Doom mod pokes fun at Call of Duty

Ah, FPSs! They don't make them like they used to, do they? No, in many ways and for a number of reasons. But if you find yourself nostalgically longing for The Good Old Days and sniping at the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, then have I got the Doom 2 parody mod for you!

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Ah, FPSs! They don't make them like they used to, do they? No, in many ways and for a number of reasons. But if you find yourself nostalgically longing for The Good Old Days and sniping at the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, then have I got the Doom 2 parody mod for you!

Released on the same day as Cod Blops 2, Call of Dooty II: Green Ops crams waypoint markers, regenerating health, cutscenes, flashbacks, nonsense conspiracies about Russians, popup hints, and other foolishness into id Software's classic FPS.

"Let's face it: Shooters today suck. Their levels are too linear, they aren't challenging enough, and they play more like interactive movies than the experiences we once loved up until the mid-2000s," creator 'Chubzdoomer' says in the readme file. "Call of Dooty is an ode to the terrible shooters that now inhabit the market and have taken over the gaming industry by storm. This WAD isn't supposed to be fun to play - it's here to make a statement."

Call of Dooty II is fittingly the sequel to last year's Call of Dooty, which was itself inspired by kmoosmann's 'If Quake was done today.' Annual sequels to mods parodying games suffering annual sequelitis, how glorious!

Of course, this being a modern linear FPS, multiple editions are a must. There's a plain old Standard Edition for proles, a Limited Edition with the original Call of Dooty and some before/after screenshots, and a Special Edition which also adds the soundtrack, ringtones, and achievement icons. Any true Call of Dooty fan will want the Collector's Edition, which packs all that plus the papercraft marine, 'making of' document, and the Green Ops Armor DLC. It's a small touch which means so much.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 14, 2012 11:30 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Doom mod pokes fun at Call of Duty.

    Ah, FPSs! They don't make them like they used to, do they? No, in many ways and for a number of reasons. But if you find yourself nostalgically longing for The Good Old Days and sniping at the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, then have I got the Doom 2 parody mod for you!

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      November 14, 2012 12:40 PM

      Back in the Doom days, there were plenty of people (including reviewers) who lamented keycard hunt gameplay, how they couldn't just blown down doors with missiles instead of needing to unlock them, etc.

      What they failed to acknowledge was that key hunt gameplay in Doom allowed for fairly non-linear levels, level hubs, a greater degree of exploration, etc. It's the same people today that don't realize that regenerating health works great in many games, and fail to realize how medkit placements in old school games had to be meticulously placed to make sure every section was winnable -- hence the huge health and ammo drops right before every boss door.

      The problem is, there will always be bitching about the status quo, regardless of its merits. A lot of people didn't like "back tracking" so now some games have evolved into funhouse rides through linear set pieces. I suffered through an hour of Ghost Recon Future Soldier the other day. The gameplay feels like I am an actor moving from sound stage to sound stage, trying to hit all the beats and stand in the right spot for each filmed shot. Everything is on rails.

      All this pointing toward old school games as being inherently more challenging than new games is really a hark back to total bullshit. I seriously doubt the vast majority of Doom players embraced the mechanic of "You die, you lose all the weapons you've earned up to this point" which Doom enforced unless you manually saved before death. We pretty much all manually saved at key points to avoid complete inventory loss.

      Compare Doom Ultraviolence skill (because really, how many people actually enjoyed the constant respawning enemies of Nightmare?) to for instance a game villified by many PC gamers...Halo on Legendary skill. I will argue that Legendary is far more challenging that the majority of old school fps games. It's the same thing with XCom. People say XCom 1 was so brutal, yet most of them saved so often to make the difficulty meaningless and then they go play the new XCom on a low skill level non-ironman and complain it is too easy and dumbed down.

      There is some serious misguided nostalgia out there. Obviously old school games were incredible when they came out, but deep down we all dreamed of games like the best of what we have today. Who didn't play Daggerfall and let their teenage minds imagine it looked and played like Skyrim? It's just now we're not kids anymore. We're jaded adults with work, families, etc who blame game developers for not being able to restore the feelings we had the first time we shot an Imp or lost a soldier to a Chryssalid. We blame them because they can't restore the power our imaginations to turn a simple video game experience into an entire middle school math class worth of day dreams.

      I've been saying this for years, but games are better now than they've ever been. Are all new games great? Nope. But pretty much every major category and every niche is served now by a great game. It used to be we'd all have to wait the entire year until the holiday season and maybe 4 or 5 great games would come out for the entire YEAR. Now so many great games come out throughout the year it is impossible to keep up with them all. If the guy who made this video wants to play Doom 1 and 2 forever, more power to him I guess.

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        November 14, 2012 1:16 PM

        well said.... well said

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        November 14, 2012 1:35 PM

        Very insightful and well put post. Thanks.

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        November 14, 2012 1:46 PM

        Here-here!

