Gaming CODPLOPS: A Cynical History Of COD

Is Joe looking forward to Black Ops 2, do you think?

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/xbox-360/2012/05/06/codplops-a-cynical-history-of-cod/1

 

I'm afraid the gaming industry has reached the same place as the film industry. The costs of producing a blockbuster have grown to the point where the only thing that's going to get greenlit is a sequel or an addition to an established genre, preferably based on licensed IP - though I suspect we'll be saved from John Carter the video game.

Genuine innovation is only going to happen in the independent sector. That's not to excuse COD. Titles such as Skyrim and Diablo 3 are at least managing to advance their genres.

 

Every time I've said this (and more), I get yelled at. Too many other great games to bother criticising Activition, Joe. They have just made themselves irrelevant in my eyes, and not worth the attention.
Great games still get made despite the clamour by publishers to exploit or create a CoD-like money-spinning franchise.

I've owned MW2 for a good 18mths (Steam sale), haven't gotten around to playing it, and have no immediate plans to despite playing quite a lot of MW. Too many other games to play.
Didn't bother with BlOps or MW3, and probably won't any time soon. Doesn't hurt my choice that they never seem to drop in price.

 

now heres a question - which has more titles:

COD or Battlefield??


oh and if you want a future based shooter with mechs and flying tanks - go play BF 2142

 

Well Joe, one thing only: If you don't like it, don't eat it!

Why are the state of CoD the way you describe it, if it is? Because people buy it, man!

So you can take your high-horse opinion, your academic "analysis" and your "anger" and shove it up your skimmilk-colored, hairy butt.

Even though I agree...

 

I don't actually mind that the next CoD will be the same as the last. They do what they say they do and people like that. Personally I thought MW4 is pretty piss poor, as you deviate an mm from the narrow scripted path the game fails completely, and those movements are so obvious too.

It's multiplayer is the same as always, but then why change something that works? Again I don't think its that great, but I knew what I was getting.

But I think the industry needs these games as much as it needs the innovative ones, its a pity that they don't get a more even share of the credit (and money), but that's life.

 

Don't kid yourself, COD will remain broadly the same as the previous until people stop buying it.

Having said that, I've heard at least one COD-disliking game journalist (a proper one, at that) say he thought Blops 2 was the most interesting change in direction since the first Modern Warfare. He mentioned multiple branching paths though missions, multiple endings, and 'strike force' missions where you can jump between soldiers and vehicles on the battlefield at will (think driver: san francisco) before returning to a commander position to issue orders to the troops from on high. Check out the giant bomb COD specific podcast for info.

Personally I think the games are OK, mass market fodder that isn't terrible. The multiplayer plays like Quake 2 to me, in a good way.

 

What Riffler said. Too much vested interests for any serious change in Cod to occur. Tried and tested is always going to triumph over change when you have the best selling series in the world.

However, while I agree that their singleplayers have been terrible for the past 5 or so years (hence why I don't play linear driven twaddle), I believe there is an underlying multiplayer formula which has worked exceptionally well in some games like Modern Warfare and MW2. Blops and MW3, however, are both broken for a variety of reasons that I wont go into here.

But the point is we have tasted twitch shooter excellence in some past Cod games, which is what attracts people to the series - to deny that is not being serious imo. There's something about the fast action, the player control, the guns, the attachments, the RPG element, the perks, the killstreaks, and the maps which just works. When you get all those things right, you have a great game there.

As I have said before, both Treyarch and IW have found it very difficult to get this balance right, even when very sensible suggestions from the community have been proposed for years on how to fix the various game-breaking problems (remove last stand, noobtubes, deathstreaks, shotgun secondarys, fix the lag compensation, change the map design of MW3 maps, etc). But they've fallen on deaf ears and fans of the series have been increasingly betrayed by both studios - their DLC model is ridiculous but that's Activision's doing.

On the other hand, if they want their singleplayers to be taken seriously, they have to make them with freedom and choice being central to the game's design. This means no crappy set-pieces where you're basically watching a poor hollywood movie. They should bring the RPG elements of the MP into the SP. They need to make them open world experiences, or at least do so to an extent. The original Far Cry had IMO the perfect FPS SP experience. The original Halo also had a noteworthy SP. Both are leagues apart from the shambles you get in a Cod SP, and it doesn't take a genius to understand why.

 

What sickens me is here we have a game series based on a old engine with old graphics, and they still expect £40 for it!!! Its like paying the new price for a 10 year old focus!!

This is why I've given up on mainstream gaming and dedicated myself to Minecraft...

