I’ve been a subscriber to Microsoft Gamepass for a few years now, but never a heavy user.  So, between my most recent annual subscription expiring and the recent price increase I figured it might be time to let it rest for a bit.

Before that, however, I wanted to catch up on some of the games that came over to Gamepass as part of the Activision acquisition, including the most recent Call of Duty game: Black Ops 6.

Quick summary of my thoughts: I pretty much only play CoD for the single-player campaign and the Black Ops series usually nails that.  I particularly enjoyed Cold War for the deep 1980s nostalgia hits, and BLOPS6 takes that into very early-90s nostalgia.  Good times, strong recommend.

HOWEVER.  Not 10 minutes into the game, I got blindsided by this:

That is an IBM PCjr, cartridge ports and all, with the PCjr monitor and the PCjr keyboard.  Not the chiclet one they initially released, thankfully, but the proper one they gave out free as an apology.  It should not be on ANY desk in a business environment, let alone in 1991, but I have to love that someone felt the need to faithfully model it and slip it into this scene.

Naturally I then spent the next eight hours or so taking screenshots of random computers and tech items and occasionally shooting bad guys to get to the next area with random computers and tech items in it.

So what follows is a collection of a bunch of screenshots and a whole lotta snark.  I suspect I am writing this mostly for myself, but if anyone else of a certain age stumbles across this they might enjoy the snark as well.

Let’s get started.

These generic PC/XT and PC/AT clones show up a lot in the game, sometimes with this same generic probably-monochrome-VGA monitor sitting on them.  There are actually several different monitor models in the game.

The mouse feels a little anachronistic, and not just because it’s wireless.  I feel like it’s a variant of the Microsoft Mouse that wasn’t sold yet in 1991.

BIG kudos to the graphics team for remembering that mice of this vintage should not have a scroll wheel.  That’s a pet peeve of mine for anything set pre-1998 (Captain Marvel, I am looking at you).

Less generic, and actually just plain WEIRD is this Frankenstein’s abomination of a computer.  The back half of it is plainly an Apple ][ of some variety (it’s a //e in this case, I’ll get back to that) but then it has a generic PC/XT front panel slapped on just where the keyboard should start.  Also you get a Monitor ][ and an IBM PC/XT keyboard.  It’s not the original 5150-bundled keyboard as it doesn’t have the terrible enter key.

Also there’s a printer here.  This specific model shows up a lot in the game.  Unlike monitors, they didn’t really feel the need to make a wide variety of printers.

I originally thought it was an Okidata printer of some variety, but I can’t find any models that match.  That may just be my internal bias of “generic ugly printer = Okidata” at work.

These two laptops show up… not often?  But occasionally.  Whenever they need to put a laptop in a scene, you’ll see one of these.  I was going to ding them for what I thought was a Windows key on the keyboard of the right-hand laptop, but I found a closeup where it turned out to be a Fn key.

This little minitower also makes frequent appearances.  Usually it’s on its side with the side panel missing.  I like the very appropriate interfaces on these screens.

 

This PC tower is the most modern-looking computer.  It doesn’t have a 5.25 inch floppy drive at all, and DOES have a tray-loading CD-ROM drive.  Honestly, this is pushing things for 1991.

It shows up in a couple of versions, one with the door open like this and one with it closed.

I thought this was modeled after something in the IBM PS/2 line of computers, but I can’t find any of those that had a front panel door like this.

 

This AT-format keyboard shows up very often.  Again, huge credit to the graphics team for remembering that the Windows key did not exist in 1991.

There are a lot of 3.5″ floppies on desks in BLOPS6.  Very often they are next to computers that only have 5.25″ drives.  As far as I noticed, there is only one 5.25″ floppy shown in the game, though – and again mad props to the team – it’s shown in a flashback, suggesting that it was several years prior to 1991.

Interesting mix of tech here.  There’s a very old cell phone, what I suspect is a Betamax player (despite the stack of VHS tapes), and an early CD audio player.  The CD player makes a few more appearances throughout the game.  There are also several different VCRs that show up.  Some of them, fittingly, show “12:00” as the time.

A different VCR (probably VHS this time?), some old TVs, a radio receiver and … lord almighty, is that an 8-track deck?  Like, did a 3D modeler in the 2020s really spend a day carefully crafting a 3D model of an 8-track player?

I think they did.

These external caddy-loading SCSI CD-ROM drives also show up a lot, but this is one of the few times I was able to get a really good look at the back.   Really impressed by the detail here.  I forget what that DIN connector was used for, but I know that it’s period-appropriate.

A very rare absolute miss on the part of the art team.  CD-RWs weren’t a thing until several years later.  Even plain old CD-R disks were a very scarce novelty.

A different VCR and what looks like a very large external 3.5″ floppy drive next to a PC/AT clone running two monitors.  One of them looks to be running Windows 286 and the other has a …DOS 3.0 installer?

Two monitors was a pretty rare thing in 1991 and I don’t think you could make it work like this.  Typically you needed one MGA/Hercules monitor and one CGA/EGA/VGA.

Another two monitor setup, another instance of that questionable PC tower, a minitower on its side and another AT keyboard.