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        November 14, 2012 2:06 PM

        [deleted]

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        November 14, 2012 2:14 PM

        Ha, I'd completely forgot about how upon death Doom would restart you at the start of the level with just a pistol. Crazy!

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          November 14, 2012 2:18 PM

          yah if you didn't save somewhere in between...

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        November 14, 2012 2:53 PM

        While I think you're right in many ways, I do kinda miss when levels had actual design elements to them beyond "What does the interior of a building look like?" or "How much of this forest can players explore?"

        I miss levels being these intricate, complex areas to explore.

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        November 14, 2012 2:54 PM

        I agree with you, in part. We always complain about the status quo in some ways. However.. Gaming and the audience has changed since the old days, sure, but I think it's unfair to say that the criticisms of modern games are solely because we've gotten older and look at things through glorified eyes.

        Sure, playing older games we wished that we would have had some of the stuff that's present in modern games. But it feels that we got that at the expense of some of the charm that made old gaming so fun. Like in X-COM versus XCOM: The original game was more difficult than the modern one, which isn't to say the modern one isn't fun. The modern game has a more difficult mode, but the game design of the original with it's focus on micromanagement made success in the original more difficult to achieve in many ways compared to the remake.

        That's what bothers me, is that we got all the bright shineys and modern technology for gaming at the expense of the gameplay experience. Yeah card key hunts sucked, but that's not to say that that particular gameplay mechanic had to remain the norm. But rather, the genre has evolved as you've described into more of a set piece direction. Some like it and some don't.

        And hey, speak for yourself on blaming being a jaded adult. I was a jaded kid and had as much fun daydreaming about StarCraft 1 when I was 16 as I do daydreaming about my squad in the modern XCOM game at 30. Blame game designers for not restoring the feeling of...blah blah blah? Uh..no..I blame the designers for being lazy for the most part and making the most interesting gameplay experience possible while keeping sales at acceptable levels. It doesn't have anything to do with recapturing feelings or reviving youthful memories. Jesus, why does everything have to be so touchy feely? Why can't I just be annoyed at developers for making lazy decisions rather than trying to get in touch with the inner me?

        In conclusion: I do agree with some of your points. I think more of it is based on trying to increase sales/have an easier time developing the games more than anything else.

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          November 15, 2012 12:35 AM

          Yeah this is a good point, games genuinely have changed as they move mass market and we shouldn't forget that.

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        November 14, 2012 6:33 PM

        kisses

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        November 14, 2012 6:35 PM

        On the difficulty side, old vs new games is not the issue and neither are the other games you mentioned because they are a different genre. This is making fun of the amount of hand holding that goes on in AAA FPS game and how linear they are. So much time is wasted listening/watching the cinematic events to play out. It gets pretty boring when you don't get the opportunity to explore or run and gun as you choose.

        Like you said, you're moving from one sound stage to another. 8 years ago we saw games starting to feel more like movies where you're in control of a character and it sounded great. But games have crossed over too far into that realm and now they are like shitty blockbuster/summer movies.

        There are so many layers of crap added onto a game, some would call it detail, but it's shit. It distracts the user from realizing all they are eating is frosting and no cake. It's like Transformers 2. It's like 2012. It's like the Star Wars re-release where Lucas took a simple scene and added a bunch of noise to it.

        Because we have powerful computers directors try to jam pack the screen with so much detail and worldly destruction, but "where is the game/movie" behind all that? Why not let me think for myself? Let me explore by myself?

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        November 14, 2012 6:41 PM

        "We blame them because they can't restore the power our imaginations to turn a simple video game experience into an entire middle school math class worth of day dreams. "


        You definitely capture my feeling of youth here - probably for all of us, daydreaming of Monkey Island or Doom in class, wanting to go home and play Kings Quest or Syndicate or Larry.
        None the less, despite your well written post. Doom is still fucking boss, yo.

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        November 14, 2012 6:53 PM

        Stopped reading when you mentioned Halo, one of the worst games I ever played.

        I'll take Doom gameplay over modern Whack-A-Mole gameplay any day.

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          November 14, 2012 8:13 PM

          halo is nowhere near call of duty-style whack-a-mole. it's one of the most tactical shooters of modern times, doesn't have a cover system, and has some of the best enemy AI in all of gaming.

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            November 14, 2012 9:26 PM

            The first one is one of the most over rated games of all time. The story is bad, the final level is mind bendingly shit, the enemies and their 'kiddy noises' are childish and annoying. The game is not half as cool as the pre-release videos made for it 2 years before it came out :/

            It's not bad mind you - it's a competent shooter, just off the dial over rated. I hate it so much for that.

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          November 14, 2012 9:23 PM

          Halo is whack-a-mole?! Play through it in Heroic or Legendary and get back to me. Halo 4 in Legendary is like fucking chess.

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          November 14, 2012 9:30 PM

          Halo and its sequels might have some of the best actual gameplay and combat of any FPS ever made. It also has some pretty great vehicle combat.

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        November 14, 2012 7:08 PM

        you are right and that's why I started to read more books now.
        I still game, but not as much as I used to.

