Is CoD4 the most relevant shooter?

[IWCAS]

I think deep down everyone wants to play CoD4 again. It's what started it all and it's definitely--in my opinion--the greatest fps to date. I know some people would argue that. That's fine. But I spent many hours on CoD4 and MW2. CoD4 was definitely the funnest shooter I've played.

 

[Scow2]

Perhaps, but it lost it's shot when it got a pair of sequels, in my opinion. That kind of undermines any statement being made in favour of commercialism

For the purposes of my argument, I ask everyone to believe those two titles were smothered at birth.

Call of Duty 4 reminds me of The Matrix: "I forgot how good that game was... too bad they never made any sequels."

The Call of Duty series explores the duality of the way we percieve warfare. War is both Hell and "Glorious" at once - it's not a black-and-white situation.

It seems to me that the numbered Call of Duty games are all made with high-quality writing, while the spinoffs are explorations of "What else can we do with this" and take a less serious approach.

I have CoD4 on the Wii, and it was great - I've not been on in a long time to see if there's any chance others are on as well.

 

[MindFragged]

I find that COD4 is strangely schizophrenic about where it wants to be message-wise. It certainly has many trappings of the anti-war message, with its' death screens, the nuke sequence, the AC-130 part and the melancholic ending to name some. But on the other hand, most of the gameplay is straight up action-glorification. The gameplay is the one man army player plowing through the opposition, showcasing awesome american weaponry and telling you how awesome war is.

I think this is a good point, and there's more to be said on the game's 'schizophrenic' nature. The gameplay is very exhilarating and empowering, and that in itself could be said to clash with the slightly more sombre attitude of other parts of the title; whilst indicating that warfare is an unpleasant business (to say the least) in some aspects of its design, the game still rewards the player with pleasure for participating in it in others.

However, I believe this clash can still fit within the meta-commentary I've read in the game. If the AC-130 section highlights a disconnection from 'reality' it also acknowledges the inability of a mainstream FPS to ever really give the player a glimpse of the reality of warfare. We are no closer to the 'reality' of the subject matter gunning down people as Soap than we are in the AC-130. By inviting us to consider the parallel between our own disconnected state and the crew's this section undermines the notion that playing any other part of it is like actually participating in warfare - we're viewing it through a skewed lens. In doing so it acts as an apologia for gung-ho and fun action because it has acknowledged the separation of the player's experience from the realities of its subject matter.

I know I'm placing a lot on just one section of the game here, but I believe this section provides a certain frame of reference for CoD4. As I said previously, the sequence is completely separate in mechanics, feel and tone. Because it presents such a striking contrast I am forced to consider its relationship to the rest of the game, and vice-versa. Thus my reading of one informs my reading of the other.

This is nothing new in gaming, Medal of Honor Frontline had several sequences that were designed to make you sympathise... with the Nazis. It was done through several brilliant events as you played through the game, getting more and more personal (first you saw them sleeping in their beds, then you went undercover to a pub and everyone was drinking, singing songs and telling jokes, etc.) Culminating in overhearing a German soldier radioing his wife and telling her he loved her and missed her and would be home soon... shortly before the base gets bombed to smithereens by the RAF. I could never kill that last German soldier, even though I knew he probably wouldn't survive the bombing, I always had to run past the bunker he was in, and I know I'm not the only one.

Its because of my argument above that I find this reading interesting. If CoD4 indicates its own imperfections in the treatment of its subject matter it would seem MOH: Frontline could perhaps do something similar, but not identical. Would you say that the sections that humanise the enemy present a contrast to the rest of the nazi-killing fun, or do you think that these sections actually do a half-decent job of making you regretting killing enemies outright? Either way, they seem to have had a profound effect on how you view your 'participation' in WW2, which is interesting in and of itself.

 

[Promethax]

Hold on just a minute here...








What's wrong with Load?

 

[MindFragged]

Hold on just a minute here...








What's wrong with Load?