Finally a good look at the back of that monstrosity from earlier.  We can tell that it was modeled after the //e because it has a joystick port next to the cassette and video ports.

Also the monitor isn’t plugged into the video port at all, but we’ll forgive them.

This fairly generic monitor shows up a lot as well.  I was absolutely CERTAIN that this was an Amiga monitor, but I cannot match it to any monitor ever sold by Commodore.  I’m going to call it the not-Amiga-Monitor from here on out.

Another oops on the part of the graphics team.  These mice have green connectors.  That would make perfect sense… if this was set in 1997 or later.  There was no color code for PS/2 connectors prior to then.

One of the frankenpcs next to a PC/XT clone, featuring a couple of PC/XT keyboards, a couple of caddy CD-ROM drives, some mice – wired, this time, not wireless – and a pair of Apple Disk ][ drives.  Interesting that the Apple disk drives are the older pre-//e style.

 

Getting away from nitpicking PCs for a moment, strong shout-out to the Motorola MicroTAC.  I thought this was another blunder but apparently it dates all the way back to 1989.

A couple of those not-Amiga monitors make an appearance in a biological weapons lab.

Another desk littered with 3.5″ disks, though this time there is an external 3.5″ drive to read them.  The motherboard on the right makes a few appearances.  I’m not sure what it’s based on.  It has one big chip that I suspect is a 68000-series processor but beyond that I’m at a loss.

Nice view of the open minitower.  Note the IDE and floppy cables.  Also the CD player from earlier makes an appearance, but this time in a “door closed” version.

I really feel this case design is maybe a touch modern for 1991 but not so much to make a stink about it.

Nothing weird about these oscilloscopes, other than that they are labeled in Russian and you find them in an American facility.  I suspect that this is just a case of “nobody is going to stop for long enough to read the labels on these and we need some science stuff for a set dressing”.

OK, another example where I’m just in love with the detail.  The power supply in the PC here has a pass through for a monitor.  Very chunky 80s tech that stopped being a thing pretty early on.

Just a zoom in on the front panel of the frankenpc to show the status lights and keyboard lock.   I think I owned a PC with this exact front panel.

Not sure what this is based on, but it’s an interesting portable computer… or more likely, a portable terminal.  Doesn’t show up often and only in places where you would expect to find older tech.

Speaking of terminals, this adorable portrait-style terminal makes several notable appearances in one level.  It has both amber and full-color variants which I suspect is a bit of artistic license.

Back side of said terminal.  While it IS connected to power, the serial port is consipciously not hooked up to anything.  Eh.  Good enough.

Cart full of computers, showing both the “open” and “closed” versions of that suspiciously-modern PC tower.

Hey, it’s Norton Commander!  This is absolutely appropriate for 1991.  Also the PCjr makes a very rare appearance here, though…

…somehow it’s a version of the PCjr that has a 3.5″ disk drive.  Pretty sure that never existed.

Nothing really to say about these little pod things other than that I love the color scheme.

Another huge win for the art team.  These power sockets are in Europe, and are completely different from…

…the power sockets in this American building.  I have a bad habit of looking at power sockets in video games, and I feel like they deserve extra credit for catering to this extremely specific fetish.

If only it weren’t for the purple connector on this keyboard cable.  C’mon, guys.

I like that this security terminal is a mash up of the Monitor ][ model that gets used everywhere in the game and the very generic PC/AT keyboard model.  Also the monitor is appropriately a green screen.  I think this may be the only time we see it with an image on it?

Very chunky Soviet …computer? terminal?  I dig the look.  These also only show up a few times in the game, and always where you would expect the tech to be outdated.

I really like that this little TV says “Multi System” on it, implying that it can display either PAL or NTSC signals.

A very similar shot to an earlier one,  the monitors in your home base change what’s displayed throughout the course of the game, which is awesome.  Both of these seem to have Windows/286, I think.  I originally thought it might be GEM but that would be a very deep cut.

A PC/XT with an AT-style keyboard, IBM PC monitor, wireless mouse, and … a Disk ][.   Also nothing on this desk can read any of those 3.5″ floppies.

And finally, a not-quite-a-computer piece of tech. This looks to be a word processor, basically a stand-alone device that just, well, lets you type up documents, save them to the included disk drive and print them out.  Could be modeled on a system from Brother, or Magnavox, maybe Epson?  I don’t know much about these.

This doesn’t have the keyboard.  It shows up a few times and never has a keyboard attached, which doesn’t make a lot of logical sense from a functionality standpoint… but if you wanted to use it as a piece of set dressing, maybe it works better this way than if you included the keyboard.

Anyway.  As I alluded to earlier, I really liked the campaign.   It didn’t have QUITE the crazy over-the-top set pieces that you get in some CoD games, but I found myself quite fond of the little band of misfits that you control over the course of it and the occasional lapses into absolute crazy town.

Also, there is absolutely no point in this game where you are in the gunner’s seat of a C-130 providing fire support.  I’m not sure if that’s been a thing in any BLOPS games, actually, but I know it must have been a temptation to slip one in and I would just like to give a big virtual hug to whatever product manager decided that it wasn’t necessary.