 2021, I was like, oh, they made another World War II game?

[00:05:45] Like, I didn't even know that existed because I think once I started realizing that they just kind of kept releasing Black Ops and whatever, I just kind of got off the series and started exploring a lot more genres of games. So, yeah, I mean, this one just caught me totally off guard, and I was like, oh, I definitely want to check that out because World of War was probably my favorite of the earlier ones. So, yeah, World of War was really good. In fact, I covered that one with Bill, and we both had a real good time with that one.

[00:06:13] So, and yeah, and yeah, it's about nine years since that one. So, the series had changed quite a bit and had very much lost a lot of its fans with, by Black Ops 2, I think people were starting to fall off. And I don't know, maybe this World War II was a way to try to maybe bring some of those older fans back. Yeah. So, I'm not quite sure, but I can safely say that I am a little mad that I didn't play this one back in the day because I probably would have loved it.

[00:06:43] Because I don't know about you, but coming out of this, playing the campaign and played quite a few hours of multiplayer and even a little bit of zombies, I really, really liked this one. To me, this one stands out as probably the best Call of Duty in this PS4, Xbox One era, where it was like exclusively on these systems.

[00:07:09] Again, Sledgehammer's sort of fresh take on everything and, you know, like a different perspective on the series genuinely helps. And in many ways, the game feels like an homage to those early games, but while also trying to bring it up to sort of like modern technology. You know, things they could not do back in 2006. They're now able to do those things properly.

[00:07:33] And I noticed so many little either like intentional or unintentional Easter eggs to those games. And it did kind of, you know, warm my heart in some weird sicko way, I guess. Being like, oh, that guy got, you know, that guy tries to kick open the door and the machine gun opens the door on the other side and just murders someone. I'm like, oh, I remember when they did that in two, you know, that kind of thing. But yeah, I really like this one. What did you think?

[00:08:04] I think my perspective is pretty unique because of the background that I have with this series. But I mean, this game kind of just made me appreciate like how far the Call of Duty games have come. Like obviously they got a little same Z for me in the middle that I didn't really want to check them out. But to go from like if you play like World of War and then you play this one, just like graphically, like you see like the actors full likenesses, like the next generation. Things look smooth.

[00:08:33] Everything runs nicely. You know what I mean? Like I really appreciated how much money actually goes into these games. Right. Because I think we take that for granted because they're pumping them out every year or two years. Right. But I mean, there is a lot of a detail and love that goes into it. And I think that really shined for me for this game. That's why I wanted to talk about it. Yeah, I agree. And yes, they come out every year. But the way Activision has the development cycle set up for the three main devs is they all get about two to three years to make the game.

[00:09:04] So they all get like plenty of time, you know, in the oven to cook before they do eventually come out. But they have it set up in such a way that, you know, we just have that yearly cycle, which is why there are so many goddamn games and so many episodes of this show. Because it's just the machine. I don't know if it'll ever end, really. But, you know, I might I might theorize on that when we get closer to the end. So, yeah.

[00:09:30] So why don't we take a little we'll take a little quick break and then we're going to get started talking about the campaign.

[00:09:36] So, yeah, the campaign, our first mission is called D-Day.

[00:11:03] Not not a surprising intro mission. A lot of World War Two shooters back in the day either had D-Day missions or started with D-Day missions. I think Medal of Honor Frontline was very famous for that back in like 2003. And then Call of Duty 2, when you start the American campaign later in the game, you are you are on I think it's Omaha Beach for the opening. So we're doing that here.

[00:11:29] We are playing as Corporal Red Daniels of the First Infantry Division or the Big Red One. And I don't know if that's like a little Easter egg callback to Call of Duty 2, Big Red One or that just happened to be. I don't know. What do you think, Schnee? I think so, because I didn't put that together. I was reading the main character's name was Red and I was like, that's a very specific nickname. So I think, yeah, I think let's say it is. Yeah, because they never say Big Red One in the game. At least I don't remember them saying that.

[00:11:57] They always just say the fighting first, you know, the first infantry division because that's what they were based on. Like basically this game is just missing the the military channel little cutaways in between missions. But I don't even know if the military channel still existed by 2017. No idea. No idea. But anyways, we start on a warship where we are meeting a bunch of the guys who are going to be sort of mainstay characters throughout the game.

[00:12:23] We got Zussman, who is a he's like an Italian Jewish man from Brooklyn because, you know, every World War Two game has an Italian Jewish man from Brooklyn. We have Stiles, who is like the thick rimmed glasses nerd who I think he's also like he takes photographs but also has a rifle. Is it like he's half press or half shooter? I'm not quite sure. But he's just kind of like that weird nerdy guy who just is like in the platoon basically.

[00:12:51] And then we have we have Turner who is sort of like he's like the sergeant command kind of guy. And then you also meet bump into Pearson and they're always like, oh, that Pearson. He's a you know, he he's a bit messed up or whatever. And you have a bit of attention, attention, attention confrontation with him in the start, which definitely plays into later in the game. But it does a good job of sort of laying out all these various characters and maybe some tropes that we've seen before.

[00:13:19] But it it feels nice that in this game, compared to some of the CODs I've played the last couple episodes, it feels like it's taking the story and the characters a little bit more seriously, like actually trying to establish them before we get into the big fights. But then we move on to our boat in order to land on Omaha Beach, you know, and as expected, things go south almost right away. Like I think you're going to get shot immediately.

[00:13:46] And, you know, boats are blowing up all around you. And then and Turner's like, hey, we got to hop off the hop off the side of the boat, get into the water, use it for cover, which is very. I'm pretty sure all of these like D-Day tropes that these games use, World War Two and even the earlier ones, it's all taken from Private Ryan. I'm pretty sure it's been a while since I've sat down and watched Saving Private Ryan, but I'm pretty sure it's D-Day scene in the opening is just about the same. Would you agree?

[00:14:16] I think so. And it's funny that like people will reference other things and not the source material necessarily. It's just more familiar to them, I guess. Right. Yeah. Well, and I think Private Ryan was such a big hit when it came out and it did kind of spark the wave of World War Two shooters we got right after it because he helped fund Medal of Honor and everything.

[00:14:41] So and I guess the issue you run into with copying real life like note for note is that it can take away some of the fun aspects of a video game. Yeah. You know, so but but from all the accounts I've read of Omaha, it was it was pretty fucking bad. So it might be a little over dramatized, but it's not far from the truth, you know. But anyways, we use the water as cover in order to get to the shore.

[00:15:10] And right away, I can see the game is doing a much better job of combining the cut scenes and the gameplay together than Infinite Warfare did. I assume he didn't play Infinite Warfare, but that was the game right before this. And it's very sci fi. It's a very interesting kind of like mixture of different science fiction genres is Call of Duty. But it was the first one to try to combine like like pre rendered cut scenes in gameplay like kind of smoothly together.

[00:15:39] So you'd have the cut scenes in first person and then it would cut to like, OK, time for the gameplay. But the graphic change was so jarring. It just didn't work. But here I think they do a much, much better job of it. I don't know if that's because the proprietary engine Sledgehammer is using for this game is better at handling that or maybe they just spent more time trying to get it right.

[00:16:03] But I think the cut scene graphics are very close to the actual gameplay. Like I noticed like the cut, you notice it, but it's much less or it's much more subtle, I would say, is the way to describe it. Um, so yeah, what did you think about that? If you noticed it at all? I, I, I agree with you. Like I said, I don't have as much experience with the other newer ones, so I can't really compare to that.

[00:16:28] But that was one of the things that I had mentioned earlier, like just really impressed by the graphical change in style from like the 360 generation, right? Like you can't really tell what's a cut scene and what's not. So I think, I think they did a pretty good job of transitioning between them. And, uh, that goes throughout the, all the levels in this game. Oh, for sure.

[00:16:50] Like there are a handful of like more cinematically like shot cut scenes, but there are very few of them. So most of the cut scenes are being done in that first person way. Right. And like in a way similar maybe to like, like, you know, the original Bioshock where all of like the story beats and everything that happened in that game are still in your first person perspective. Like you never take away that immersion that the player has.

[00:17:18] And I think maybe Cod is taking from that. I don't know. I just think about Bioshock a lot. But anyways, I think, um, this mission, it's a pretty solid intro mission, um, that has an edge to it that only Sledgehammer Games is able to pull off. Um, and here we are introduced to, or I would say reintroduced to, no regenerating health. So the early Call of Duty games, uh, particularly one, the expansion, the one in Finest Hour, had no regenerating health. It was the health bar days, boys.

[00:17:47] Um, and we have a health bar again. But this time we get plenty of med packs either found, you know, just lying around on the ground or one of the kind of more interesting features of this game is you have one of your squad mates that I think once you get a certain number of kills, you can ask him to throw you a med pack and he will throw you one.

[00:18:07] Um, and then that extends later in the game where certain characters you can do that with ammo or grenades or one will give you like a targeting grenade to throw, um, to throw at the enemies to cause a bunch of mortar shells to drop on them. Um, which is really cool. It provides a little bit more of interaction and connection with your squad mates than you've had in previous games.

[00:18:27] Um, and, and, and again, I like the idea of the health bar and it did, it did kill me a couple of times, you know, just not thinking about it or patching up. But it wasn't nearly as annoying to play as say the original Call of Duty was where basically if you got caught in like a machine gun fire in like two seconds, you're dead.

[00:18:50] You know, this game, it feels like it's a little bit more generous with the health bar and much better at being like, you know, hey, you need to get into cover and apply a med pack. And, and, and I never, and I was never out of med packs. I don't think ever. I always usually had about two at the very least. So what, what did you think about the health system? I just feel like, um, I liked it for this style of game because I feel like for World War II, it just felt right.

[00:19:17] Because I feel like modern gaming has been going in the direction of just making things a bit easier and it kind of made it feel like war has like, you know, impact, right? Like you can't just mess around and go like prone for 30 seconds and get all your health back and then just keep doing that rinse and repeat. Yeah. Um, I will say that I don't know how you felt about it, but even on the lowest difficulty, I mean, like you can die in this game like fairly easily, even in the first mission.

[00:19:45] So, um, I just felt like it, it made sense for the type of game that it was. Yeah. I played through the whole game on regular and it was really the first mission where I found myself dying a lot. And I think that was because I wasn't used to that system and being like, oh yeah, I do have to hide and cover, put on the med pack and keep going. Um, cause even say like, if we do like modern warfare one where it has regenerating health, that game isn't easy. Like that game will kick your ass.

[00:20:13] But as we hit, I think it's like ghosts in the Xbox one era, the games are getting more easy. Um, and this game, I think once you figure it out, you do just fine. But I did find myself dying here and there going, fuck, I needed to put on a med pack. You know, it just wasn't thinking about it, but. Right. But yeah, but I like it. It was a nice sort of throwback addition that I was afraid was going to get in the way of the game, but it never really did. At least not from any way I could tell.

