The Call of Duty issue

[Jegsimmons]

Hello to all.

I understand this issue may have appeared before, but I am indeed curious.

I have been a gamer since the 80's. I started with the ZX Spectrum, then the NES, Genesis, PC and so on and so forth.

Gaming has always been my main hobby. I have hundreds of games for several different platforms. I play everything (except JRPG's and sports games) and enjoy it. From Okami to Turning Point, from Uncharted to Command & Conquer.

So can someone explain to me why the minute I say I like Call of Duty, a vast portion of the community acts as if I'm somehow a pariah? How I should turn in my gaming club membership card?

Yes, I do like those games, and they are good games! They're fun, they're exciting, and as shooters, they get the job done. I don't play the multiplayer, but I do enjoy the campaigns, and yes, I do buy them when they come out. And enjoy them.

So I am asking, out of genuine curiosity, why this immensely negative outlook on Call of Duty and the people who play those games.

i dont know about anyone else, but i do know it is not because its popular, thats what people badly defend it it with when they cant argue for it.

but my personal reason follows this:

I loved finest hour and big red one
I -LIKED- call of duty 4 and World at War.

But i noticed the multiplayer for WAW was copy and paste...but thats ok, i understand they only have a year to pump that out after the other game...

HOW EVER: even with 2 years behind each game, massive amounts of money and people, the games are as Listed:
Cut and paste from the previous game
Lack good music (remember finest hour's music?...epic)
the color scheme is pitiful, yes, im serious, there is no contrast between colors and it becomes sickening, no place on earth is set with a color scheme like that, especially with a human population. Even if it really is just layers of brown, they still should have light and value differences.
Characters are wooden and unlikable, remember when Vic got killed in Big Red One? that was purely tragic! we got to know everyone in that squad, Sarge, Vic, Brooklyn, ect. Even finest hour gave you a sense of motivation and character. Now its what ever military cliche` seems cool.
Gameplay doesn't make sense, I know halo 2 and 3 had regen health...but then again...it makes sense in that universe with that technology, and even then the last 2 games had health packs added back. The two weapons deal is getting old, the AI is the worst ive seen in a major mainstream title just barely smarter than mindjack's. In fact the only reason they dont run into walls is because the enemy has preset patterns. Halo's enemy AI is the best in any game ive seen, they duck, jump flank, adapt to danger and act alive! they even wonder off and procrastinate in non combat situations.
Terrible multiplayer, besides the fan base, the multiplayer is damn dull and feels un-involving because one guy can die 50 time and kill 2 people while another will kill 75 and die twice because he dual wielded and ran around randomly. and it's not skill, its just what happens. not to mention bad coding, badly naming guns and putting them in the wrong category (see m14a1/m14 carbine and AK-74U respectively), bad spawns, boring cut and paste maps that are cramped and need to be bigger.
TERRIBLE STORY- i play games knowing that it is another medium of story telling and art, so i expect and fucking good story that doesnt rip off set pieces from movies like the rock for 60 god damn dollars!
Zero innovation, yes the game has brought nothing new to gameing. None, infact, all it has done was rip ideas from its biggest competition (halo and Battlefield. the ladder of which did modern combat back in 2004-5 with better results). Story sucks, gameplay is shit, multiplayer is the same as previous titles, and it will be obsolete withing a year.

I want Activision to lose the rights to COD, go back to WW2, and give us some good characters and a good story! Not faceless assholes with 'shocking' scenes that they use to promote the game when everybody just rolls their eyes. Even purist who rally against games dont bother with COD anymore, its just cute to see this 7 year old use bad words infront of it's friends to look tough.

 

[enzilewulf]

Well since I played all the CoD's back to when the series was good (WW2) I would simply ask what game you were talking about. I loved everything up to MW. I know there is a lot of people who complained about the recurring world war two theme but at least the story was there. It might of been corny but that's what I grew up with and damn't I loved it.

