Video Games and Gaming Technology (In A Positive Light)

Vince Zampella, video game developer behind ‘Call of Duty,' killed in Ferrari crash​


This man made some great games and turned Call of Duty into the juggernaut it is (even though he was fired by Activision and the franchise has since turned to dog shite)

The conspiracy theorist in me immediately went into some kind of foul play but I can't think of any real angle that makes sense....

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Video game developer Vince Zampella, whose studios have created several of the world's best-selling games, was killed Sunday afternoon in a Ferrari crash on Southern California's Angeles Crest Highway, NBC4 Investigates has learned.

Zampella, an acclaimed figure in the video game industry, is the head of Respawn Entertainment. He is the former CEO of video game developers Infinity Ward, the studio behind the successful "Call of Duty" franchise.

The single-car crash was reported at about 12:45 p.m. on the scenic road north of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Mountains. The southbound car veered off the road, hit a concrete barrier and a passenger was ejected, the California Highway Patrol said.

The driver, Zampella, was trapped in the ensuing car fire, the CHP said. He died at the scene and the passenger died at a hospital, authorities told NBC4 Investigates. Details about the passenger's identity were not immediately available.

Details about what led to the crash off the winding forest road overlooking Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley were not immediately available. A witness provided video of the crash involving a 2026 Ferrari 296 GTS to authorities.

The six-figure, mid-engine sports car powered by a hybrid twin-turbo V-6 is capable of 819-plus horsepower.

Zampella, 55, co-founded Chatsworth-based Respawn Entertainment in 2010. The studio was acquired by video game giant EA in 2017. Respawn Entertainment is best known for the video games "Titanfall," "Titanfall 2," "Apex Legends" and "STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order."

Zampella also led an EA studio team based in Playa Vista behind the "Battlefield" video game franchise.
 
Well that's what you get when you have rich guys who think they are Schumacher but have the driving skills of your grandma drive bizarrely overpowered supercars.
 
Very sad about Zampella. He made the best releases for COD, Titanfall was outstanding, and the latest Battlefield he headed beat COD for the first time. I have seen the crash video, and it does not look suspicious. He was pushing it as he exited the tunnel, and lost control.
 


Arc Raiders is changing the game. The proximity chat leads to so many amazing moments. The game itself is a cinematic masterpiece with beautiful visuals and top notch sound design. The arc enemies movements and battle strategies were designed using AI and it adds a whole new layer to the PVE. Tie everything together and no 2 raids feel the same. I've never played anything like it.

 
Arc Raiders is really good with friends, it has a few glaring flaws but overall a novel and greatly enjoyable experience. Definitely a good time practicing firefighting drones with the boys for when the beast system takes over and tries to hunt us all down with killer robots.
 
Got myself a PS5 for Christmas. I've been wanting one since it came out, as all those years ago I felt the urge to get back into gaming during some of my free time. That time has come. Currently I'm about 30% through Red Dead Redemption II and I'm enjoying it a lot. I picked up a bunch of games that were on sale and 2026 is going to be a year of gaming for me. While I've gamed on and off on my computer over the last few decades, I miss being able to crash on the couch and do some gaming on a big screen. It sure beats doomscrolling.
 
thinkreadwritecode said:
Got myself a PS5 for Christmas. I've been wanting one since it came out, as all those years ago I felt the urge to get back into gaming during some of my free time. That time has come. Currently I'm about 30% through Red Dead Redemption II and I'm enjoying it a lot. I picked up a bunch of games that were on sale and 2026 is going to be a year of gaming for me. While I've gamed on and off on my computer over the last few decades, I miss being able to crash on the couch and do some gaming on a big screen. It sure beats doomscrolling.
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I recently finished Red Dead 2 myself. Its pretty good and at times was even quite startling as to the path of the protagonist Arthur. I didn't do much of the side quests, I couldn't quite see the point in going hunting for example so I largely just stuck to the main game.
 
I finished playing Red Dead Redemption 2 today. Excellent game. It gave me a homesick feeling for the old America before WW1. There is a wholesomeness to it that even RDR2 could not hide by maximizing outlaws, colorful characters, inbreds, and degenerates. I'm going to put it away for a while before I touch it again. A few complaints, I didn't like the combat system, how both you and the enemy all have autoaim. There wasn't much opportunity to use stealth. It got annoying when the other party members on missions would keep urging you on, not giving you time to conduct any tactics. Enemies storming you was downright stupid, as no one would ever fight like that back then unless they had a clear opening. The sudden spawning of enemies in your rear and flank was annoying. Auto-aim going for the gut instead of the chest was annoying, making many enemies take more than one shot. The game is heavily scripted, a lot of the open world decision making feels useless in missions, but I know they are trying to tell a story. The wanted system and having a posse on top of you in seconds got really old, also the fact the law would keep spawning over and over.

Some elements of the game were annoying, such as the leftist color on everything. While the left can do a good job creating artistic realism with objective things, like scenery, animals, fashion and so on, they are terrible at portraying people. I know it's an action-adventure game so NPCs need to be more aggressive than people would be in real life, but whenever storekeepers would be trying to hurry me through things, or people attacking me because I bumped into them, that took me out of the realism. People back then would not have acted that way. In 1899 the country was about as Christian as it ever was. That, of course, was something missing from the game. There were churches, and a few Catholics you got to interact with, but other than that there wasn't a lot of religion in the game, and that bores me when stuff like that is left out. If you're going for realism, then be real.

Lastly, I felt Arthur, the main character, got too soft too quickly. He immediately was on board with things like women's suffrage, immigration, the Indians, and stuff like that. The Leo Strauss questline where he eventually got fed up with the loan shark character was good character development, but the other stuff with Dutch got old after a while. I also laughed at some of the foolishness of what the programmers thought we gamers would like to do. No, I don't want to press L and R consecutively to simulate milking a cow. No, I don't want to simulate building a fence.

Still, these complaints are small beans in comparison to the grandeur of the vast majority of the game. Like I said, it left an impression on me that made me miss the old America.
 
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