[00:20:42] Um, so yeah. And it's, yeah, cod going back to their roots, but doing it with some modern quality of life is what I wrote here. Um, so you end up on the beach and you have to clear out five bunkers in order to properly secure the beach. Um, and this various bunker combat reminds me of the earlier games like 2, Big Red, 1, and 3. Um, and even with the original Call of Duty, this one feels like an homage to those earlier titles. You even have a blind corner.

[00:21:06] This, this part was an obvious nod because there are some like quick time events in this game, which I never liked them, but. At least Sledgehammer tried to do something a little interesting with them, but. But this blind corner, like a Nazi, comes around the corner and tries to grab your gun. And it turns into a quick time event where you have to mash the button. Very much Call of Duty 3. I don't know if you played Call of Duty 3. No. Okay, so that one, they had that one quite a bit throughout the game where you would turn a blind corner.

[00:21:35] And a Nazi would just pop out of the blue. Like, like, like he's like Sam Fisher just waiting on you, like in the corner. And then he tries to grab your rifle and then you had to mash LT and RT. Like, just mash them so that you could win the fight or whatever. Um, and this bit is, I think, clearly an homage to that. Um, and, but like you mash X a bunch of times. And then I think in this one there's also that point where time like grinds to a halt.

[00:22:03] And you have to move your little icon into the center circle. And then press whatever button it is to execute a command. Which becomes a common quick time event throughout the rest of the game. Um, and I mean it's, it's fine I guess. But I mean I don't like quick time events anyways. But, you know, that, that moment which felt like a, a nod to Call of Duty 3 I thought was cute. But, uh, but are, do you like quick time events, Schnick? Are you better about it than I am? Honestly not.

[00:22:33] I, I think like if you just use them extremely sparingly. Like in the moment you were talking about it. I think they're fine. Sure. But yeah, in general I'm not, I'm not a big quick time event guy. Yeah. I, I don't think they drag the experience down or anything. But there were a couple moments where one pops up and I go, oh shit, fuck. And then I would die. And I'm like, god damn it. But anyways, um, you're, you're able to secure the bunkers. Um, and even an artillery gun further down the road. But your friend Zussman gets hurt in action.

[00:23:02] But you're, of course you're able to save him. Which, you know, is, is the recurring relationship through this game. Is, uh, Daniel's friendship with Zussman. But you're able to save him. And then the mission ends with him on a stretcher. You know, being whisked off to medical. You're wishing him well and everything. So, um, yeah. Quite a, a big start to the, to the game. Um, I feel like if you were going to bring back the World War II era, starting with D-Day just feels appropriate. Wouldn't you think?

[00:23:30] Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the one to do. And I think, like we mentioned, it just really throws you out there. It tells you, like, this game is not messing around. It's going to be, you know, violent. Things are going to happen. You're not going to be able to just run around and, like, beat the game like that. And I think that's, like I said, what war should have that kind of impact on people. Exactly. And we hope you missed the M1 Garand because it is back in full force. Oh, yeah. But what's nice is this game actually lets you reload it whenever you want.

[00:24:00] Because in the earlier Call of Duties, if you were using the M1 Garand because it had, like, the eight, the eight round sort of, like, clip that it would go in, you couldn't reload the thing until you shot all eight. Because famously, when you shoot the last bullet, it makes the clip automatically ejects and makes that iconic pinging noise. But this game, it lets you reload that whenever you want. And I don't know if that's more or less realistic. I have no idea. I'm sure somebody will let me know. I do have a friend who's a bit of a gun nut.

[00:24:29] So he'll probably tell me. And then I'll never tell you guys. But anyways. Anyways, so we hit Mission 2, which is called Operation Cobra, where we push inland in order to secure. Oh, crap. I can see it. Mariné? I think it's called Mariné. It's French. But it's spelled with, like, G-N-Y. And I'm like, it's not Marginé. It's probably Mariné because, you know, French. Yeah, because French. Oh, and at this point, I should point out the game.

[00:24:58] This one, it returns to the collectibles that you used to find. So, like, you know, when you'd secure, like, you know, the Intel and, like, Call of Duty 4. Or, you know, you just find the random trinkets around the level. But here they're called Mementos. And I don't know about you. I stumbled upon one of them out of all 33 accidentally. I think I got a couple of them. But I don't remember looking for them. So, I don't know.

[00:25:28] How do you feel about them? I mean, they're fine. Again, it's a thing Call of Duty has had in the past where, say, like, in Call of Duty 4 or Call of Duty 2, you would find little just things around where it's like, oh, this is, like, Intel. And we can secure it just as, like, a little collectible to encourage replayability or achievement hunting. And I'm sure this game has the achievements for it as well.

[00:25:51] But I guess a lot of them were just really difficult to find because they're just various things throughout the level that symbolize whatever. Like, I forget what level it was I found. But I found it was just, like, a little badge, like a little wings badge that, like, it was almost like an airman or, like, an Army Air Corps would get. That's like, oh, he's certified to parachute or whatever. Like, that's all I ever found.

[00:26:14] Because it is nice in the mementos if you go into the menu, they give you a little description of what it is and what it, you know, relates to when it comes to the war or the Army or whatever, which I thought was neat. And, yeah, but also it introduces this thing called heroic actions. So the heroic actions are kind of, like, spontaneous moments that can happen throughout the levels where you'll see one of your soldiers struggling, you know, with a Nazi, you know, like they're in, like, fisticuffs or whatever.

[00:26:43] And you can shoot that German to save him, you know, or one of your guys will go down and you're like, oh, can you help me? And then you just drag him a little bit. And then the game's like, okay, you're good. You did the thing. And I would do those when I saw them or when they would pop up. But there were some levels I didn't see any of them. But each level has, I think, like two or three roughly. But, again, they could just be random occurrences or whatever. What did you think of those?

[00:27:12] I didn't really remember them when I had first played. And I don't think I got very many of them. So, like, I'm conflicted because I like the way that they kind of set it up where it was just, like, you know, in the nature of war, you can choose to do these heroic actions or not. Right? But as, like, a more completionist kind of player or achievement hunter, I kind of wanted, like, some kind of notification. Like, hey, something's happening. You should do right now. You know what I mean?

[00:27:42] You would see the icon, but it would be, like, this tiny little dot on the screen. And you had to be paying attention otherwise. Right. Because there would be times where I'd hear somebody go, like, oh, I'm hurt. Help me. Help me. And it's like, oh, do I need to drag this guy to safety? I couldn't find him. Right. Exactly. If you wait too long, he dies. Yeah. So I thought it was a cool idea. I think, you know, ideally they could mess around with it a little bit more. But it was fun. Yeah, it was an idea.

[00:28:09] But Zussman returns after the first mission. So I don't know if him getting hurt meant nothing. But, I mean, they do kind of play into it with, like, he still has the scar. And I think even Pearson comes up and he's like, dude, are you sure about this? You know? Like, you need another week to heal. And Zussman's like, no, I can fight. I don't give a shit. You know? And he's like, well, if you get hurt again, I'll fucking kill you or whatever. Like, Pearson is a very, like, I'll talk about it later in the game.

[00:28:38] But Pearson comes off almost as, like, a secondary villain maybe or a tertiary villain. But you learn more about him as you go. But anyways, there's a one point I like, like, you get on top of, it's that point where everybody climbs on the tank and everyone's just, like, riding on the tanks to the town to do the mission. And everyone's just chit-chatting or whatever. Again, a nice World War II trope.

[00:29:06] There was an interesting conversation that was taking place on top of the truck where you see a table and chairs with a couple of just, like, dead Nazi bodies burning. And then they have a little conversation about, like, oh, they're all terrible. Or it's like, oh, they're not all terrible or whatever. Right? I'll probably put the clip in right here for people. And, yeah, it feels like this is the first time. Like, it might, it feels throwaway in some ways.

[00:29:36] But it feels like it might be the first time the series has ever tried to, like, humanize the villains. You know? Because the main issue with Call of Duty or any other shooter series for that matter is you never really think about the other side other than just, oh, they're just, you know, targets to shoot. In this, like, shooting gallery or whatever. Right? Like, you don't, you don't think of them as more than just the villains.

[00:30:03] And here it feels like there, it's an attempt to be like, you know, well, not all the Germans can be bad. Right? Which, I mean, is true, obviously. Whenever there's a, you know, evil, nasty regime, you know, government regime out there, it's not like every citizen is behind it. You know? So, I mean, there is some truth to it. But I don't think it was meant to spark any, like, deep debate or conversation. But it was just something that I found interesting. Do you remember this at all? I don't.

[00:30:32] But I think it is an interesting line to have in there and, like, some dialogue. But, yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I think it's just maybe a little bit extra to put in there to make people think a little bit more, you know? For sure. For sure. And, yeah. And so, like, right after that is when the Stukas blow up your tanks. You know, the tank blows up in front of you. And it's like, shit, we gotta run in. And then you run in and take the town.

[00:31:02] And it's a fairly standard mission. There was nothing about it that felt incredibly standout to me. But it was still, you know, done fairly well. And in some ways, that's what this game truly just feels like to me. Like a, I don't want to say well done nostalgia trip. Because I feel like that's, like, talking down to it. You know what I mean? Being like, oh, it's only good because it references other things that have been done. Or maybe even, like, a comfort food kind of game.

[00:31:31] Because playing this game just felt really just, like, natural. You know? It's like, it feels like I've played this game, like, a hundred times before. But it's done so well and with, like, such passion for the source material that I just find myself, you know, enjoying it. Yeah, I feel like it was kind of like a remaster that wasn't actually a remaster of anything. Yeah, like a remake to an old game that never happened. Yeah. Exactly. So.

[00:31:59] But anyways, yeah, we were able to start securing the town of Marjonee. But then that kind of moves right into the third mission called Stronghold. Where we're now attempting to secure the church that's right in the center of it. Which would guarantee control of the town. It's a relatively short mission. That sees us storming the church from the outside. And then we climb up the tower in order, and become a sniper in order to protect Zussman while he's trying to blow up some AA guns.

[00:32:29] But then we have to rush out of the tower as the AA guns spot us and then shoot the damn thing. And then we start, and it starts toppling over. And it's very dramatic kind of action movie flair. Like, you escape just in the nick of time to watch the whole thing just crumble right in front of you. It's very cool. You know, the presentation and all that is just absolutely stellar at this point. And then we have to defend our position at that point until we get air support. That lands a little bit too close to our position.