At the risk of sounding like an ignoramus:

Wha?

 

[hermes]

There are some good points, but COD4 is not the first one. In fact, there are (at least) 3 Call of Duty games that used similar tricks to expand on the experience and being more than just "mere" shooters... not even counting several other games and franchises that previously explored those possibilities (like Medal of Honor or Half Life).

 

[Hero in a half shell]

-snip-

Would you say that the sections that humanise the enemy present a contrast to the rest of the nazi-killing fun, or do you think that these sections actually do a half-decent job of making you regretting killing enemies outright?

In MOH Frontline, its sections of humanising the Nazis pretty much completely contradict all other parts of the story. At all other times they are real monsters: There's a level in Holland where they shoot an otherwise harmless paratrooper trapped under a windmill blade by his 'chute. Later in the level the officers are terrorising old civilian people by pointing pistols and shouting at them (when you kill the Nazi officers the old people run behind cover and sit there with their head in their hands shaking in fear. it's a really chilling thing to see.)
Add to that the whole point of the game revolves around chasing down and killing this Nazi General whose characterisation adds up to that of a cartoon villian and it's easy to miss the sections where Nazis are shown to be vulnerable humans, but it's definitely a recurring theme in the game.

It doesn't go as far as to make you regret any of the people you've killed: there's a section where you ride around an underground railway in a minecart mowing down Nazis like ants, and many of your allies die in ways designed to rile you up and go on a revenge spree, but they just exist as subtle reminders as you are playing that these soldiers have feelings and emotions (like soldiers at a road checkpoint at night talking about how much the fog creeps them out)

 

[Scow2]

-snip-

Would you say that the sections that humanise the enemy present a contrast to the rest of the nazi-killing fun, or do you think that these sections actually do a half-decent job of making you regretting killing enemies outright?

In MOH Frontline, its sections of humanising the Nazis pretty much completely contradict all other parts of the story. At all other times they are real monsters: There's a level in Holland where they shoot an otherwise harmless paratrooper trapped under a windmill blade by his 'chute. Later in the level the officers are terrorising old civilian people by pointing pistols and shouting at them (when you kill the Nazi officers the old people run behind cover and sit there with their head in their hands shaking in fear. it's a really chilling thing to see.)
Add to that the whole point of the game revolves around chasing down and killing this Nazi General whose characterisation adds up to that of a cartoon villian and it's easy to miss the sections where Nazis are shown to be vulnerable humans, but it's definitely a recurring theme in the game.

It doesn't go as far as to make you regret any of the people you've killed: there's a section where you ride around an underground railway in a minecart mowing down Nazis like ants, and many of your allies die in ways designed to rile you up and go on a revenge spree, but they just exist as subtle reminders as you are playing that these soldiers have feelings and emotions (like soldiers at a road checkpoint at night talking about how much the fog creeps them out)

War is Hell.

It also tends to be Glorious as well.

 

[Bad Jim]

There are some good points, but COD4 is not the first one. In fact, there are (at least) 3 Call of Duty games that used similar tricks to expand on the experience and being more than just "mere" shooters... not even counting several other games and franchises that previously explored those possibilities (like Medal of Honor or Half Life).

Even before that there was Cannon Fodder. All your dudes have names. When they die, they get a grave on a hill, and that hill gets covered in graves as you progress through the game. After a mission you get a list of those who died and those who are getting a promotion and the KIA list is generally much bigger.

 

[Woodsey]

It's an interesting take on the game, and it reminds me actually of what I felt the series was trying to be with the first two games: commentaries on the messiness of it all, and firmly anti-war. They never quite got there, but you're right in suggesting that CoD 4 shows signs they wanted to make a comparison to contemporary warfare; much of the game sees you in a much smaller team, and you're often in outback-locations as opposed to cities that look like they've had a few hundred bombs dropped on them.

