"How Call of Duty Destroyed the World"-IGN

[ps3freak18]

I found an interesting article on IGN today. Although usually I never find much of interest in this site but this article stood out. I don't agree with some of the references towards other games like Homefront and KZ3, but this article brings up some points that many have been thinking for a while.

Here is a small exert from the article.


Call of Duty engineered the destruction of its race, allowing its masters to subjugate the universe, giving them wealth and power beyond anybody's wildest dreams. Now it controls the evolution of any species or technology that it judges to be a potential threat; the greatest FPS scientists and developers forced to work under the supervision of so much inexplicable profit. For that, the global tribunal of gamingdom must put Call of Duty on trial. Intermediaries in this affair include but are not limited to anyone bemoaning the rise of casualised meta-gaming to a seat of absolute power. Hypocritically enough, however, if you play Black Ops then you become part of the problem – or, at the very least, you become an unpaid beta tester, according to UK-based consumer advocacy group Gamers' Voice (http://gamersvoice.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53:gamers-voice-to-take-action-over-call-of-duty-black-ops-bugs&catid=3:gv-news&Itemid=3), who've been taking the concept of a trial extremely literally for some time now. Figuratively or literally, it's a trial that's sorely needed.

So far every glimmer of salvation has been swiftly snuffed, undone by the very tyrant they each seek to usurp. When the Medal of Honor reboot loomed on the horizon, bristling with bearded promise, hope for a better tomorrow stirred in the weary hearts of gamers everywhere. A new challenger had appeared; EA finally taking the fight to Activision with a game that… looked indistinguishable from Call of Duty, and… played similarly… and… might as well have been called Crap Ops, provided that name hadn't already been attributed to Black Ops by certain quarters. Even formerly unique FPS franchises aesthetically outside CoD's jurisdiction towed the line to some extent: Killzone 3's heavier sci-fi tread couldn't escape the prevalence of identically-implemented perks and killstreaks; neither could Crysis 2, despite its dog-tag riff on the former's familiar theme. And Homefront? THQ might be hurling optimistic press release confetti into the air to placate investors, but every gamer knows the truth at the heart of that disappointment.

Link-http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/116/1160501p1.html

So how do you feel? Discuss.

[keefy]

Never liked allthe rank up & XP stuff thats just a way to falsify a persons skill also the perks are a big pain too rewardignth dominating players with easier more ways to dominate.

[kflashin]

The problem I see with this article and every other article like it is that these people seem to forget that these are just games, and that developers have to find a healthy medium between fun and realism. I know that if a game is too cartoonish, I tend to get bored, but if I get killed right off the bat at every corner, then I will get pissed. So having killstreaks and crazy firepower is what works right now...at the end of the day,it's still just a game.

[Silver_Knight]

Whatever COD is a great game but someday someone will try a different formula and it will become Standard.

[ps3freak18]

Never liked allthe rank up & XP stuff thats just a way to falsify a persons skill also the perks are a big pain too rewardignth dominating players with easier more ways to dominate.

Yeah the perks bother me as well.

[squirrelbo1]

o yeah, rember how much people moaned about killzone 2's controls ?!??! there was nothing wrong with them, it was just a different approach. number 3 has more "cod like" controls. its a shame but im a cod fanboy (have been since the first) although i hated mw2 with a passion, so ill keep buying it.

[ps3freak18]

o yeah, rember how much people moaned about killzone 2's controls ?!??! there was nothing wrong with them, it was just a different approach. number 3 has more "cod like" controls. its a shame but im a cod fanboy (have been since the first) although i hated mw2 with a passion, so ill keep buying it.

Yeah out of all of them MW2 was the one that got to me bad. I just never really understood where that was how the bar was set.

I know this article calls out COD for ruining the FPS franchise. I will say I agree with the premise, but you can't really fault Activision for it. They just happened to make something that stuck better than Crazy glue but that isn't their fault that is was what everyone wanted to copy. That blame goes on the other developers that try to fit the COD mold and not trying to branch out on their own. Although Activision can be blamed for releasing rehash after rehash like EA Sports games. I think if MW3 is just about like all the others, I'm sure the hardcore crowd is going to drop off substantially.

But it is also a double edge sword to try to change the formula as well. Because there will be a lot of people that are pissed because it isn't MW2 or Black Ops. I do have a strong feeling that MW3 is going to be the last hoorah for a while. If it comes out much like the other installments, people are bound to get tired of it eventually. There are still people that buy Madden every year even though it never changes and when it does it's for the worst.