 

[Jegsimmons]

As many have said before it is very popular and there will almost always be a push back when things reach that level of popularity. The CoD series is recieving the exact same type of hate as Halo did.

funny thing is, that i just realized that COD is the best thing that happened to the online gaming industry. NO! don't leave hear me out! take halo as an example. before cod got as popular as it is now, halo was the equivalent. clones of it every ware, a rabid and annoying fan base for the most part, ect. BUT, all those things stopped when halo lost that obnoxious audience to COD. the ones who were left rejoiced, and bungi, instead of appealing to a crowd that would buy the game regardless of weather it was a copy or not had to actually make the strive to make a big step up for each one, which i think they did quite well. and don't think that was an one time incident. any other game that had a fan base like that pretty much lost it and the ones who stayed had a clean, fun, if a bit more empty community to play with.

But halo 2 was out in 2004 when the first COD game hit consoles, COD didnt even have the 'big hit multiplayer' till number 4 when halo 3 was done, and bungie starts working on games right after the previous one is launched. while yes, maby the competition is what drove Bungie to make the awesomeness that they are today, it really doesn't seem so much so when you realize COD is just copying halo and Battlefield....and really, COD is the most behind game of the 3.

 

[Mr. Eff_v1legacy]

I don't dislike the games themselves. While I do think they're pretty tired (as are alot of series) I recognize that people like them.

What I don't like, however, is how they seem to influence every other type of game. All shooters seem to need competitive multiplayer, and other games that don't need them are getting action elements.
In addition, I don't like how a new one is released every year. It seems as though they have a safe formula that they can continue to use with little innovation. What is that showing other developers? That to make money you need to find something that works and run with it as long as possible?

 

[Bat Vader]

Hello to all.

I understand this issue may have appeared before, but I am indeed curious.

I have been a gamer since the 80's. I started with the ZX Spectrum, then the NES, Genesis, PC and so on and so forth.

Gaming has always been my main hobby. I have hundreds of games for several different platforms. I play everything (except JRPG's and sports games) and enjoy it. From Okami to Turning Point, from Uncharted to Command & Conquer.

So can someone explain to me why the minute I say I like Call of Duty, a vast portion of the community acts as if I'm somehow a pariah? How I should turn in my gaming club membership card?

Yes, I do like those games, and they are good games! They're fun, they're exciting, and as shooters, they get the job done. I don't play the multiplayer, but I do enjoy the campaigns, and yes, I do buy them when they come out. And enjoy them.

So I am asking, out of genuine curiosity, why this immensely negative outlook on Call of Duty and the people who play those games.

Some if it is because it is cool to hate on popular things. Some of it is the community. Every CoD MP match I was in had one or more people talking trash and mainly being a troll.

I understand not everyone acts like that and the same things happens in Halo and most FPS games as well. Which is why I quit playing MP games unless it is with friends only and on the PC since I sold my x-box 360.

Some people like me dislike the franchise. I used to like it but after the all the plot holes in Black Ops and CoD: MW 2 I quit liking the franchise. I don't hate or dislike people that like CoD. Everyone has their own opinion on what they like or dislike.

 

[David Bjur]

Well, I for one despise CoD and the things it set in motion in the FPS genre. When I look at the most awarded games from my favorite genre it saddens me that terms like "fast-paced" are used to describe this incerdibly slow gameplay, this boring mechanics (full regen. hp, two weapon limits, the speed you move). I could go on and rant wide and bride about how I dislike this game.

But on the other hand, I won't judge someone just based on the games he played. Enjoying games I don't like doesn't make all the things you say suddenly bad, enjoying CoD (and not ONLY CoD) can't make your contribution to a discussion less worthy.

The problem is more that many people can't accept the fact that there are people who like Bay-esque spectacle. That there are people with different tastes.

I got to ask, what is fast-paced then?

OT: People despise it because... their favorite game isn't the one that is the most popular! With such a large fanbase, the amount of haters will arise, and they are mostly pissed off that generic COD is more popular than their favorite game.

 

[Zantos]

I see a lot of people who seem to make arguments based around stylistic choices made in the game. I can understand why someone would personally hate it for those, but I don't see why they think it makes it shit. I often try out games and discover I don't like them, but I at least try to appreciate why someone who likes games with those features would.

