I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I've played almost every Call of Duty game. Call of Duty 1 was the first FPS I ever played and I still remember getting off that boat the first time and being handed nothing but a clip of ammo. Times have changed, sure, but there's still very few shooters on the market that can match the frantic twitched based combat of Call of Duty. That said, there is a lot wrong with the series as a whole, and a lot that has grown stagnant over time. The great innovator has become a sign of everything wrong with First Person Shooters as a whole, but Treyarch is looking at trying to change that.
Black Ops, the first, is my least favourite CoD game. It was first since CoD 2, which I'd played when I was maybe 10, or 11, about 5 or 6 years previous to Black Ops. I loved the zombie mode, however, mainly because you got to play as JFK, or Tricky Dicky, and hearing them spurting one liners while dispatching zombies is comedy gold. However I found the campaign lack luster. It tried to change and innovate, providing vehicle levels, subtle shifts to the formula and a bigger focus on a twisted and cinematic story. And it would have worked, except for one critical flaw. Sam Worthington and his soul-destroying overacting. Every word out of that man's mouth made me want to shoot myself in the face. But still, I respect it despite this mistake, an easy one to make, because it at least tried something different with the formula. And now Treyarch are looking to do it again.
The thing that really got me excited about this game was a single quote from its director, paraphrased: "When I hear people say 'I used to play CoD for its campaign', I think 'Why don't you play it anymore? What can I do to bring you back?'". Where everyone else has been thinking, "Well no one plays the campaigns anymore, so let's make it all about multiplayer", Treyarch is thinking "Why? Why don't you play anymore and what can we do to bring you back?". And so they're trying to mix things up. A new setting, new weapons and technology, but also non-linearity, branching story lines and a sense that what your doing has some importance in the world. There's still not much revealed, outside of Lamia's talking, but it's enough to get me excited. Especially working for me is the new Overwatch mode, an objective based, open world style game, where you can either play as an Overwatch, commanding your troops RTS style, or jump into the body of any soldier and chase the objectives yourself. This freedom and strategic thinking is what confirmed to purchase for me. Sure, the demos so far have all shown of the usual CoD big bang boom blam splat slow mo ballet of stupidly epicness, but there remains hope that this time, the innovation just might work. If nothing else, there's no more Sam Worthington, and that can only be a good thing.
So for all those CoD fans freaking out I saw calm down and give it chance. And to all the haters, I say the same. Whether it works or not, any attempts at innovation and change, especially in an annual franchise, is always a good thing. Assassin's Creed is also a great example. Sure, all the new additions didn't always work, but at least they were there, and for the most part, optional. As long as we don't get anything along the vein of Revelation's failed attempt at Tower Defense, I think we'll be fine.
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