With the dive into gung-ho for the rest of the series, they just seemed to abandon that. I felt CoD 4 was getting that way anyway (personally, the game's never done much for me, the first two games being 'Call of Duty' to me, the rest of it being 'eh, CoD'), so it never really maxed out it's potential when it came to looking at either contemporary warfare or previous wars.

Eurogamer did a retrospective on the first Call of Duty a couple of years ago, and it's conclusion's stuck with me somewhat (paraphrasing):

'Whilst each entry into the series is now almost guaranteed to be the best-selling game of all time, you can't help but feel that, when replaying the original, it could have been so much more than that.'

 

[MindFragged]

There are some good points, but COD4 is not the first one. In fact, there are (at least) 3 Call of Duty games that used similar tricks to expand on the experience and being more than just "mere" shooters... not even counting several other games and franchises that previously explored those possibilities (like Medal of Honor or Half Life).

I'd like to hear how. I'm ashamed to say I only got into CoD at number 3, which wasn't exactly stellar (though still enjoyable). You raise a good point though - CoD4 is not the first FPS to make you feel the impact of warfare on a certain level. If its the best marriage of mechanics and 'message' remains to be debated, of course. I know my choice of the word 'relevant' is a bit vague, but I was kind of getting at how it uses its parts to comment on both its subject and its own portrayal of events through the FPS format.

The difference between what CoD4 does and a shooter that makes you feel sympathy for the enemy and your comrades (thereby acknowledging the hypothetical human cost of your actions and others in such a scenario) is difficult for me to pin down. I suppose it is that while the latter makes you feel something on an emotional level, the former also made me consider the form of the game in relation to its subject, and that's what I think is special.

-snip-

-snip-

In MOH Frontline, its sections of humanising the Nazis pretty much completely contradict all other parts of the story. At all other times they are real monsters: There's a level in Holland where they shoot an otherwise harmless paratrooper trapped under a windmill blade by his 'chute. Later in the level the officers are terrorising old civilian people by pointing pistols and shouting at them (when you kill the Nazi officers the old people run behind cover and sit there with their head in their hands shaking in fear. it's a really chilling thing to see.)
Add to that the whole point of the game revolves around chasing down and killing this Nazi General whose characterisation adds up to that of a cartoon villian and it's easy to miss the sections where Nazis are shown to be vulnerable humans, but it's definitely a recurring theme in the game.

It doesn't go as far as to make you regret any of the people you've killed: there's a section where you ride around an underground railway in a minecart mowing down Nazis like ants, and many of your allies die in ways designed to rile you up and go on a revenge spree, but they just exist as subtle reminders as you are playing that these soldiers have feelings and emotions (like soldiers at a road checkpoint at night talking about how much the fog creeps them out)

Hrm. Seems like there are interesting contradictions there like those already discussed in CoD4. Perhaps these humanising interludes could be said to provide a similar frame of reference/apologia for the rest of the game ie. though it requires you to have fun mowing down waves of them evil, evil Nazis, it still invites you to consider that in reality both sides lost sons, father, daughters, mothers etc.

Or they're just a poor attempt to add depth to the treatment of WW2 in a title that is otherwise jingoistic, gung-ho nonsense. Until I play the game, I couldn't say. I can happily state what I have about CoD4 and the AC-130 section because the reading is so well supported by the rest of the 'text'.

Feels like I need to get out there and check out the rest of the CoD series, and MOH: Frontline to boot.

 

[StashAugustine]

War is Hell.

It also tends to be Glorious as well.

This is one of the reasons I loved CoD4: it did a great job of portraying the dirty side of war without falling into preachyness. I've always thought it a little odd that everyone thinks of the sequels as more gung-ho, considering the villain is an American general who has the CIA participate in a terrorist attack.

Even before that there was Cannon Fodder. All your dudes have names. When they die, they get a grave on a hill, and that hill gets covered in graves as you progress through the game. After a mission you get a list of those who died and those who are getting a promotion and the KIA list is generally much bigger.

Reminds me of X-Com. That game had ridiculous casualty rates.