Call of Duty is a game franchise that spans twenty-two mainline games, a few spin-offs, and a lot of Nintendo demakes. In a word, it's immense, each game a six to eight hour campaign that's multiplied in length by the near infinite multiplayer and co-op modes, whether that be Zombies or Extinction. Add on Warzone, the series's new cash cow, and the games hit a player with a barrage of content to chew through. How can anyone write about this? I have a fascination with Call of Duty. It's half nostalgia, the campaign, multiplayer, and Zombies modes of Black Ops II filling a large part of afternoons in middle school- and it's half modern interest. I like to look at art about America, and in part that's what Call of Duty is- games about America, how it sees itself, and how it sees the rest of the world. Not always intentionally, but still important to look at. There's real art buried in these games at times, a level here that's well made, a great feelin...
Spoilers for Norco (2022) I moved around a lot as a kid- home becoming wherever I was in the moment with my family and my stuff. My father’s job, that being a service-member in the United States Army, meant we moved. The longest I’ve lived in a place was seven years- living on the island of Oʻahu during the end of the second G.W. Bush administration and through half or so of the first Obama administration. The second longest was Georgia, though that was between two places- Columbus (again for my father’s work) and Atlanta, for school. Georgia State University. I still have dreams about being there, having moved away three years ago. My mental health went into serious decline, I had two psych ward stays, and decided that living with my parents in Missouri would be a more stable living environment then college dorms. I justify it to myself, then. I don’t tend to go back to places I previously lived, they live on in my head as some sort of memory, trapped in a dreamlike state, but I ...