[00:33:01] But what I liked about this mission is we get to actually use some shotguns. You know, some double barrel shotguns and all that, which is cool. And also, this is a return to the flamethrower. It is the first time since World at War since we have used the flamethrower in a Call of Duty game. And it's just as good, if not better than that. Because one thing I always liked about World at War was when you would flamethrower snipers out of trees.

[00:33:29] You know, in those early World at War missions in the Japanese campaign where you would get the flamethrower and they're like, oh, aim it at the trees to burn the snipers out of it. And you would. And you're like, this is cool. I mean, there's no palm trees in Germany or France last time I checked. But, you know, you still get to use it here, which is cool. And then, yeah, occasionally you'll fight a flamethrower trooper here and there. And a little touch I like is if you shoot the tank behind them.

[00:33:58] That'll stop them quicker than if you just, you know, shoot them head on. But, yeah, again, a fairly solid standard mission, but I think it's done pretty well. Yeah, I liked this mission and I definitely like using flamethrowers. So who doesn't, right? Yeah, I know, right? No, I thought it was nice that it wasn't just like a straightforward mission like the D-Day mission or whatever.

[00:34:23] It was a little bit more detailed and more realistic in terms of something a little bit different. Yeah, yeah. And definitely at this point the main tension between like Turner and Pearson is really starting to come into play. Like you can tell they have sort of different philosophies on how things should be done, but that will come to a head much later, but we'll get there. So mission four is called SOE. I forget what SOE stands for.

[00:34:52] Sit on everything? No. Let's see. Sack of eggplants. No, no, no. Sony Online Entertainment? Nope. Is PSN still down? So for this one, we have to capture an armored train that is heading towards Paris, which is carrying a bunch of V-2 rockets so that it can get in range. Because the V-2 rockets, they say, have a range of about like 200 miles.

[00:35:19] So they're trying to get within 200 miles so they can use them to blow up Paris. We can't allow that, of course, can we? But we are joined by a couple of British officers for this mission, which is pretty cool. And at first we have to be sort of sneaky. They're like, hey, we need to be quiet and try to get to the post office, which is going to be the next train stop. And this is the first time in the game, not the last time, where it attempts some sort of stealth gameplay in there.

[00:35:50] Like the German soldiers, they will get a little like iron cross above their head if they kind of spot you and it'll go up and down. I feel like this was a real bad way to introduce the stealth because, at least in my experience, it was so easy to get caught. Like there would just be certain moments where if I just like peeked around the corner, one guy would just see me immediately and be like, who the fuck is that guy? And then he'd just run over to you and be like, god damn it.

[00:36:17] And I was trying to be as stealthy as I could, right? So I would load the checkpoint a couple times until I learned the patterns and kind of got through it. But yeah, how did you feel about the stealth? I did not like this mission at all, but I'm definitely not a stealth guy. But I don't know. It just didn't feel that right in this game, to be honest. I like that they tried to mix it up a little bit. But yeah, I'm just not a stealth guy. I did not like this mission. I'm not good at it at all.

[00:36:47] That's fair. I do think the stealth is done better later, or at least when there's like a little bit more of espionage tied to it. But yeah, I think this is like the worst version of it. Trying to be all sneaky and try to get through the German encampment. But it does not last long. Because when you get to the building right before the post office, the other British forces who were on the other side,

[00:37:14] they basically just shoot a Nazi right in front of you and say, oh, we're fucked. We got to go. And they just immediately were like, okay, fuck that. We're just going to start going nuts. And then I think this is the first mission where they sick the dogs on you, which would appear kind of here and there throughout the game. You would get the German dogs and all that, which is very much a callback to earlier Call of Duty games, where that would be sort of like a kill streak perk in the multiplayer.

[00:37:41] And then some of the games would use them throughout the story. And like I remember specifically, I think it was in Call of Duty, it was either Modern Warfare 1 or 2, where the dogs would jump on you and you'd have to push the right stick at the right time so that they wouldn't rip your throat out. But it was so like precise of a thing. Like if you mashed it too early, it wouldn't count it. And if I was like a half second late, they would just kill me. Sounds like the second one, I'm pretty sure. Okay. I've played so many of these, they're all starting to bleed together.

[00:38:11] Anyway. I think it was too. Okay. Yeah. But I remember that and being annoyed by it. Yeah. But anyways, you assault the post office to try to catch up to the train, but the train just zooms right past. But we're able to get into a Jeep and then we're behind the wheel of a Jeep racing this train to try to catch it. And yeah, this is not the last time we'll be behind the wheel of a vehicle driving. And I mean, the Jeep stuff, it's fairly standard.

[00:38:41] There's nothing crazy about it. In some ways, it feels like a playable cut scene because there's not a lot of obstacles in your way. And even if they do get in the way, it feels like the game is trying to force them past you so you can get to it. Trying not to break the flow of the scene.

[00:38:58] But instead of stopping the train, this part I thought was actually kind of neat, was you end up destroying the train by somehow, you somehow hook the Jeep under the train, which causes it to derail and just launch itself into the fucking air. And just like crash and just cause this crazy fucking explosion. It was really cool.

[00:39:23] But it was like, how did you not die or even like sustain any injury? It's crazy. I don't think it was very realistic, but it was fun to watch. Oh, no. Not at all. But it was fucking cool. Very Fast and Furious kind of style. Yeah, for sure. Sure. But we are saved by somebody named Russo. She's a member of the French Resistance because, of course, we had to have the French Resistance in here at some point.

[00:39:50] And then she escorts you and Zussman, who are in the Jeep, back to your squad. You know, shooting them through the way because you lose your guns. So you have to get some new guns, that kind of thing. And then, you know, you get back to them. You know, there's a lot of like, what the fuck, man? Why did we do this? And they're like, well, every German outpost has hurt us, so we might be screwed now. But that's how they end, where it's like, well, we got to keep going. But, you know, we might have the whole German army sicked on us at this point.

[00:40:21] But we move into the next mission, Mission 5, which is called Liberation, which is us, you know, liberating Paris. Yes. So this part, so Liberation is basically a mission in two halves. So the first half is you're playing as Russo, going undercover as a German, not necessarily an officer, but just as like a German. Like, your name is Greta Schneider, and you like, you have your papers and everything,

[00:40:50] and you have like the British officer who's with you as well, pretending to be a German to sort of sneak in. And it's like this big German fortress that's in the middle of Paris, right? And basically you're just trying to plant bombs on the North and South Gates in order, you know, for the entrances to explode so that the Americans can rush in and take over everything pretty much.

[00:41:15] But this first part where you're kind of roaming around this whole area as Russo pretending to be German, it is a move that is very reminiscent of the original Medal of Honor. Have you played the original Medal of Honor? No. Okay. So that game had quite a few moments where your character was disguised as a German officer, and you would be roaming around like behind enemy lines with your papers to try to like, you know,

[00:41:41] find intel or, you know, sneakily assassinate an officer or something like that. And you'd get to certain checkpoints in Medal of Honor and they'd be like, can I see your papers? You know, and then you'd have to push the button and your character would just flip them up, you know, like an officer flashing his badge or something. And they're like, okay, you're good, you know. But this game takes it a step further, which I actually really liked where when you look down at your papers, it has like your name, like who you're there for.

[00:42:10] Like it has a lot more details on your character. And when you're at certain points, like checkpoints, someone will ask you like, hey, why are you here? You know, they'll ask you questions relating to it to try to stump you, you know, because they, I don't know, maybe they suspect you're a little weird or whatever. But if you read everything and can remember it, you can bypass it right through. I did fail because sometimes I would forget to look and I would just reload the checkpoint.

[00:42:38] But it was still really cool that they did that, you know. And yeah, what did you think of this whole section? Yeah, that felt fun because I didn't know the history behind the Medal of Honor games or whatever. But I felt like this was kind of cool. My memory is not very good. So I definitely failed a couple times as well. That's okay. But again, I do like little scenes like this that make it a little bit more role play and, you know, more feel like a game, but also you're there. So I like this one actually.

[00:43:06] Yeah, I quite enjoyed it as well because you can, you know, just kind of because you're looking for, I forget his name, but you're looking for a specific officer as well because he snuck in the explosives in a briefcase and the idea is you're going to make the swap of the briefcase with him because you can't get your briefcase through like a security checkpoint. That's sort of the idea. You're, oh yeah, Fisher is your contact disguised as an officer.

[00:43:33] So, you know, you're, you're wandering through trying to find, you know, like, hey, where is he? Where is he? And some people are like, oh, he's down in the basement playing cards, but you're not allowed down there. Women aren't allowed in the basement or some shit. But you sneak your way down there and then they're like, oh no, he's upstairs. And it's like, oh, they're going to make me explore this entire fucking thing, aren't they? Okay. But you're able to get through the whole thing. You find Fisher and then you kind of like go off into like a, like a room and they're like, hey, you know, things are kind of iffy. So let's try to make this quick or whatever.

[00:44:03] You sneak into the office of Heinrich, I believe is his name, a German officer who has a history with Russo. And there's a really tense scene in that, in his office where you're in his office and you're trying to like sneak out the window, but he comes in and confronts you. And there's this whole, you can tell like he knows, like he knows something is up and there's, you know, that confrontation, but which, which turns into a skirmish as you, as you, as you could say.

[00:44:34] And then Russo ends up like stabbing him a bunch of times being like, this is for my son, you fuck, you know, just stabs him with like a, it was like a water pitcher or something, you know? And then you, and then you hop out the window and everyone's like, what's, what's going on? And, and you catch up to Fisher and he's like, oh, you know, the whole thing's on alert now. We need to get this fucking done. And somehow you're able to sneak out of that part into the courtyard where you need to start planning the explosives.

[00:45:01] And this is where the game, it wants you to be stealthy, but you can kind of give up the stealth at that point, which I kind of did. Cause, um, when you go into one room, you'll see Fisher, you know, like a Nazi is basically about to shoot him and that gives you the option to save him or not. Even though Russo says it's too risky, but I said, fuck it, I'm doing it anyway. And he's like, yeah, I'll join you. And then you just start blowing shit up immediately. Um, and, and so, yeah, you plant, when you plant the bomb on both sides of the gate, it

[00:45:31] then cuts back to Daniels and crew. Uh, basically they're just waiting for the explosion. The explosion happens. And then that's when we rush in to fight and take over the fortress and, you know, liberate Paris basically. Um, that part of it, you know, it's fairly quick. It's another moment where you sneak up to a higher vantage point and use a sniper rifle to sort of take out some Germans to kind of keep this bridge.

[00:45:55] But, um, a panzer Shrek guy comes in and, and shoots your vantage point and you fall out. And then I think this is the first, maybe, but it's definitely not the last moment in the game where Daniels is very like, you know, the, his vision is stunned and you can tell he's like in a daze and he has like a pistol and he's just like lazily shooting people or whatever, you know? And the game does that a bunch of times.