But at the end of the day I don't feel the need to defend it, I enjoy it and know plenty of people do. At least enough to get a decent online match going. If you've tried it and don't like it, fair to you. If you've not tried it and don't like it, then there's nothing I can say to convince you.

 

[Vanitas likes Bubbles]

I hate most FPS games where you have to trudge through brown environments, filled with chest high walls just so you can shoot the same guy in the face fo the 50 millionth time that day. I like games with colourful environments, with weapons that do something other than shooting bullets out of them, I want to fight 50 foot giant coloured lizards that breathes fairy floss on you. Also I like games that atleast have a story that makes sense.

But the main reason why I hate the call of duty series is that it pretty much has the motto "The littler the innovation, the more money you will get". I think thats pretty much the same motto for Fifa, Madden and Apple Products.

 

[Warforger]

I hate it because it shows everyone they can get away with creating a generic modern FPS game, re-release it each year and make a trillion dollars out of it. It doesn't promote innovation or creativity. People love it even though every single game is the same with a half assed campaign tacked on. If they just ditched singleplayer and made an mmo like they should it wouldn't be such a big deal.

and no, I don't dislike it just because it's popular.

What? The Elder Scrolls and Battlefield series are the same deal, oh sure they update the graphics but none of that is innovative or creative, none of their so-called "new" idea's are new at all and have been done in games before. And yet these games get so much praise and none of the hate. In fact in the last year of gaming all the games that brought forth new idea's flopped while the ones which just recycle old idea's and redo them over and over again profited tremendously.

it really doesn't seem so much so when you realize COD is just copying halo and Battlefield....and really, COD is the most behind game of the 3.

Erm, Battlefield was originally just a war shooter Star Wars battlefront style, just battles and next to no story, when CoD got popular they made Bad Company which was the first game in the series to have a story with actual characters, so it's actually the other way around. Even then people tend to forget the original war shooter was Medal Of Honor, of course that game ripped off real life so the entire war shooter thing is unoriginal to begin with.

 

[Aprilgold]

Well I have several reasons.

It over-rewards players:
There is nothing wrong with rewarding a player for doing something correctly, but when you reward them for everything they do then theres a problem. You shouldn't give Mega-Man a power up for jumping over a gap and you shouldn't give Duke Nukem ammunition for exploring one room that you need to progress through.

Prides self on Realism, but guns are the furthest from:
Realism is something that it fucked up so badly that I want to cry. You can't duel wield scorpion SMG's and have no recoil. Its a bit ridiculous but I mostly blame this on the fans, who claim it to be "highly realistic" when it couldn't be further from it.

On the PC, CRTL+ALT+DELETE does not work.
This is true for Modern Warfare 3. If your game crashes you have to manually restart your computer to get anywhere, since it will not take you out to the desktop or to the menu where you can select what you wish to do with Taskmanager. It just boots you back into the game.

Locked FOV on PC:
Some people actually have headaches when playing on Certain FoV's under a certain number. I myself have no such issue, but there are tons of people with this issue. If your game gives people headaches, there is something wrong with your game.

Comes out so often that it could be the Madden of FPS:
Just go look at how many came out in the past five years and the dates that they did.

There are plenty of more problems I could tackle, but Call of Duty does have some glaring issues and almost all of those seem to seek into every other FPS. Lets face it, Duke Nukem Forever took a few notes from Call of Duty and payed the price for it.

I used to love Call of Duty but as of recent its problems have been so large and glaring that I hate that its the cash cow it is. Its almost impossible to pitch a FPS [I'm almost sure of it] without the board which your pitching the game to say "Would it sell as well as Call of Duty" and if you say "No its nothing like" they might say "Well then make it like Call of Duty".

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Because it's popular.

NO, WAIT! COME BACK!

I don't mean that in the usual way of, "Ohh, people who don't like that popular thing I like just say that because they think it makes them look cool. Dirty hipsters!"

I mean that people who don't like a popular thing are simply more likely to say so. In addition, a popular thing is more widely played, so the gross number of "haters" will be higher.

Or, to put it another way, how often do you see someone declare their hatred for Alice: Madness Returns?

Oh, and a lot of other people hate the influence, or at least perceived influence, that it's had on the gaming landscape.