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        November 14, 2012 8:53 PM

        [deleted]

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        November 14, 2012 9:43 PM

        [deleted]

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        November 15, 2012 12:36 AM

        Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup. We can complain about a million ultra popular games that *may* not be great, but there are always fantastic games in a variety of genres coming out every year. Video games!

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        November 16, 2012 6:26 AM

        You are partially correct. Games have become more streamlined (e.g. saving, backtracking, etc), and more immersive (realtime graphics, animation, sound, etc) these factors mainly enhance single player gameplay.

        However, on the mutiplayer (MP) or non-casual front, this is not the case. The mechanics, dynamics and depth of play, especially in a competitive context has declined. We are witnessing a constant simplification of gameplay and increased hand-holding, while at the same time seeing role playing game elements creep into everything.

        The push is now away from giving the game gameplay depth through fine tuned core mechanics, but instead giving them longevity through "unlocks", leveling up, "acheievements", loot/gear/customisation, in-game currency (that you might be able to pay real money for) and social dynamics. These are all easy and fake ways to add perceived depth to an otherwise shallow game.

        The real deal is that now the focus is on creating an addictive grind, that people play mainly to "unlock" the next thing or achieve a new "title", instead of simply coming back for the gameplay itself.

        Take away all the meta-labeling and restrictions, and many of the games now would not hold attention of any gamer for particularly long at all.

        Even though the visual, visceral detail is higher now, the gameplay detail; things like figuring out secrets, puzzles, doing complex maneuvers/movements to get to certain areas. Things like strafe jumping, or speeding through a map, playing it the way you want.

        I think http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU demonstrates this much better than the video posted in the article.

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        November 18, 2012 2:40 AM

        One of the, if not the best post I've seen on Shacknews so far. So much truth.

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      November 14, 2012 12:53 PM

      haha, brilliant

    • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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      November 14, 2012 1:31 PM

      This is amazing.

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      November 14, 2012 1:32 PM

      Sorry, but it's just plain silly to call some of the best selling games of all time terrible. If you don't like modern shooters, it's because they're not the right type of game for you. Chubzdoomer is just mad the majority of gamers have different taste in games from him.

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        November 14, 2012 1:36 PM

        Agreed. If he actually wanted to make a valuable contribute to the state of games, he should have spent his time and energy making a mod that was more fun than the games he is parodying. Then maybe he could show us what his idea of the pinnacle of fun really should be in 2012.

        Instead he just made a dumb parody mod that does nothing but lash out without offering any constructive alternatives other than turning the clock back to 1995.

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          November 14, 2012 1:38 PM

          You might be overthinking a joke mod. :-)

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            November 14, 2012 1:41 PM

            "Let's face it: Shooters today suck. Their levels are too linear, they aren't challenging enough, and they play more like interactive movies than the experiences we once loved up until the mid-2000s," creator 'Chubzdoomer' says in the readme file. "Call of Dooty is an ode to the terrible shooters that now inhabit the market and have taken over the gaming industry by storm. This WAD isn't supposed to be fun to play - it's here to make a statement."

            I appreciate what you are saying, but -- "It's here to make a statement". His words, not mine.

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        November 14, 2012 1:42 PM

        Not necessarily. Not saying this about the CoD series but there's plenty of popular things that are terrible.

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          November 14, 2012 2:00 PM

          Plenty of popular things that are not great, are not terrible either. I think a lot of the time people assign a strong negative designation to stuff that is just mediocre.

          Take MoH: Warfighter for example. It's pretty clear that it isn't considered a great game by most critics, maybe not even a good game. But is it a terrible game? Probably not.

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            November 14, 2012 6:31 PM

            But it is a terrible title. I mean just amazingly, hilariously bad.

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              November 14, 2012 8:05 PM

              Is it really, though? In comparison to the turds that come out in this industry? Stuff like The Expendables 2 Videogame exists in this space, and is properly terrible.

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                November 14, 2012 8:45 PM

                I said the title. Warfighter. Really? Warfighter?

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        November 14, 2012 2:12 PM

        [deleted]

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          November 14, 2012 3:14 PM

          And there were plenty of crap shooters in Doom's day. Nothing has changed about the overall quality of shooters except graphics.

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        November 14, 2012 2:51 PM

        Friday is one of the most watched videos on Youtube.

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        November 14, 2012 6:38 PM

        It sells well because it's marketed well and reaches a wide audience. Best selling != quality.

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        November 15, 2012 12:33 AM

        [deleted]

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        November 15, 2012 2:29 AM

        [deleted]

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      November 14, 2012 2:23 PM

      What was the game that released "Duty Calls" as a marketing thing, where every time you fired the gun it went "boooring".

      I think it was Bulletstorm.

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      November 14, 2012 2:47 PM

      What if Quake was done today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU

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      November 14, 2012 5:49 PM

      Oh man, this is friggen great.

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      November 14, 2012 7:45 PM

      [deleted]

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