[00:46:21] And I'm not quite sure what they're trying, if they're trying to say something with that or not, you know, as maybe it's like, like, oh, this guy's probably not going to going to have mass fucking PTSD when he's done with this, but they never really touch on that in any sort of significant way. But, um, or that could also just be a reference to the earlier CODs where there would be moments where you'd get caught in an explosion and you would just sort of be in a daze for a moment until you kind of shook it off and got back in.

[00:46:51] Um, but, but we can talk about a little more deeply as we get more into the story. Um, but yeah, but we're able to hold off the Germans and then Paris starts celebrating with fireworks in the sky. You know, it's been liberated from the Nazis. So, you know, truly a major victory in the war at this time. What would you think of the second half of this? I thought it was good. Um, I don't know. I don't have too many problems with the rest of the game, to be honest.

[00:47:21] Um, I thought this was just good fun, you know? It's a good way to describe it. Good fun. Yeah. So it felt normal. Nothing, nothing jumped out or nothing annoyed me. So that's good. Right. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. So yeah. So now we're in mission six called a collateral damage. So yeah, but yeah, we are now in Germany. Uh, I'm going to over-emphasize. I'm going to over-emphasize it. Achin. Um, and this is very much the longest mission of the game so far. It felt like this one went on forever.

[00:47:51] I don't know about you. Um, so we start out, we're trapped within the city square. Um, you know, there's like that sort of, like that Greek column building with Nazi flags hanging or whatever. And, um, they're like, Daniels, get to the phone to call for some, you know, tank support. And then you call for the tank support. And then it zooms out to just like an old-timey map. And then you zoom back in into the tank portion of the mission. So the tank missions are back.

[00:48:19] This is the first tank mission in a very long time. Um, and from here we're in a first-person viewpoint. We are controlling Staff Sergeant Augustine Perez. Um, and so the main bit of this section is us playing cat and mouse with a few panzers and, uh, a tiger tank. So you get into this kind of like a mazy section. Because at first you're just kind of rolling through your machine gun just kind of auto locks on the Germans, which is cool. And then you have your main, you know, tank shell and everybody's talking or whatever.

[00:48:49] And then you get to this kind of mazy bit. And then there's like, oh, there's a panzer roaming around. And you have to sort of maneuver your way using the few, um, like blocks, like, like parts of buildings that are still secure. Kind of using those to sort of disguise your movement to get to either the sides or behind the panzer in order to actually do some damage. So, and you play cat and mouse with him for a little bit. And I thought it was fine. Right? And then at the end you're like, okay, let's get out of here. And then you're getting out.

[00:49:18] And then a tiger tank comes out the shit. And they're like, oh, a tiger, a tiger tank. Shit. And then you run away and they're like, oh, there's another panzer too. And I'm like, son of a bitch. And then this part took me forever. Yes. Like this specific part. Like the one panzer was fine. But having to deal with like the two of them. And I would just like circle around it so much and be like, where the fuck are these guys? And I would try to make cuts. And then I would turn a corner and he's like right there. And I'm like, shit.

[00:49:48] And it's really where the controls of the tank section really hurt this part. Because like turning around or trying to have consistent movement I found to be very challenging. And yeah, and I died on this section like six or seven times until I eventually got it. Because I think the first time I took out the tiger like right away. And then I was trying to find the panzer and I couldn't.

[00:50:16] And I got stuck into a spot where I was trying to move to make a turn. But he was locked onto me and just kept shooting me until I died. But eventually I got lucky and took them both out. I described it as very 3D combat for Atari 2600. It can be annoying at points. What did you think about this part? Yeah, so I didn't mind the tanks overall. Because I thought in the beginning, like you said, it was pretty straightforward. The one tank, fine.

[00:50:46] But yeah, the two part at the end. I just played this yesterday. I was actually trying to. There's an achievement or trophy to do this whole mission without taking more than like 20% damage. And it's very difficult. It's very, very difficult. Because you can do it super easily until you get to that last scene. And I agree. It's like the tank controls. Obviously, you're controlling a tank, right? It shouldn't be that easy to move it around.

[00:51:15] But yeah, I actually learned yesterday that when that second tank spawns, it can actually spawn like right behind you. So I think it actually has multiple spawn points. So that makes it more annoying too. But overall, I mean, it could have been worse. But it was not ideal. I think it is a little bit challenging. I don't know what they were thinking there. But yeah. I mean, again, I liked being in a tank again.

[00:51:41] Because I think the earlier tank sections, Call of Duty games, are always really cool. And they were, again, a way of sort of breaking up the standard boots on the ground. Absolutely. Like giving you something a little bit different. Yeah. And what I found with that section is when the tiger appears, if you try to shoot him right away, it won't register that hit on the side. If you give it about like a second, you know, for him to like fully get out of the wall and the dust to start to clear, you can get a free hit and then back the fuck out. And that's what I would do.

[00:52:11] And then like I would back up directly behind me and then make the first right. And then just sort of like cut through the whole section to like the back corner. And then that's when I actually had a bit of advantage to where they didn't really know where I was and I could sort of scour the perimeter. So I had to be, trust me, I did a lot of R&D on this to see what was the right way of doing things. But yeah, I did eventually figure it out. But you eventually catch up to Daniels and Company.

[00:52:40] And so you save them all. Then you're back to Daniels. And then they're going into, you're going to capture this hotel in the city, which is where all the Nazis are holding out. So you fight your way through the hotel. You get into the basement. And then when you're in the basement, there's all these like sort of like doors. And it's just, it's like, it's almost like storage for a bunch of random shit down there. But you find a group of hiding civilians. And you meet two of them named Erica and Anna.

[00:53:09] Now, I don't think they're necessarily Jewish people. It doesn't explicitly state that, at least not from what I remember. If anything, they might have just been, you know, innocent civilians just kind of, you know, caught in this war of which there were millions of. But they're, you know, trying to hide out from everybody. And I guess trying to be quiet in the basement so that, you know, the Nazis wouldn't catch them. How they got so lucky, I don't know. But that doesn't matter, right?

[00:53:41] And then that's when Daniels and Turner are like, fuck, we got to get these people out of here. Like, they can't stay down here. And then Pearson's like, no, fuck you. We need to stay on mission. Like, screw these people. We're getting out. And they're like, no, fuck you, dude. We got to get them out. Like, it's a whole argument between them. And it sort of relates to the Kasserine Pass, which was like a whole mission that Pearson was in charge of. And definitely fucked with him. But I'll talk about that in detail later.

[00:54:08] But you can tell there's some fighting, but eventually they say, okay, fuck it. Let's get these people out of here. So you're able to, you steal a German truck so that you can, you know, escort these people safely out without them being harmed or anything. And as you're getting everybody in, you realize that Anna, who is a young child, she can't be any older than like six years old, I think. She's gone missing. And everyone's like, shit, where the fuck did she go? And I believe she's Erica's younger sister.

[00:54:38] So Daniels runs down there alone with like no gun or anything. You just run down there to try to save her because it's very frantic, right? And then you find her hiding in one of the basement closets because she ran back in because she was scared and everything. And, you know, and you're trying to like convince her that everything's going to be okay and all that. But as you're trying to, you know, reason with her, the Germans return. And so once again, you got to sneak through this whole situation.

[00:55:06] But I thought this sneaking section was a lot better, a lot more well done. Like the tension is very much there because you don't have a gun or any way to defend yourself. You're literally carrying this child in your arms and you can see her like there clutching her teddy bear with as much strength as she can muster. And you know that if you're caught, you're fucked. So I think it handles this part a lot better.

[00:55:29] I think the sort of map design in the stealth section is really good because you can find certain spots to hide for a second and then kind of peek out. So I did fail it once. And that was when you get to the door at the very end, when you see some more Germans coming in. I was just kind of like hiding off like right next to the door. I wasn't in a good spot because they saw me like basically right away and I kind of got fucked.

[00:55:54] But what I found the second time I did it was, oh, there's like a hiding spot like five feet behind me. So I went in there and then I was good to go. So what did you think of this section? I thought it was a little bit better than the earlier section. Like I said, I still don't like stealth sections, but I didn't really have a problem with this one specifically. It felt on theme and it felt more suitable to the stealth mission. Yeah, I would agree.

[00:56:22] So you're able to carry her out and then when you get there, you're starting to load everybody into the truck. But, you know, more Germans are coming to try to reclaim the city. And, you know, you're trying to defend them and everything and trying to load it up. But unfortunately in this whole situation after. But but despite all of this, Erica, the older the older woman in this, she ends up getting shot through the heart as as they're closing up the truck.

[00:56:48] And then the mission ends and it affects everybody. Yeah, it really hits everybody because, you know, they thought they had succeeded in saving everybody, but they didn't. You know, this one woman, unfortunately, was she's added to the toll of casualties in World War Two, of which there were a lot. So from that, we have to keep moving. So we move into mission number seven called Death Factory. What a great name. Yeah, great. So what's going to happen there? Sorry.

[00:57:19] Exactly. So now we are moving deeper into Germany, this time into the city of Hurtgen. Hurtgen. I'm trying to do German and it's not really working. Anyway, we start off reading a letter from we're in we're in camp with everybody and Daniels is reading a letter from his girlfriend who I believe is named Hazel finding out that she's pregnant. And of course, in the back of my head thinking, is it his kid? Is it his kid? They don't go. They don't go that route. It's not that kind of game.

[00:57:49] No, because in the letter, she talks about how when she saw him last before he shipped out, she was already pregnant. But she didn't want to tell him that fearing the burden would be too much on him within the war. So why the fuck are you telling him now? But be that as it may, you know, everybody in the squad is excited for you and be like, you know, hey, you got something to live for, dude. You're dead. You know, basically saying, like, you have a reason to get out of this fucking shithole. Right. And everybody's, you know, celebrating all that.

[00:58:17] But we get forced into taking Hill 493. That becomes our next mission. As they're implying that if Hill 493 is taken, you'll have control over the entire valley because it's the tallest hill in this section, which actually is a reference to there's a mission in Call of Duty 2. That's similar about taking over a hill. Hill 400 in the American campaign where you have to.

[00:58:46] It's the same type of mission where it's like, you know, if you clear this, you know, real tall hill that's overlooking the village and the valley, then you'll have complete control over it. Right. So that's the idea. And you first start out defending the bridge that goes into the hill that keeps switching between American and German control. They talk about, like, you know, keep swapping. But this time, you know, we have and we got to hold on to it.

[00:59:09] And then after the skirmish, you're able to control the bridge and move forward right past it. But as you do, it's a trap as German artillery just shells everybody. You're able to survive, but you're in a real bad way. You know, everything's like a bunch of people die. Everything's real fucked up. I mean, you grabs I think it's Briggs. You grab his pistol. And while you're, you know, while your day is trying to just sort of, you know, roam your way through.