A lot like this.

If someone finds a game to be average, and they see how immensely popular it is, I think it sort of fucks with their head and makes them hate, like they said, for it being popular

 

[Atmos Duality]

Over-exposure and hype-backlash.
I dislike the game because it represents wasted potential to me (and infinite potential to its backers, but that's not the kind of potential I care about), and it's difficult to not sigh at yourself occasionally when you don't enjoy something that is overwhelmingly popular.

And there's a personal thorn in my side in the form of two cousins who do *nothing* but compare what they find me playing to CoD4.x. Nothing compares in their eyes, and I honestly would not give a fuck if they could just stop blindly praising the game like it's a digital messiah.
Worse, that's the kind of attitude I encounter among people of my own age group in college. Either that or the hater variety, take your pick.
(I actually walked into my 2nd to last physics lab last semester, and heard two guys and a chick arguing over CoD4.x, I kid you not, solely on the merits of it being derivative of its own work. Yeah. people talk about this shit in real life. Be afraid.)

That's the kind of attitude that starts out grating, and eventually becomes every bit as despicable as the haters. (and I've found myself surrounded people acting in a similar way for Skyrim, to the point where you could make very sound comparisons to religion and zealotry for both the hyped-up fans and the haters).

I have no problem with someone saying that they like something (well, barring it being a flagrantly criminal or ethically questionable act, but that's being pedantic), but I do get tired of people hyping something beyond sensibility.

 

[Lunar Templar]

its got a less then stellar rep over all,
with the frequent releases that change little, yet you still get charged full price for. how that seems to be the only demographic publishers are pandering to, which, btw, makes if hard for some one like me to find what i like. and the community .... yeah .... pretty sure you know what I'm talking about, unless they've done some major house cleaning and no ones caught on to that yet ...

 

[Alex Tom]

I just hate how bullets disappear when u die meaning the whole clip u just shot into someone is rendered void because u died. Its just rage and how everyone puts so much on K/D per game even if its a game liek domination or any objective based games

 

[Erttheking]

Because people think that it's causing a lack of innovation in gaming, a guess those people conveniently forget about Skyrim, Arkham City, Human Revolution, Space Marine and Mass Effect 3. I guess the majority of gamers are insecure.

 

[Stormz]

I hate it because it shows everyone they can get away with creating a generic modern FPS game, re-release it each year and make a trillion dollars out of it. It doesn't promote innovation or creativity. People love it even though every single game is the same with a half assed campaign tacked on. If they just ditched singleplayer and made an mmo like they should it wouldn't be such a big deal.

and no, I don't dislike it just because it's popular.

What? The Elder Scrolls and Battlefield series are the same deal, oh sure they update the graphics but none of that is innovative or creative, none of their so-called "new" idea's are new at all and have been done in games before. And yet these games get so much praise and none of the hate. In fact in the last year of gaming all the games that brought forth new idea's flopped while the ones which just recycle old idea's and redo them over and over again profited tremendously.

it really doesn't seem so much so when you realize COD is just copying halo and Battlefield....and really, COD is the most behind game of the 3.

Erm, Battlefield was originally just a war shooter Star Wars battlefront style, just battles and next to no story, when CoD got popular they made Bad Company which was the first game in the series to have a story with actual characters, so it's actually the other way around. Even then people tend to forget the original war shooter was Medal Of Honor, of course that game ripped off real life so the entire war shooter thing is unoriginal to begin with.

Want to know the biggest difference between Elder Scrolls and Call of Duty? Aside from the point that ones an FPS and the other an RPG series. Is that the Elder scrolls has tons of lore, interesting story lines, variety in play styles, and a massive world to explore. In Call of Duty you...shoot things, that's it. What else does it have for it? The Elder Scrolls may not innovate a lot, but it's still creative. I'd also like to add that those games have 100s of hours of singleplayer. Call of duty at best has 6 hours of game and the rest is boring mulitplayer on the same maps over and over again until they nickel and dime you for more map packs. If I'm paying 60$ for a game, it better have a singleplayer worth more then 6 hours, and if it is that short, it better be interesting. Call of Duty is not interesting, all it is is a massive American circle jerk.