 

I can honestly say that i have never read any article on bit that ive ever disagreed with more. What the hell is all this raging about Call of duty shitwave thats going on. Why do everey single dumbass (not calling koe a dumbass im referring to the general thing that happens in every forum as soon as COD is mentioned) with a keyboard feel the need to tell the world about how much they hate the COD series. If you dont like a game DONT PLAY IT dont buy it and ignore it and let us who love the series have our game in peace. Also why is it that this gameseries has sold millions upon millions of copys if its all absolute ****?? and dont give me that BS about "all cod players are 12 years old and dont know better"

What a few whiners think wont ever change the fact that there are FAR more gamers that actually enjoy the COD series than there are gamers who dont. I love call of duty and i hate the entire BF series but that does not instantly make me want to thrash the game in 500 forumposts or say that all BF players are dumbasses that wouldnt know a good game if it kicked them in the face.

Its sad to see that bit has jumped on the "we must hate COD bandwagon"

 

Something doesn't have to be good or bad or healthy, it just has to be POPULAR. Popular doesn't have to make sense.

Examples: cocaine, gossip magazines, Lost Prophets, TOWIE, Big Brother, McDonalds, tabloid papers.

Personally, do I think any of these things are good or useful? Not really. Does anyone care what i think? I expect not.

 

Same here. When the games work they're amazing, and the series has amassed a huge following not because it's crap but because it's good. That doesn't mean we can't want more, and that doesn't mean we can't criticise its obvious flaws (crappy SP in general, various broken MP aspects which can easily be ironed out).

I do agree though that it's become fun to take the p1ss out of Cod and on this forum especially there's a group of hostile twits who couldn't see a good game if it hit them in their face. They spend that much time ripping cod that they can't possibly be enjoying BF that much. Same applies for the other so called 'gamers' who spend all day chasing benchmarks when they hardly do any serious gaming to enjoy their graphical supremacy. When I was accumulating over 40 days of playtime on MW2, I certainly couldn't care less what the BF players were doing.

 

Wait, what? Skyrim only continued the downward trend of the Elder Scroll series, removing classes and attributes was the final nail in it's coffin for me (the MMO will be the cremation of the franchise as far as i'm concerned).

Diablo III will be the exact same as the previous Diablo games, just on a new engine.... though to be fair, that's pretty much all people wanted.

 

We hate because most the games from major publishers are as stale as the COD franchise. It's all very well trying to ignore COD but where's the alternative? EA, Ubi, Rockstar etc. concentrate all there money on making sequels for the undemanding console market.

 

and the classic example of why 12 year olds should not be let near the internet.

sad to see you didnt even read what the article was about - in essence , they changed the skins and re released it - the same game for 10 years now.

 

While I'm a CoD fan (not fanboy), I do agree with Joe. The biggest problem with the CoD franchise is that the majority of the gamers playing CoD seem to be children (under the stated legal age too), and they like it just the way it is. Activision knows this but as long as parents are happy to go out and buy the games, Activision will be happy to mug them at the tills ad infinitum.

It's a sorry state of affairs but as previously metioned, if you want real innovation in games, look at the indepentent sector.....

 

So how much input did Joe have into giving 9 out of 10 to MW2 on this site, and then 8 out of 10 to Black Ops when it was released with those tech problems that needed patching? I don't remember seeing the same hate for EA's Fifa series that did and does the exact same thing and twice a year for the Euros and Olympics or World Cup competitions (link please if I'm wrong).


Because of Tribes Ascend I didn't even bother downloading for the free weekend on MW3 a week ago, didn't need to, already had a great multiplayer game for free where if you don't want to spend any money, you don't have to. As far as I'm concerned the CoD games just need a hands-free mode where you watch the cutscenes strung together as they're filmed to grab your attention in adverts but the SP is so short that I can't be bothered to actually play them. If I ever change my mind about playing the game, there'll be another free weekend down the line.

 

You have abvously never played any of the Call of duty games but im not surprised because a huge number of people who rage about the COD series hasnt played the games at all they just make stupid uniformed commets about a game they know nothing about. Ive seen hudreds upon hudreds of forumpost were people rage on about how useless MW3 is and then go on to fishich their post with "i havent actually played mw3 but..."

 

cant wait for school to go back on tuesday - will be so nice and quiet round here - and as for your comment , i have cod games up to and including MW3 - but i proved when MW3 was released it could be played on a netbook., lol at innovation right there. its still DX9 , and also as also shown in MW3 - they literally reused the same modles and textures from previous releases.

ergo - same **** different day.

 

Who the **** cares about what DX version it it ? oh so a game cannot possibly be any good because it doesnt have dx11 and and a shitload of graphic effects. People get so tied up in this "HAVE TO HAVE LATEST TECH AND GRAPHICS" that they totally loose sight of whats important in a game and let me tell you it is NOT a dx version. And also the fact that a game can run on a computer thats not superexspencive monster is a GOOD thing it means that more people can enjoy the game.