[00:59:39] But in this confusion, you get a vision of Daniel's older brother, Paul, who you had a flashback scene with earlier where when like Daniels was much younger. He was probably like in his teen, like 12, 13, maybe 14 or whatever. He's out hunting in the wilderness of Texas because that's where he's from with his older brother, Paul.

[01:00:04] And there's a point where Paul gets he's getting mauled by a wolf and he's yelling at you to like take the shot. Right. You know, to save him. And Daniels can't do it. Like he's just, you know, scared and, you know, struggling to do it as most people would. You know, most people would struggle with the idea of shooting a gun. Right. But in this scene, Paul is able to, you know, he's able to survive, you know, shoot the wolf.

[01:00:32] And then, you know, he berates you for not being able to save him. Right. And that has stuck with Daniels throughout the rest of his life, basically. And it does come into play a little bit later in the game. But you have this vision where, you know, your brother's like, hey, you need to survive this so we can go back hunting, you know. And you're shouting, Paul, Paul, you know. So but anyways, you are trying to sneak through the squad with your pistol, but no avail.

[01:01:01] They catch you immediately. There's no stealth in this bullshit. Right. So you end up shooting them, killing some of them to take their equipment. One guy has a flamethrower. So I immediately beeline to him because I want to use that to burn up everybody, which I did. And you're fighting around the dragon teeth. So the dragon teeth were stuff that actually the Nazis did put all throughout like France and Germany.

[01:01:25] It was these little stone pillars that are shaped in a way that look like a row of teeth as a way to prevent like vehicles and all that from from from punching through. So basically, it's just the soldiers have to bob and weave through it. And actually, it's the final mission of Big Red One, the dragon's teeth, if anybody remembers that. But anyways, you meet up with Turner, who has somehow survived this mission or somehow survived the explosion. He's got that plot armor, everybody. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[01:01:54] He has survived. And the two of you continue fighting until you meet up with some more of the soldiers who somehow was able to survive the blast. So it's basically all the important characters survived the blast. Everybody else, you're gone. But you you meet up with everybody and then you're in this like small little like there's like a farm and a mill.

[01:02:15] And, you know, and you're just basically taking it over from the Nazis so that you can sort of have a place where you can just sort of regroup, catch your breath so that you can actually get back to taking Hill 493. And all while you're doing this, everyone's like, hey, where's Pearson? You know, and Turner's like, oh, no, he'd wait for us. You know, we're not he's not going to go up the hill without us. He's going to wait. Right.

[01:02:40] He keeps trying to like Turner's trying to be the noble guy thinking Pearson's going to wait for us. You know, and everyone's like, I don't know about that. But that's sort of a running thing through this mission. But yeah, but you're able to hold out. Oh, and there's also this bit I like before that where you and Turner are playing chicken with the sniper. Like you're roaming through and then, you know, it's like sniper, get down. And then you have to sort of crawl your way through to avoid the sniper so you can get around and take him out. That part I always like.

[01:03:09] I always like in these games where where you're kind of like dueling with a sniper in a way. Like if you remember in World at War, when you're with. Oh, it's when you're in the Russian campaign with. It's Reznov. That's right. Victor Reznov. So like at the start of World at War, when Reznov is sort of trying to guide you through the bloodbath of Stalingrad.

[01:03:34] And then and then you're in the building with the sniper rifle and there's the German sniper across the way. And Reznov's like, you have to take him out before we proceed. Right. And it's kind of infamously a challenging bit, especially if you play the game on veteran. Because that dude, the bullet. Oh, he has like the JFK bullet. Like it'll just magically find you in one shot. It's kind of nuts. But it reminded me of that a little bit, but not nearly as good.

[01:03:59] And of course, you have enemies popping out of like blind corners because you're in some like, you know, underground bunkers and everything. And yeah, it's it's a I think it's a pretty solid mission. What do you think? I liked it. I like I don't know. Like I like most of the missions in this game. And I had fun with this one. Yeah. Sounds good to me. And then we'll continue into it's again another part two ish called Hill 493.

[01:04:28] The second half that sees us finally assaulting the hill for real. Turner keeps thinking that Pearson is waiting for them until we get a radio call and that they're moving ahead anyway without him. And Turner gets fucking pissed. But you're able to catch up to him. And there's, you know, much more tension between Turner and Pearson, which has been there the whole time because their approach to, I guess, commanding the squad is a lot different.

[01:04:54] But nevertheless, you attempt to assault this hill with all of your might, but to no avail. There's a part I really like where you have to sort of guide the engineer up to like the pillbox where he has this thing that I had never seen before. It's like this this giant like block of like an explosive carried on like by a big stick. It looks like a comical hammer. And he'll go and like hide in certain cover spots. And he's like, let me know when I'm good. And you have to lay some suppressing fire for him to keep moving.

[01:05:24] And it must be a scripted thing because I got I got right to the end. Right. Like there's like one more spot for him to go. And he gets shot immediately. And they're like, and they're like, Daniels, you got to do it. And then you grab the thing and do the thing that did that happen to you as well? Yeah, I think it's scripted. OK, I wanted to be sure about that. So, yeah, you use that to blow it up. And then you go through that. And there are some, you know, trenches with guns and everything. And you're fighting everybody, taking care of everybody.

[01:05:54] Oh, yeah. This is the point where I got the shotgun with the incendiary ammo, because I think at this point you're getting I think it's like the toggle action shotgun. And some of some of the Germans that have them are using incendiary ammo. And I was able to kill one of them and take it. And then so I was, you know, like literally shooting fire bullets at everybody, which was fun. But as you're doing this, a tiger tank comes out of nowhere.

[01:06:22] And they're like, use the thermite grenades to blow it up because you're destroying their AA guns by shoving thermite grenades into their artillery guns and destroying them that way. In fact, I was actually kind of surprised that a point in this mission wasn't having you get on one of the the AA guns and aiming it at the tank to blow it up. Because I believe in Call of Duty 2, you do that.

[01:06:48] There's a moment where you're getting assaulted by some tanks and they yell at you to get on the AA gun. You do and point it at the tank directly and blow them up, which they did not do, which I was surprised at because you don't take out all the AA guns in this section. There is one you miss. So maybe they just weren't thinking about it, but I was thinking about it. So you sneak up behind the tiger tank to throw one thermite grenade at it. It doesn't work, but it creates like a bit of a hole.

[01:07:15] And then you go back to throw another one in there and then that actually like takes it down. But as that happens, there's like a massive German reinforcement that comes in. There's this kind of slick looking dude that comes out of the tank. Like he's wearing like the trench coat. He's got a bald head and a pistol. And you get into a bit of a tussle with him. And let's see. Yeah. And as you're trying to do that, Turner comes in and he ends up dying in the process.

[01:07:45] So we do have our first major death in this game where he gets shot as you guys are trying to retreat because Pearson doesn't want to retreat. But Turner's like, no, you got to get the fuck out of here. And I'm done. So go. I'll cover you. And this is like one of the few like actual cinematic cut scenes where you cut away from Daniel's perspective and see everything that's going on. So it's a it's a it's a pretty big moment. So and then and so the mission ends with the aftermath.

[01:08:12] You're in this like weird darkened room, you know. I don't know. Maybe it's the room that the fairy and shining force is reading the book. Anyway, I'll see if anybody gets that reference. But you're in that section and you're trying to give Pearson Turner's revolver, which you were using to try to help turn her out. But Pearson gets fucking pissed at you and is like, how fucking dare you do that to me? You fucking piece of shit like he's all been out of shape about it. But in that process, he makes you the second in command.

[01:08:44] He's like, and if you fuck up, I'll fucking kill you. Pretty much. He's getting very intense. I'll probably put a clip in of it here. Sir, I thought you might like this. You thought wrong. You see, we're in a whole new world, Daniels. My world.

[01:09:11] And you can bet your ass that I will not shrink or waver for my responsibilities in any way. So I'm making you my second. And you will support me 1000%. And you'll make damn certain that all those men do the same. Anything less I will consider dereliction. Now get out of my sight.

[01:09:45] And yeah, this part, it really feels like they're trying to play the villainous angle with Pearson. What did you think? I mean, as bad as it sounds, I was happy that there's finally a casualty in the game. Because, I don't know, ever since the first mission, like the D-Day mission, and you see how much carnage there is. And the fact that all your squad mates and everybody just happens to survive. And you touched on that later.

[01:10:12] You need some casualties. You need some risk associated with the story to make it hit harder. So I like that part, as weird as that sounds. But yeah, I mean, the tension between Pearson is really starting to get to kind of an unbearable point. Where it just, it felt so weird playing through the game, honestly, at this point. For sure, for sure. Yeah.

[01:10:38] And I think why the game took this late to get to this point was they wanted you to sort of build up any sort of like actual attachment with these characters. And make you kind of feel something for them. Because there's been quite a few games, the last couple games, have really failed at tugging at the emotional strings. Where they're trying to have you care for these characters before they die. And it's like, I don't give a shit. I don't really know who this person is. And it doesn't hit.

[01:11:05] So we're moving into Mission 9, which is Battle of the Bulge. Of course, a very famous battle that took place on Christmas Day in 1944. And this is only the second time Call of Duty has covered this battle. In fact, thinking about it, like how many World War II games covered the Battle of the Bulge? It wasn't that many that I can think of. I can't think of any. So that's, there you go.

[01:11:33] The expansion to Call of Duty 1 called United Offensive, its first mission was the Battle of the Bulge. Like it kind of sold the expansion on that moment right at the beginning. And I think it was done fairly well for 2004. 2004. But yeah, but this does a much better job with it, obviously. We have a cut scene where we're, you know, everybody's celebrating Christmas. You know, Pearson's drinking too much and being a bit of a shithead. But you know, everybody's trying to celebrate Christmas as much as they can.

[01:12:01] And you even meet a new character named Howard, who the team act weird about when he first shows up. Why do you think they act so weird when he shows up, Schnickerman? Could you tell me why? I'm not going to tell you why. You tell the audience why. Well, if you can't get the hint, audience, he's a little darker skinned than all the other guys. So, of course, they had to go there.

[01:12:30] Well, they don't fully go there. Thank God. But, you know, they act all weird because a black guy shows up and he's like an NCO who you find out a little bit later that he was an NCO who sort of gave up his rank in order to, you know, be with the front line and everything. Right. But he's also a very like he's the radio operator engineer kind of guy. And they clearly need somebody like that in the squad. So, you know, they all kind of.

