Mcface said:
To be honest, COD is pretty much nothing like Medal of Honor or Bad Company, which are nothing like Halo.
It's pretty much like saying "Oh I only listen to one band per genre because it's all the same anyway"
I don't want to come across as insulting by saying this. But anybody that says that those games are nothing like each other really needs to open their minds to the possibilities of games.
Sure, they have their differences, but if you really take a look at them, they are way too similar and unoriginal. With the exception of Halo for some of these, they are all still pretty much the same:
Same military concept (American soldiers, kill foreign country, odd obsession with Nazis and Russians)
Same general gameplay style (guns, classes, tanks, realistic to an extent, no or little fantasy or sci-fi elements, 99% of the time the goal is the kill the bad guys, blow things up, ect.)
Similar music (orchestra, rock, energetic, ect.),
Same theme (America crushes evil foreign country, good triumphs evil)
Same generally realistic art style.
And if someone says "Well, what else would you have in an FPS?" then you really,
really need to take a moment to consider the possibilities.
Similar game modes (single player campaign, sometimes with co-op, multiplayer with persistent stats, unlocking weapons, ect.). Why does the general premise have to be about the military? Why does gameplay always have to be about killing people up front? What about sneaking past people, tricking them, stealing from them, using them to your advantage? Why is the fucking music always some fancy orchestra music with the occasional rock song? Why not electronic music, hip hop or jazz? (I will give Bad Company props for incorporating other genres of music into the game, and having a more unique, recognizable orchestra sound then other games). And perhaps most importantly, why does the theme always have to be the shallow and overdone "good triumphs evil"? There are no other messages a game can send? Look at books, films and TV shows, look at all the different themes that are explored, how some of them can make you think. Why is it that different themes are almost never explored in video games?
This kind of shit always angers me, because I feel like with all of these repetitive military shooters, we're really wasting an art form. Games have shown that they can be highly creative, original and groundbreaking, yet what's often looked at as the "standard" for games is stuff like Halo, Crysis, and COD. Those are good games, don't get me wrong. But so often what we expect to see in games is the same exact thing that was done before, but done better.