So I see this ad about becoming a writer for the escapist...

[SleepyOtter]

...and my first thought is mainly, "Wow, I could write for the escapist? That's awesome, after all, I love their columns on the site!" So I begin to whip up an email getting ready to pitch a weekly column idea to an editor, I explain my idea for the column (a Negative Retrospective on several aspects of gaming culture and its industry). I'm close to finishing it and decide to check out this article I'd written awhile back, seeing that it was going to be the first article I send to them, if they chose to let me write for them.

And then I decided to make a few changes, then some more, and then I was deleting whole paragraphs out of anger. I then sought to read some of the columns on the site to see what I was missing, I began reading Yahtzee's latest article and saw how wonderfully written and humorous it was at the same time, and then I realized that I suck at writing articles.

And what's weird about it is I'm always talking about the industry to friends, and when I "speak" my thoughts they sound so smart and planned out, and when I put those same thoughts on paper its just a bunch of disassembled phrases and ideas, unconnected with no fluidity.

Spoiler: here's the article so you can see the horribleness

I could be wrong on this assumption, (I probably am) but have you ever noticed how big gaming news organizations never actually say anything bad about Call of Duty? Now that thought is relative to whether or not Call of Duty is in fact, Bad. But that?s a double edged sword which I?ll gladly take a hit from, excuse my horrible use of analogies as I give you personal thoughts on my Negative Retrospective of Call of Duty.

And, to put it bluntly, Call of Duty games are evil.

Well, maybe that?s a bit dramatic, I don?t really think Call of Duty is evil, more so what the franchise represents. Which is, that it?s a lazy, money driven excuse for a game franchise at this point. Now don?t get me wrong, all game publishers and developers want to make money, that?s the whole reason for them being in the industry in the first place. But Call of Duty does it with such an attitude that seems like their not even trying anymore.
Which is where I start, Call of Duty?s quality has dropped significantly over the past few years, and this is what begins to worry me about the series. It went from a new and innovative game franchise, where it puts you in the shoes of a real soldier during WW2 and showed real life engagements during said time. You weren?t doing everything yourself, you saw vistas filled with allies fighting, and you saw the tides sift when you helped even slightly. Maybe after you destroyed an AA Gun or shore battery, point is, while you weren?t constrained by Friendly AI and you just had to worry about yourself, things you accomplished were driven by the fact that you had an ultimate goal hanging above you, (like, for example, an entire air force being blown out of the sky by an AA gun) and you were helping achieve that goal.
The series went on like that for awhile, that is, until the ?Modern Fever? set in and turned most games onto modern times as the setting, which I may go deeper into in another article. But getting back on track, Call of Duty 4 was, to me, the last true Call of Duty game. I would say that World at War is the last, but that?s just CoD 4 with a WW2 skin on it, so no. Call of Duty 4 had so many things that made it good, a strong single player, with characters that you can care about strangely enough. It had realistic settings with some large plot sift that makes you realize shits real at this point.
When Characters die, their deaths have weight, I?m sorry but I don?t give a shit if some masked douche bag got shot in the head Modern Warfare 2, I really do- oh, you shot me too? Okay that?s fine I really don?t care that much, it?s whatever. What happened? He?s the bad guy now? What the shit, why? Cause he?s pissed that his troops died? What the hell is happening.
That?s what I felt in Modern Warfare 2, its just a (excuse the language) cluster fuck of explosions, half thought out plot twists and Captain Price brought back because Infinity Ward wanted to. The reasons they provide make no sense, they kill your character about three times because they did it once in Call of Duty 4! This is called, ?We have lots of money to make a game, who else wants every inane action movie sequence to happen?? and without fail, ?I DO!? yells every single male developer because, c?mon, we would too if we had the chance.
This drop in quality is not good for the good of the gaming industry, because we?ve been setting our bar so low after MW2 that something of average quality amazes us and makes us bow before it like a lost deity. Gone are the days of good games being average, we see the current slew of cookie cutter FPS?s brought to us because of the, ?Call of Duty does it and gets a shit load of money for it? mentality.
These games get pushed out, compared to Call of Duty, and then are tossed away, each one having potential and depth as a game, a game created by artists, programmers, writers, and voice actors. All that talent wasted on a clone of a mediocre game. How very sad, and it?s not even as though the games were that definitive from Call of Duty, I mean its not like Saints Row where they took the piss out of GTA every five seconds and made a coherently fun and enjoyable game. No, they just made a quick single player and spent all time on the multiplayer component.
You?ll notice I spoke nothing of the multiplayer, to which I?ll simply say, I cannot play a current CoD game without: no scopes, 360 no scopes, rage quitting, dropshoting, dual shotguns? Grenade spam, stupid perks, small maps, kill streak camping, normal camping, claymores, and?.children playing. All of which piss me and hundreds of other people off and speak volumes about the game by themselves.
Perhaps this is all just hot air, maybe I?m acting dramatic, but to me this seems somewhat important. And one last time, no, I don?t think Call of Duty should not exist, I just wish they?d bring some damn quality to the table for once.

I mean, I always thought I could be a writer for one of these gaming websites, not because I think I'm that good, just because it's two things that I love, colliding with one another beautifully.

I'm so bad, I cannot even think of how to end this question on the advice board.

So, help?

 

[RaNDM G]

I'm not trying to be rude here, but I am going to be honest.

- For one thing, grammar and sentence structuring is messy. That's a huge turnoff for most publishers who already have enough articles to read over.

- There are several run-on sentences. These make you sound as if you don't even know what you're talking about and often times cause you to go off-topic.