[01:12:58] They'll just kind of reluctantly accept him for better or for worse, though they do grow to like him later, though. It feels like that's just sort of a cop out kind of thing. But it wasn't great. Yeah. But be that as it may, you know, he's saying like, hey, we need to get the radio stuff all handled and everything. But a convoy shows up with ammo and even dry boots, which everyone's like, thank fucking God, because you're freezing your ass off and Christmas in the middle of. Yeah.

[01:13:26] The art the Ardans, which I believe is. Yeah. Like a like thick forest, rough terrain, rolling hills through Belgium and Luxembourg, extending into Germany and France, that kind of thing. But yeah. But they're like, oh, you know, we all the stuff. And it's like, great. But that's when the ambush happens. You know, everybody falls back and tries to defend themselves. And they're like, we need to call the radio for air support. And then they're like, the fucking radio is in the in the shack right up there.

[01:13:56] They're like, God damn it. So, you know, you sort of, you know, run your way there in order to call the air support and you're able to do that. And then we switch once again. And we are now in the skies in a plane as a second lieutenant, Matthew Weber, who is piloting a P-47 Thunderbolt guarding some B-17 bombers who are on route to Germany to get much closer to the Rhine. But that's when you get the call to deviate, to be like, hey, when you get to this point, you need to split off to provide air support.

[01:14:26] But that's when you get ambushed by a bunch of German Luftwaffels. That's what we used to call them. Luftwaffels. And then, yeah, we get some air combat in this game. It's certainly not ace combat. I can say that much. I don't know about you. Adequate. I was going to be harsher. I didn't really like it at all. I thought it was kind of bad. I don't play too many flying games, but I thought it was OK. It did the job.

[01:14:56] I mean, yeah, it's perfectly fine. It feels really slow when you get up there because they're like, oh, you know, mess with your controls to get it just right. And then and it's funny. They don't invert your up and down right away. You know, they have it like normal. And they're like, do you want to invert it? I'm like, it's a flying game. Yes. Invert my up and down, please. Because that's just how it works in real life. But and so, yeah, you get into some dogfights with these.

[01:15:26] With all the Luftwaffels. Luftwaffels. Yeah. You know, you're shooting them with your syrup guns. But but like you're trying to protect the bombers, but like they just keep shooting them down and there's no like real harsh punishment for losing any of the bombers or whatever. But I guess that wasn't the point of it. The point is just to take out enough of the of the Luftwaffels so you can keep moving. And yeah. And again, I didn't think it controlled very well. It felt like the camera is too close to your plane because it's all third person.

[01:15:56] And thank God they didn't first person it. And like, I don't know, the plane felt too heavy to control at certain points. And and they tried to make up for it with if you get close enough to one of the planes, you can kind of lock on and do like kind of a shaky dynamic. Like, you know, you're locked behind them trying to shoot them down. But I don't know. It just it just didn't really work for me.

[01:16:18] Maybe it's because the last game had a lot of sections where you were piloting like this futuristic hover jet through space, getting into like dog fights and blowing up like, you know, ships in a very Star Wars Battlefront way. And it was great. Like it was genuinely fantastic that this one just feels like a massive downgrade for me personally. But thankfully, it doesn't last super long. You only have to go through, I think, like two waves of them before you're able to deviate off.

[01:16:46] But the snake, do you have any more to say out of average? No, I mean, it definitely wasn't my favorite mission, but I think it was adequate. Again, I like I like some variety in a game like this. So I think it was nice to just, you know, take to the skies for a little bit and mess around. But yeah, a little bit sluggish on the controls, but otherwise solid. For sure. For sure.

[01:17:10] And and I won't get too picky because, I mean, there are in in that era of World War Two shooters, there were quite a few World War Two flying. Games, if you remember, like Secret Weapons Over Normandy, Blazing Angels, the Battle Stations games, you know. So it's not like we're short of like World War Two fighter games, fighter plane games, if you want to play those. Anyways, we hold off the two waves before we return to Daniels and company as you are keep and you keep holding off the Hail Mary up until they arrive.

[01:17:39] The mission ends with you being successful and the team wondering if Pearson is trying to kill them. Similar to the events of the Kerosene Pass. Which I'll talk about here. So so at the Kerosene Pass, Pearson, he was ordered to retreat, but he refused due to some of the men being trapped at the pass. Pearson ordered his men to hold their ground until reinforcements arrived. But no one came, resulting in the slaughter of many of his men.

[01:18:05] And because of this action, he was given an Article 15 and a demotion to the rank of technical sergeant by Turner himself, which is probably where some of that tension comes in. And you can tell it's a really affected Pearson. Some people think he's, you know, a bit bloodthirsty or maybe a bit on a war path to enact maybe some revenge on what happened or, you know. Like like not like he's not like in the pocket of the Germans. That would have been stupid.

[01:18:30] But more of, you know, you can tell it's it's fucking with him. And people think maybe he's just trying to, you know, hurt more people along the way. Who knows? But we'll discuss that deeper. But we're moving into mission number 10, which is called Ambush. So now we, you know, we're in Belgium still as we keep making our way to the Rhyme. We're escorting some POWs when one of them, POWs from the last mission. Because at a certain point, a bunch of the Germans surrender.

[01:18:59] So you take a lot of POWs. So you're in a cut scene. You're escorting them. One of them tries to ask for water. And Zussman is about to give him some water when Pearson's like, what the fuck are you doing? You know, don't feed these animals or whatever. But then he makes a break for it. Oh, I do like that they call just about every German Fritz. Did you notice that? Yeah, I don't. Did you look into what it means? The only thing I could guess is it might be like, like a derogatory term.

[01:19:28] You know, like how in the Pacific theater, the Americans would call the Japanese, I hate to say this, but they would call them Japs. Which was obviously a derogatory name for Japanese people. And I feel like Fritz was sort of an attempt at that. But it's like, because that's like an actual name. Like there are people named Fritz. So if there is history in it, I did not look into it. But that's my guess.

[01:19:57] So if it's right or wrong, look it up for yourself. Okay? I'm not your dad. But anyways, he makes a break for it, but you're able to catch up to him. And when you do, you find some intel on him that says the Germans are planning to blow up the last bridge in order to get to the Rhine. And so you see this as a way to set up. So then you find this out and you're like, oh, we need to intercept the trucks that are carrying the explosive to build up the bridge so we can stop that.

[01:20:24] So you set up an ambush on this road, I guess, in order to ambush the team of trucks. You're able to take care of them and steal one of their trucks in order to sneak into a German airbase. And you and Zussman go ahead on foot in order to find an overwatch to provide support for the rest of the platoon. Again, another sneaky part where, you know, you're trying to sneak through the airbase in order to provide, you know, sniper support for everybody.

[01:20:53] And I don't know about you, but I tried to do this stealthily a couple times. Couldn't do it. Nope. And at a certain point I said, fuck it. And got as far as I could and then just beeline for it. And then the game was like, yeah, that's fine. Anytime I can not stealth, I will do it. So, yeah, I pretty much did that too. Yeah, it's no Metal Gear Solid. I could say that much as far as the stealth goes.

[01:21:23] But, yeah, but. So, yeah, you are providing support for them. It seems to be working until a tank appears out of the hangar and blows you and Zussman out of the hangar.

[01:21:32] You have your vantage point.

[01:22:02] You know, as you're racing to try to chase him down. You're just like knocking your way through other German Jeeps trying to catch up to it or whatever. And it feels like you're about to. But there's a big crash that happens. But the truck is able to survive that and disappear off into sight. Pearson finds you and he's. I don't know if reading the riot act sounds too nice. But basically he's, you know, saying like I should, you know, I should murder you for desertion right here, right now or whatever.

[01:22:30] But as he's doing that, like he's ready to kill you for deserting a direct order. But the rest of the squad take you. They're able to catch up and then Pearson backs off. And then they take you to medical where you re where you re meet up with Colonel Davis, who we've seen earlier in the game. Colonel Davis, the best way I could describe him is he's sort of like like the commanding general of everybody, even though he's a colonel. But you get what I mean?

[01:22:55] Like he's sort of the old guy that he even references World War One, which I find interesting. He references because if I'm correct, they didn't call World War One World War One until after World War Two. Like I believe it was known colloquially as the Great War or was originally the war to end all wars, which I fucking wish. But it was known from what I've read. It was known as the Great War, not World War One.

[01:23:24] So the fact he's referencing is that a little bit of a slight, but again, will slip up, you know. As I had said at the start of this at the start of this whole show, I wasn't going to get too deep into that stuff because I'd be here all day and it's not really the whole fucking point. But anyways, there's just something I noticed. But yeah, you've seen him earlier in the game and he tries to be sort of the cooler head and help keep people, you know, you know, on track, basically.

[01:23:52] You try to explain to him about how Pearson doesn't care about the squad like the Castorine Pass and it's like, oh, he's trying to do that again and kill everybody. But Davis is like, that's not exactly what happened, pal. He says that basically what really happened was he went to save the men, but he lost more trying to save them and he's never been the same. So the idea was his orders were to get out, but he said, no, I need to stay and hold to rescue my guys, which he tried to do.

[01:24:21] But he ended up killing more of his men, getting more of his men killed than actually saving any of them. And he's clearly struggling with it. So, you know, he's like, hey, he does care about these people. It's just he's not doing so hot, OK? He's, you know, and then you're like, so I guess I'm by my going to get court-martialed or whatever. And Davis says, well, yeah, but because you did a fucking good thing. And they're like, what?

[01:24:47] And he explains that like, oh, because of that intel you found about, you know, them blowing up the last bridge on the Rhine and everything. We're using that intel so that we can find the actual bridge and get there to cross the Rhine, you know, in time before the bridge blows up. So he's like, actually, I'm going to honorably discharge you and maybe even give you a bronze star, you know, because you were so because you were so injured in that moment. They're going to send you back to the States.

[01:25:17] You know, he's like, hey, I'm going to honorably discharge you with a bronze star and everything like, you know, you're free. You've done your you've done your duty. But you can tell Daniels can't handle it because of what happened with Zussman. Like we get. I guess it's like a dream sequence or something where it cuts to two weeks later when, you know, you arrive home to reunite with your older brother, Paul, and your pregnant wife, Hazel. You know, she hugs you and it's like, I'm not letting you out of my sight anymore.

[01:25:44] And then you're hunting with Paul and you're chatting about stuff. And and Daniels is still he's still kind of out of it because he left his usman out there. You know, he's like, I don't know where he is and I need to, you know, be able to save him. And it's, you know, haunting him as everyone's telling him he's such a hero for what he did.

[01:26:03] But, you know, he's clearly struggling with that because we cut a little bit later and we find out that Zussman is he he is now in a prison labor camp because he got captured. Right. And there's a very dramatic scene with him, you know, in a lineup of prisoners and, you know, the Nazis asking them, like, you know, which are the Jews? You know, where were the real Jews in here?

