Today’s gamers seem to take a note from the “How To Be British” guide-book by complaining bitterly about video games but still rushing to the nearest shop or quickly opening steam in order to purchase the latest release. We seem to have a mindset that nothing we can do will stop terrible games being released so we might as well purchase them and try to enjoy them. Modern Warfare not only revolutionised the Call Of Duty series but showed the world that the FPS genre was not just dull on-line play, it made the FPS genre step up to the podium and take its place next to RPGs and Sports games.
Since their breakthrough back in 2007, Activision have seen fit to jump on the money bandwagon and milk the series by ensuring there is a yearly release. Some would think that over the time, the popularity would diminish but it seems the Call Of Duty franchise has gone from strength to strength with each release beating record after record, well that is apart from World at War but I’m sure Activision and Treyarch want to pretend that they had nothing to do with that release.
Call Of Duty: Ghosts has now been out for close to a month and the wear and tear is starting to show, not only did it not become the top selling game of the year but it didn’t even beat the records set by it’s predecessor Black Ops 2. However it seems that Activision isn’t only facing problems with fans starting to wonder whether the series is as great as they used to claim. With the next generation of consoles out, developers are already pushing out new engines and it seems that a hole has appeared in the FPS market. Call Of Duty is no longer the most expect shooter of the year with Bungie’s new shooter Destiny set to be released in early 2014, throw in Planetside 2 for the PS4, a new Halo game and Titanfall for the Xbox One and it seems the pedestal that Activision once stood on is starting to crumble.
In this article I’ll be exploring some of the reasons why we’re all just tired of annual instalments in the Call Of Duty franchise. I mean, come on Activision, surely you’ve got enough money now to make EA quiver in their boots and wonder whether you’re going to buy out all the sport licenses to throttle competition.
8. MEDIC!! We Need A Medi–Ohhh – The Difficulty
These days games aren’t made for the challenge, if we compare them to games from the older generations such as Ninja Gaiden then you can see a marked difference. That being said, Call Of Duty does seem to give the middle finger to the FPS genre by essentially making your character a Terminator with unlimited ammo and health. Comparing games such as Homefront to CoD you can see that although it is fun to run around down-town Baghdad with 300 bullets strapped to your gun it’s not really that fun. FPSs like Homefront and Ghost Recon have been forced out of the market by Call Of Duty and in so doing have allowed the FPS genre to be reshaped. No longer do you have to scope the area out and aim for the head each time, you can just run into an open square and spray the area with bullets before hiding behind a wall for a few seconds to regenerate all of your health. I understand that lowering the difficulty of the game opens it up to casual players however it does somewhat alienate the hard-core gamers who are looking for a challenge.
If you look at the the evolution of multi-player of CoD you will see that it has moved from being a FPS to throwing you onto a map with an arsenal of weapons that would make a Destroyer think twice before engaging you. No longer can one enjoy the tedious boredom of creeping around map after map looking for the enemy; now players just have to die and they can kill a few players using the multitude of perks that are available to them. That being said, this isn’t an issue with just CoD but with most games in general; well apart from Dark Soul’s that’s just brutal. However Call Of Duty does seem to be the lone fish in the sea of FPS when it comes to important things such as ammunition. Ghost Recon gives you around 2 clips, Battlefield gives you 4 clips but does make the rounds per clip more realistic; Call Of Duty however throws you hundreds of rounds of ammunition for even the smallest firearm making your character look less like a marine and more like a walking ammo dump.
However it’s not just the ammunition that makes the game a lot easier than other FPSs but rather the enemies as well. A head-shot in any game will take an enemy down, but where other games make it more difficult for you to aim at an enemy’s head by making the screen jitter and move whilst you’re being shot, Infinity Ward decided that making the screen gradually redder would be a significant handicap. Don’t worry though, even if you can’t hit the enemy’s head all it takes is a few body shots and they’re down, even if you only clip their toe a few times. It’s understandable that this makes it a tad more realistic rather than having to hose someone down with a light machine gun, but then again the realism goes out the window when the characters you play as are blown, shot and thrown all over the place with nary a scar.
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