Call of Duty: Vanguard – Zero Punctuation

Besides, the lesson “don’t be like the Nazis you stupid fucks” is one that certain audiences still haven’t properly internalised in this modern age apparently, so fuck it, all is forgiven, World War 2 shooters. I mean, there were so many different people and places and levels of technology involved it’s basically just as versatile as setting a shooter in space. Not that I think you should set them in space. Hey! Call of Duty! I said don’t do that! No, stop! Oh fuck, they set one in space. Fetch the mop. Of course, having said it’s a versatile setting, it would be nice if more World War 2 shooters made the most of that and not come back to D-Day all the fucking time. How many times now have I played a WW2 game where we have to do something to ensure the success of D-Day? I feel like lone wolf Allied commandos could have held a fucking convention behind the German firing lines at this point. Yes, CoD Vanguard does D-Day, as well as Stalingrad and the fall of Berlin and all the other classic hits, with the framing device being the interrogation by evil sneering Nazis of an Allied Commando unit more heartwarmingly diverse than a Great British Bake-off semifinal.

There’s Black British soldier, a grim Russian lady who’s a sniper because aren’t they fucking always, a mouthy Australian who peppers his dialogue with words from the hack screenwriter’s little book of international slang, and a cocky American pilot to occasionally tank a much deserved biff to the chops. And yes, obviously the Nazis are racist as all bollocks towards them but people were racist across the board in the forties and the most racism that Allied NPCs ever display is directed at the Australian. Oh, and the American pilot’s chapter features him teaming up with a coloured regiment in the Pacific Theater and they complain about their systematic oppression at the hands of their own government with the eye rolling tolerance of high schoolers complaining about the mean girls clique. I’d say make up your own war if you’re going to revise history but we’ve established this is the only setting shooter audiences are interested in. Oh no! Historical inaccuracy in a war shooter, Yahtzee? Don’t forget to also point out that in real life you can’t heal gunshot wounds just by sucking on a floor tile for four seconds and that most Allied soldiers didn’t have cameras grafted to their noggins.

Okay, but before you run to the comments to start bayonetting those strawmen, let me clarify that it’s not inaccuracy that bothers me. Because you know what else isn’t historically accurate? Wolfenstein: The New Order. And you know what kicks arse? A disgruntled mule in a crowded bathhouse. And Wolfenstein: The New Order. Because in between fighting space Nazis on the moon and cyborg Rottweilers with cheese graters for faces the story actually addressed things like racial tensions within Allied nations and the emotional toll that war has upon those who fight it. It also featured characters who fuck. And that’s Call of Duty’s problem. You don’t get a sense that any of its characters fuck. Or want to go home or play snooker or do anything other than fight the war because they’re so bloody patriotic even their genital warts are red, white and blue. When they lock horns with their superiors it’s not because they’re being forced to kill their fellow man, it’s only ever because they disagree on how to kill their fellow man with maximum efficiency. It’s all so bloody lacking in introspection. The Germans are all sneers and moustache-twirling evil and the Allies are good and therefore must have been progressive and diverse because those things are also good. And incidentally we have always been at war with Eurasia.

Throughout the arc story our heroes are interrogated and tortured one by one as the Nazis attempt to turn them against each other, which might have been harrowing if all the tension wasn’t constantly being flushed straight down the toilet by the narration. “Little did those silly Nazis know we were putting on an act and just pretending to betray each other to gather information! Ha ha stupid Krauts let’s all laugh at their little snivelly noses and overly tight uniforms and little goose-stepping adorable buttocks – fuck, where’d that come from?” Could’ve been effective if they’d saved that reveal for a final act twist just when we think all is lost but we have zero introspection, remember, so our characters can’t even for a moment not be waddling under the weight of the biggest fucking bollocks in the room. You gonna talk about the gameplay at all, Yahtz? Oh must we, viewer? It’s Call of fucking Duty. You point at everything vaguely head-shaped that’s poking out from cover like nipples at the touch of a questing hand, then move up when the game says to. And not before, because if you do anything other than what the predetermined plot says to do then it’ll usually just explode your fucking head like you’re in the fucking Suicide Squad.

The final boss fight, fingerquotes the size of Bratwurst, entails chasing a Nazi across an airfield and tackling them. I had to repeat it three times. The first time because the game never mentioned that I was supposed to tackle him, so when I shot his prone defenseless form, he instakilled my nigh-invulnerable ass with a single pistol shot. The second time I tried to short cut my way through a spot that apparently wasn’t part of the designated chase path and the game exploded my head. Yeah, just yank on my fucking strings, game, for I am ever thy errant marionette. Alright, fine. The gameplay has some highlights. The Russian lady’s final boss was an intense Condemned-style close quarters sneaky stabathon that was a nice break from the usual shootout conveyer belt, but none of the other characters have unique abilities that fundamentally alter the gameplay. One of them can carry more grenades. Ooh, break out the min-maxing algorithm. Oh and the leader dude has leader powers. Sometimes you can direct your NPC helpers to shoot a specific target if you feel like it’d help. Everyone’s shooting everyone else already, o’course, so it feels like trying to direct a primary school swimming class to piss in one specific part of the pool. Good analogy for the whole game, actually. A great big splashy arse about in a kiddie pool version of history without the introspection to notice when the water’s getting suspiciously warm.