[01:26:30] And, you know, and one of them gets shot because he doesn't talk about it. But then, you know, Zussman being Zussman, we found out earlier in the game he can speak German. So, you know, he's speaking German and being all sassy to him about it and everything. And he's even telling some of the other guys, like, hey, hide like hide your dog tags because otherwise they'll find out that we're Jewish and then we're fucked. Right. He's like, it'd be better to go into one of the non-Jewish labor camps in the concentration camp. I don't know how true that is.

[01:26:58] You know, I mean, you know, how much shit do you want? But nevertheless, he's able to somehow talk his way out of that, but does not get shot. And instead he gets pistol whipped and loaded on the train to, you know, whatever labor camp that he goes to. But then we cut back later as, you know, Daniels is holding the pendant that Zussman gave him. And he's like, I can't give up on him just yet.

[01:27:22] But and then we cut to the penultimate mission or technically the last mission called the Rhine, which is us, you know, crossing the bridge, the bridge at Remagaden, Remagin, whatever. Remagin. Which is the one that we found in order to get into Germany. So we meet up with Pearson and Pearson's like, what the fuck are you still here for? You know, he thought you'd be laying on a hospital bed. And then you get into basically a fistfight with him.

[01:27:50] And basically you tell him that, like, hey, I know what happened to Kasserine Pass. I know why, you know, it's not your fault, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And they they come to somewhat of an understanding, I think, you know, and and and. And and there's actually a pretty good moment where Daniels shows him his honorable discharge papers. He's like, I'm clear to go. Fuck this. I'm staying with you guys. Like you rip up the paper right in front of him.

[01:28:17] And Pearson earns respect for you in that moment, which I thought was kind of funny. But, you know, all that stuff happens. You earn each other's respect. And that next day you assault the bridge like Pearson adds you back to the squad despite being injured, but kind of keeps it all on the down low, which I'm sure did happen. Back then. And yeah, and you you assault the bridge. There's like the big towers at either end that you have to scale up to take out, you know, the machine gunners and everything as you're trying to cross the bridge.

[01:28:48] There are Stukas trying to to bomb the bridge, but somehow it's strong enough to hold. So it does, you know, hold its structure as you're able to cross to the other side. And then, you know, a bunch of tanks and extra reinforcements come in. You take a bunch of Germans hostage and you have officially crossed the Rhine because that was the whole big thing back then was crossing the Rhine River so that they could get into the heart of Germany, which they did. They didn't get there as fast as the Soviets did.

[01:29:16] But, you know, people don't like to talk about that for for reasons for reasons I won't get into. But, you know, the Soviets played a big part in defeating the Nazis as well. But anyways. But yeah, we clear the bridge and, you know, and we survive and the alive forces surrender. And now we're finally in Germany. So how did you feel about this final climactic battle? I thought it was pretty good. I like the build up to the end part.

[01:29:45] I thought it was a little bit. I don't know. I like that they add in the part of the main character, like being able to go home, but he wants to, you know, bear with it to rescue his friend and everything. But I don't know. I feel like it could have been a little bit more eventful, but they're, you know, they're basing it off a real event. And it wasn't as much cinematic as like a lot of other games, like finales are, I feel like, if that makes sense. But that's true. Yeah.

[01:30:12] It feels like this game has its cinematic moments, but it's only like in little moments. Right. And then other parts, it plays out more in a way you would, I guess, kind of expect a battle to play out, you know? Yeah. But again, I think it's all handled consistently. You know, the controls and the gameplay and the gunplay are all very well done. Yeah. For sure.

[01:30:34] And so we get into our final mission, I guess, but it's the epilogue, basically, where there's a cut scene where, you know, once the allied forces cross the Rhine, that's when they start finding all of the, you know, the concentration camps and labor camps. Though more of them, I think, were in Poland than anywhere else. But there were quite a few throughout Germany. And that's when you start liberating everyone.

[01:31:00] And Daniels talks about how he's like, the horrors that I've seen here are things I wish I would never see again. And, you know, which is very true. Like the accounts of allied soldiers who were liberating Jews from concentration camps or even POWs from labor camps were just completely stunned by the conditions that these people were living under. Which has been very well documented. So I don't need to go into detail about that, I don't think.

[01:31:28] But we arrive at the last camp, hoping to find Zussman still alive. Because that's what Daniels is just desperately searching for, trying to see if he can find Zussman who's still out there. And then you, and as you're kind of roaming around through this labor camp, you can actually control it this time. You know, you're going through certain barracks and you just see, you know, the, like, Stiles is taking pictures of everything. Of just like, you know, the three-story bunk beds that people were in.

[01:31:56] And you can see people etching tally marks into the sides of their beds for each day that's going by. Just praying for this to be over. But the whole thing is deserted when you get to this camp. Like, there's nobody in sight. There's bonfires everywhere where the Germans trying to escape this camp with whoever, with ever prisoners are still alive. But also trying to burn everything so that there's no evidence of what they did as far as documentation is concerned. Crazy.

[01:32:25] And as you're, yeah, and as you're going through, you see, like, you know, you see dead people just kind of hanging from, like, poles, like, made examples of. Like, they're tied up and just shot and just left there to rot. And you could almost imagine the smells as you're sort of walking through this. And I do commend Sledgehammer for actually having this scene. Because pretty much every World War II shooter before this did not do this.

[01:32:54] There was no scene where you're going through a concentration camp or going through a labor camp liberating everybody and seeing these horrors. Like, no other game bothered to tackle that. Maybe because it was too real. Maybe it was because they couldn't accurately document it. Maybe they got cold feet and were worried about showing something like that. You know, reasons I could understand why. Like, that's tough to do. But, you know, Sledgehammer talked about how they didn't want to brush this to the side.

[01:33:24] They wanted to show this because it was just a part of the war as everything else, right? Yeah, you don't want to show just his heroic victory. Show some realism that it's not like didn't come at zero cost and all that stuff. It was good. I think it was pretty touching and hard to kind of experience that last part. Exactly, yes. But it was done so well. Like, just like dead silence and everything. But as you're going through, you do find, like, you know, where they hung people.

[01:33:52] You find, like, just, like, body bags everywhere pretty much. But then you find at the back of the prison, the back gate is open and you see footsteps that appear fresh. And so you race out into the woods just praying to God that one of the alive prisoners is Zussman.

[01:34:11] And they even interlace it with what happened with Daniels and Paul when he was younger, where despite being a—despite Paul being able to get the wolf off of him, as they're walking back, Paul just can't take his injuries and he just collapses dead in the middle of the winter woods, basically.

[01:34:36] And that's why it's haunted Daniels ever since, because he couldn't save his older brother when he needed to the most. And Daniels doesn't want to do that again with Zussman, the one guy he, like, truly cares about in this platoon. He's not going to let somebody else die. And then you start racing through the woods. Everybody's shouting for Zussman. You start hearing gunshots. You're able to get to an opening and you see a German officer basically executing the few remaining live prisoners. But you're able to pull the trigger.

[01:35:06] You know, they even have Paul's voiceover saying, you know, do it, pull the trigger, you know, and you do. And the last one alive, conveniently. But, you know, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's a story. It's a story. But conveniently, Zussman is the last one alive and you're able to save him.

[01:35:23] And, yeah, clearly he's, you know, you know, been starved and he's just, you know, like rail thin compared to what he was before, which is a very accurate depiction of the prisoners in these camps when they were liberated. I mean, there are photos out there. You can go find them. Like the absolute sickly condition these people were in. The fact some of them were able to survive at all is just incredible, really. But you're able to get him back to safety.

[01:35:51] And then we get to the end of the game where everybody's, you know, at the shipyard. Basically, everybody's in their dress uniforms. You know, like, you know, we won. Good job, guys. We're going to ship you all back home. And everybody's saying their goodbyes and everything. And I do like the point where Daniels and Pearson meet one last time, you know, where Daniel says to Pearson, like, you know, I can't wait to tell my kids about how, you know, the crazy guy Pearson I went with. And Pearson's like, crazy ain't the half of it.

[01:36:21] And then just walks off. And I'd be curious to what happened to that dude afterwards. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Probably drugs. Poor guy. Poor guy. But the final, but then you meet Zussman in the hospital bed. And, you know, you two are chatting about, you know, he's like, hey, if you ever come to Chicago, you know, or if you're ever in Texas or that kind of thing. Chicago. You know, we'll watch the Bears. And they were around in the 40s, by the way. Oh, yeah.

[01:36:50] So, but, you know, again, reaffirming their friendship with each other. But the final scene in the game is you properly returning back to Texas. You know, with your wife who has given birth already to your newborn son. But you visit the grave of your older brother, Paul. The bronze star that you earned. You lay it on top of his grave. And, you know, you embrace your wife and newborn son as the game rolls credits. And that's the game, everybody. That's it.

[01:37:20] Holy shit. It's a roller coaster ride there. It is. In some ways, it does kind of feel like, I'd hate to say cliched storytelling, but in some ways, because it does give me those Saving Private Ryan vibes. But again, I think it was done so well and I think it was executed really well that it doesn't matter. You know, I enjoy, I was hooked into it the whole way.

[01:37:48] I thought most of the characters were pretty well done. The ones they actually put effort into. And yeah, had a lot of twists and turns. But like you kind of knew what the ending was going to be anyways. Yeah. So, but I think it was executed well. What do you think? I liked it a lot. I think that's why this game stands out for me too. I liked it a lot more than I thought I was going to like. Like, like I was like, oh yeah, I want to play another World War II game where I get to, you know, shoot some zombies, some Nazis.

[01:38:17] You did too. But I think I ended up like just liking, like falling in love with the story. And like you said, it's, you don't really know what they're going to do with it. That can be different because you kind of know the story. But I felt like they did a really good job with Zossman's story and everything like that at the end. And I think just the Pearson stuff, I felt like, I don't know. It was a little bit out of place for me. It felt like a little bit thrown in there.

[01:38:43] But other than that, I think very, very solid story for like a Call of Duty game especially. I feel like Pearson was them trying to throw in something that hadn't been done much. Right. In World War II games, you know, because, because also, yeah, like the story had been told so much. But there have been so many World War II games from like 95 to like 2007, you know, and that like eight year period, we got like probably hundreds of them. Yeah, seriously. If we were really to track down how many.

[01:39:12] So in some ways you play this game and you think, what could they do that they, that hasn't been done before? And the answer is not a lot, you know, but, but with this newfound presentation, because, because basically when Modern Warfare came out, the World War II shooter died immediately. Yeah. Because it was like, oh, we can embrace Modern Warfare now properly. And then everybody started doing that a million times over.