- Worst of all, the entire article is completely opinionated. There aren't any substantial facts, evidence, or references to back up your argument.

Let me try sorting out the first few paragraphs and see if I can make your article sound a little better:

Have you ever noticed how big gaming news organizations never actually say anything bad about Call of Duty? Now, that thought isn't exactly relative as to whether or not Call of Duty is, in fact, a bad game. I'm talking more about it's changes on the industry. To put it bluntly...

Call of Duty games are evil.

Okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic. I don't really think the games themselves are evil, more so what the franchise represents. It's a lazy, money driven excuse for a game franchise.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not bad for game publishers and developers to want to make money. After all, that's the whole reason the industry exists in the first place. But Activision treats the Call of Duty franchise with such a negative attitude, it seems like they aren't even trying anymore.

The quality of the series has dropped significantly over the past few years, and this is what worries me most. It went from a new and innovative game franchise, where it puts you in the shoes of just one soldier in an army during World War Two, to a stale and overused genre after Modern Warfare.

Call of Duty 4 was, to me, the last true Call of Duty game. There were so many things that made it good, a strong single player with characters that you strangely care about and a plot twist you never saw coming. Character deaths were tragic because you would grow attached to them.

This changed in Modern Warfare 2. Instead of focusing on plot development and character interaction, the focus shifted to action sequences where nameless, faceless characters are scripted to die. I never really cared for Ghost's character, and never really cared when he was killed off during the major plot twist.

Finishing Modern Warfare 2's campaign, I was left with the impression that it was nothing but a cluster fuck of explosions, half thought out plot twists, and Captain Price making an appearance because Infinity Ward wanted him to be there. What was worse was that it was impossible to become attached to the player character. Three of the player characters are killed off as part of the plot, but their deaths feel senseless compared with the atomic explosion in the first Modern Warfare.

I've only made a few simple changes to the article: reformatted paragraphs, cutted some sentences, fixed the punctuation and cleaned up a few misspelled words. Your argument is still underdeveloped, but at this point it's passable for a user review of a game.

For any review, it's very important to do at least a few hours of research on the subject. But for now, I think you should focus more on improving your grammar and punctuation. It makes a HUGE difference when you're trying to impress an editor or publisher.

And please don't try and use this edit in your next draft. It's just an example that should help you take a step in the right direction.

 

[BlueberryMUNCH]

I didn't read it in its entirety, but what I noticed was pretty much an echo of what Randm G said:

-It was very uncomfortable to read; your use of commas really stopped it from sounding natural and flowing properly. That's a big issue.
-Overall, it is very, very opinionated. This is an issue.

Also, it sounds to me as if you should try Battlefield out.

Hope you can appreciate the criticism mate. Take care and goodluck!

 

[ppsh41]

I am no fan of grammar or writing laws, So I cannot really comment on that. I found the content interesting and you made some good points. However the article is perhaps too opinionated.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

So, help?

I am not sure that opinionated is necessarily a problem. Yahtzee and MovieBob have jobs here and they're pretty damned opinionated. I think that the issue there is the perception of your writing. Typically advice on writing will tell you to write in a confident and persuasive manner. But in your article you apologize for your statement of opinion multiple times with comments such as "maybe that's a bit dramatic", "could be wrong", "probably am", ect. You back track and weaken your statements too much and apparently (based on comments here) at the same time highlight how "opinionated" you are despite your perfuse apologetics. So basically don't apologize for your opinion, you can not be very persuasive when you appear to lack confidence in your own ideas.

Really though the first problem that jumped out at me was the subject. I have never played CoD, never discussed CoD, and have never looked for discussions on CoD yet the material in your article is not new to me. Considering this I would have to say that the subject of your article is not exactly "fresh". You should try to look for something to say which is "new" and interesting. I know that it is quite possible that anything you come up with may turn out to have already been discussed, and you may not have already been aware of it, but there is an onus upon you as a writer on such subjects to take a look at what has already been written before you start writing yourself. Hopefully, even if something has been done to death, you may find that you have a particularly interesting perspective from which to write anyway. Typically though as a writer you want to forge ahead into the uncharted and be wary of well tread ground.*

Lastly there is the issue of style. Good writing places style over substance. That is not to say that we abandon writing of anything substantial but that we need to keep our mind more often to the effort of entertaining and engaging an audience than informing them. The information is there and ready but you have to weave it into your article and that is where the skill and talent comes into play. The writing in your article is unfortunately flat. It utilizes well used and common phraseology which comes off as more conversational than you really want. A conversational style is not necessarily bad but you do not want your article to sound like you hanging with your buddies just speaking off the top of your head. Use a wider range in vocabulary. Look for interesting and less used turns of phrase. Over all just make your writing "pop".

*Addendum here. I just looked back and realized that your article is supposed to be a "retrospective". This is going to make your job a lot tougher as you will always have to be looking for interesting perspectives on subjects already well trod.

Good Luck!

 

[Jetbat]

Sorry mate, but it doesn't seem to be a professional, published article.
A forum rant, is what it is.

I apologize for reiterating, but take more facts and instances from the games themselves. Or, if you want to bag on Activision for example, try getting some monetary numbers about their business dealings, sales, etc.

I also agree the the gentleman above, as with saying giving new light to an already very much so talked about topic. For example, Jim Sterling made a VERY compelling and idealistic argument about Call of Duty in one of his videos. It brought new light on an old subject, which made it superb at grabbing attention, and causing logical, lateral thought.