Just like to add that the Elder scrolls also doesn't get a release every year, they actually spend time making the game great.

 

[xplay3r]

Hello to all.

I understand this issue may have appeared before, but I am indeed curious.

I have been a gamer since the 80's. I started with the ZX Spectrum, then the NES, Genesis, PC and so on and so forth.

Gaming has always been my main hobby. I have hundreds of games for several different platforms. I play everything (except JRPG's and sports games) and enjoy it. From Okami to Turning Point, from Uncharted to Command & Conquer.

So can someone explain to me why the minute I say I like Call of Duty, a vast portion of the community acts as if I'm somehow a pariah? How I should turn in my gaming club membership card?

Yes, I do like those games, and they are good games! They're fun, they're exciting, and as shooters, they get the job done. I don't play the multiplayer, but I do enjoy the campaigns, and yes, I do buy them when they come out. And enjoy them.

So I am asking, out of genuine curiosity, why this immensely negative outlook on Call of Duty and the people who play those games.

I don't hate people who hate cod, I personally like it, I own MW3 and Blops.

I think the main reason is that a large portion of the community though, are idiots, you could say that about a lot of other things, but the CoD community is slightly more vocal then most, and so if you say you like the games they assume you must be like most of the people in the community. I have no problem with CoD other than some of the fans, and that out of all the fantastic and wonderful, and artistic games tat exists, it's become "The" game, and I think we have better things to offer the CoD, but when non-gamers see the most popular game, and it's just vanilla, and Michael bay-ey, it doesn't give a great impression.

but honestly the games are fine, its the community that creates the biggest problems.

 

[guitarsniper]

I do happen to enjoy Call of Duty, but in my opinion it definitely isn't a game for every occasion. It's like in the movies, sometimes I want the sophistication of a Godfather or a Casablanca, but sometimes I just want to watch Tony Jaa kick people in the face a lot.

Moreover, I feel like people who note that it's released with a few tweaks every year are forgetting that Madden was doing that way before Call of Duty and yet Madden seems to have gotten far less hate than Call of Duty.

What I feel like is really the issue is that Activision, Treyarch, and Infinity Ward seem to be in somewhat of a holding pattern, releasing consistently enjoyable games, and the optimist in me wants to believe that they will eventually produce something the quality of Modern Warfare 1.

 

[Warforger]

Want to know the biggest difference between Elder Scrolls and Call of Duty? Aside from the point that ones an FPS and the other an RPG series. Is that the Elder scrolls has tons of lore, interesting story lines, variety in play styles, and a massive world to explore. In Call of Duty you...shoot things, that's it.

That's personal preference; not actual difference in quality.

What else does it have for it? The Elder Scrolls may not innovate a lot, but it's still creative. I'd also like to add that those games have 100s of hours of singleplayer. Call of duty at best has 6 hours of game and the rest is boring mulitplayer on the same maps over and over again until they nickel and dime you for more map packs.

Well yah, CoD is a game focused on multiplayer with a lesser focus on singleplayer, TES is only single player so of course.

If I'm paying 60$ for a game, it better have a singleplayer worth more then 6 hours, and if it is that short, it better be interesting. Call of Duty is not interesting, all it is is a massive American circle jerk.

Again, that is your opinion that you prefer standard fantasy to modern war shooters, a better argument for why it's bad is that each game they don't fix the issues of the last and at times add more issues like with all this commotion with the Dome map.

But I think the popularity factor is lost when you become a gaming nerd (or a nerd of anything for that matter) and only think in terms of what your group thinks not of what say casual people think.

Just like to add that the Elder scrolls also doesn't get a release every year, they actually spend time making the game great.

Actually if you account for the Fallout series being the same thing but with guns, it comes out to be around 1-2 years between releases, so not really.

 

[Vault101]

theres somthing carthritic about spewing hate on somthing popular (like me and skyrim..FUCK SKYRIM...ahhh see that felt good)

as omone said, my main problem with COD is its impact on the general gaming landscape (perceived or otherwise)

ALSO...I mean comone...its kin of the same game over and over..backed by activision no less