[01:39:37] So coming back to this did feel fresh, especially for me who had been dealing with, you know, laser guns and shooting robots and stuff. It was nice to kind of come back to something that felt more reminiscent of the early days and something that like reminded me of why these games worked so well when they first came out, you know, and that this game does fit into that category with some of the more better games in the series.

[01:40:06] And yeah, and I thought this campaign was one of the best. Oh, yeah. It's the best. It's the best campaign since Black Ops 1. And Black Ops 1 is my favorite campaign in the series. So it's getting high praise for me in that regard, for sure. So, so yeah, why don't we take one more little break and then we will wrap up this by talking about multiplayer and zombies and all that other fun stuff. So hang in there, kids. We're almost done.

[01:41:29] So like any Call of Duty game, it has multiplayer, of course, right? Um, but what's interesting is that it feels like this is the first COD in quite a few installments where the multiplayer didn't feel as shoved in your face compared to the others. You know, like I think this game was sort of advertised with the campaign in mind.

[01:41:52] Um, so, so in a way, a lot of people didn't really talk about this multiplayer, but, um, I played it quite a bit. Um, even, um, before I got into the campaign and even you and me, we played for a little bit. Um, and I gotta say, I think this multiplayer was stellar. Yes. What do you think about the multiplayer? I liked it. I didn't play too, too much, but I definitely enjoyed it. And I've been off like shooting multiplayer games for a long time.

[01:42:22] And especially I think with Game Pass, a lot of people are playing it right now. So it's, it's a lot of fun. Yes. Um, I, I don't know what Microsoft are thinking when it comes to adding the old Call of Duties in the Game Pass. Because I know that when, like if you remember when they bought Bethesda, they dropped like every Bethesda game in the Game Pass immediately. Yeah.

[01:42:47] And so when they bought ABK, everyone was like, oh great, I can't wait to play all the, you know, the Call of Duties and all these other games in the Game Pass. But Microsoft said that like, hey, we're not going to drop everything day one like we did before. So we're just going to kind of pace them out and do them, you know, here and there. Which, I can understand that.

[01:43:08] You know, you kind of want to keep, like if you want that steady content flow of Game Pass, a good way of doing it is every once in a while putting in a new Call of Duty game. Which would, you know, spike the, the multiplayer count for it. You know? Even though all these games you can still play on Xbox, the servers are still open. So, and people are playing them all the time. But yeah, but when World War II hit Game Pass, it was, it felt like it was like, everyone was like, hell yeah. Yeah.

[01:43:35] You know, like I think it reminded people of this game. And so, so I hopped into this one not too long after that and just was playing the multiplayer to get a feel for it. And, and yeah, and I, I really enjoyed the multiplayer here. I mean, you can tell there were some, um, there were some liberties taken where I, I don't think they had reflex scopes back in the 1940s.

[01:44:02] But, um, but I like how they sort of handle some of the more traditional, like, you know, upgrading attachments and things like that to sort of fit the, the narrative or fit the era. You know? Like, I think they do a pretty decent job with that. Um, and I liked the, the structure of the UI and upgrading classes and everything. I thought it was, it wasn't too complicated like some of the later games get.

[01:44:28] Um, and there's even that, uh, that little headquarters bits where you can sort of, yeah, where you can sort of roam around in this little area in third person, by the way. Sort of like, you know, get your, get your daily points or, you know, get your supply drops or, um, assign whatever like little missions where it's like, oh, do 150 hip fire kills or whatever. Right.

[01:44:52] But, but yeah, we have all of our standard modes here, you know, your team death match or domination headquarters, all that. There was one mode I really liked, which is called war. We did not get to play it, unfortunately, but I played it a little bit where it's more objective based. So you'll have like different maps that aren't a part of the regular, um, like, you know, team death match maps. Um, but say it'll be like the, the Normandy beach, right. Where you're storming it and you have to capture the bunkers.

[01:45:21] So the one side will be trying to capture the bunkers and then the other side are trying to defend them. But I really like it. It gives, um, the multiplayer a little bit of a fresh take compared to just the normal team death match. You know, have you played this one? I played it like in 2020 or 2021. I enjoyed it. Like I, I, I always like new multiplayer, like game modes. Um, cause I think the traditional ones are a little bit overplayed. So kudos to them for trying something new.

[01:45:52] I agree. And yeah, and it's still up and it, and servers are still up. So if you want to hop in and play, go for it. You might even find me in there if you search hard enough, cause I'll probably still be playing it. Um, and then yeah, we'll, we'll tackle, um, Nazi zombies. The first Nazi zombies in a long time as well. Um, yeah, we played this one a little bit. Um, yeah. What, what, what do you think of, of Nazis? Just kind of in general. I, it's been a long time since I played something like that.

[01:46:21] Um, I had a lot of fun with it. I think the only thing I would do differently is try to get like a full squad for it because when you and I played it, I was having a lot of fun with it and I would like to really see how far I could get. That's what I missed from back in the day when I was playing world at war. My friend and I would pretty much just play and see as far as we could get every single time and just play it over and over and over again. And unfortunately I don't have that kind of time anymore, but I would like to definitely dig more into it.

[01:46:48] I like the kind of like sci-fi, like medical alteration kind of like theme that goes into some of the later like zombie stuff. Cause I'm a scientist. So it's a lot of fun and I enjoyed playing it. Yeah. Like the, the amount of effort and creativity that they put into the zombies modes is so like jarring at certain points in the series that it kind of makes me mad.

[01:47:15] Like, like black ops three, for example, the campaign was such a, a weird journey that I'm still not sure how I completely feel about it. And then, but everybody remembers it for it's great zombies mode. Right. And I played a little bit of it and I was so enthralled by what they were doing with the zombies mode. I was kind of pissed. I'm like, why can't you put this effort into the campaign? Damn it. Um, and then we'll find out next time that Treyarch abandoned the campaign, but that's for next, but that's for next time. Spoilers.

[01:47:44] Um, but yeah, like again, zombies mode is cool. You have that little prologue bit when you hop into it, like it, it, it kind of forces you to play a mission on your own just to kind of get a feel for it. Um, you know, where you meet kind of all the characters and then, um, you have to sort of like run to like, like a barn and kind of survive on your own a little bit so that you can get out and escape. I think, I think it's just in a way to kind of get you familiar with it if you hadn't played it before, before they launch you into it properly.

[01:48:13] And yeah, they have like stories and characters and sometimes they have like famous voice actors just for the zombies modes, which is like crazy. Um, considering like, I didn't really get into zombies much after world at war cause world at war, it was so great because it was this like fresh new thing that nobody really knew about. And originally they didn't even advertise it. You had to beat the campaign to unlock it, but it, you know, took on a life of its own, obviously.

[01:48:41] Um, and yeah, and this, it was fun. You know, you kind of roam around this against like this town in like the middle of like winter and you're like turning on like power jigsaw. Generators and like opening different areas and you have to like, like blow up this fucking hole in the middle of the, uh, the map to like set the zombies on fire or whatever. Like, like, yeah, the amount of like depth and content that the zombies modes have is so like, I'm just further impressed by it. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:49:11] But also the people who play it, if you ever hop online and play with randos, it makes you never want to play it. Cause these guys can get way too into it and it's annoying. Like there was one time I was playing with a group of guys and yeah, I was just kind of roaming around doing stuff. And this one guy was just kind of hanging out and I was trying to hang with them to stay together. And he literally DM'd me on Xbox saying, leave me alone. You're ruining an Easter egg. And I was like, okay, fuck you. So I left because I was like, these guys suck.

[01:49:40] Um, but again, I mean, it's cool that it's there, you know, it's kind of a mainstay at this point, which is a shame. I do kind of wish it was only Treyarch who did zombies and then Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer would do other things. Cause you know, Infinity Ward would, they didn't hop on to zombies right away. They would do like special ops. Spec ops. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Which is great.

[01:50:01] Um, and I wish they kind of stuck with that instead of every, every game having to have a zombies mode now, but it's unfortunately just the way it is these days, I guess. Um, and, and yeah, that kind of covers the other modes in the game. You know, they're all fairly well done. So yeah. Um, any, any final words? Schnickerman? I would just say, uh, if you've never played it, definitely check it out. I think the story alone is, is worth a play through. I agree.

[01:50:28] If you were to put this on a tier list or give it a letter grade, cause I like to do letter grades on this show. What would you give it? I would say solid B for sure. Okay. I, I'm going to give it an A. Okay. That's good. Yeah. Um, especially compared to some of the kind of mid all right games that I've been playing, um, the last, however many episodes.

[01:50:50] Now, like to have one of this like quality, I was very impressed by, especially considering how Sledgehammer really wanted to make a World War II game. And they had to kind of convince Activision to let them do it again. Cause Activision was kind of iffy on them going back to that point. But maybe all the backlash to some of the more futuristic Call of Duties was enough to convince them like, okay, you can go back. And, and I know this one did really well. Like it sold, um, surprisingly well.

[01:51:20] Like a lot better than the last couple entries. And as far as like reviews go for Call of Duty, um, I think it's consistently well rated above a lot of the others. And, and even when you look at like retrospectives of like the ranking of these World War II tends to be higher up on the list for most people. Especially those who are nostalgic for the old games. Because it definitely hits that nostalgia bug. And I think overall is still really good. Yep. You know, I, I, I really like what Sledgehammer has done.

[01:51:48] Um, so I, I do look forward to, I think their next game is, it's Vanguard. But yeah, but that's, uh, World War II. So, uh, thank you so much, Schnickerman, for coming. I, I, I truly appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I love, uh, joining you on podcasts. And it was, it was fun to replay this. For sure. Um, and before we get out of here, um, I did talk about you a little bit at the front. But, uh, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna give the floor to you so you can go ahead and plug yourself.

[01:52:15] Where people can find you, what you do, what, what makes you the special little Schnickerman that you are. Um, my name's Schnickerman. Um, mostly found on YouTube. Um, I am not as active as I used to be. But lately, I just like to make videos about things, um, from my childhood or whatever. Whether it be video games or, like, toy lines or, I don't know, TV shows.

[01:52:45] Um, I also have a special series that I like to do that I'm reviewing all the Xbox, uh, 360 Kinect games. And, uh, yeah, I, I, I'm a little bit of a gaming hipster. But, um, I like to do different reviews like that. So, if any of that sounds interesting, uh, please check me out. I appreciate it. And, yeah, thanks again, Threk, for having me on. Absolutely. I will put, I'll put his, uh, links in the, in the show notes. So, you can go find him and subscribe and all that stuff. Thank you.

[01:53:14] But, yeah, that's gonna do it for this episode. Thank you all so much for listening. Uh, the next episode is gonna be Black Ops 4. Which I originally was not going to do. But, I said, you know what? Let's just do it anyways. Cause that'll be a fun one to talk about. So, until then, buh-bye. Bye.