Slowly up the learning curve

I just realized that I post videos when I can't think of anything to write about. And jesus … I've posted a lot of videos in the last couple of days. I suppose that puts me in the "FAIL" category as far as blogging goes, but, for tonight at least, I'm going to start crawling out of that particular hole.

And, since it's already Tuesday, I'm going to have a drink. (Bulleit Bourbon. 90 proof. $30 worth of liquid silk.)

So: I had another epiphany the day before yesterday. It occurred to me that the Cerberus I've known as Activision, Infinity Ward, and Treyarch have sold me the same game, five different times. From day one, Call of Duty: World at War felt like a "total conversion" mod to me – with a stiff dose of the amateurism that entails – but I never carried the thought to its logical conclusion. That conclusion is this: if you've played one version of CoD, you've played them all.

For the most part.

One caveat here: I'm not really talking about the singleplayer side of the franchise. For what it's worth, that aspect of the series has been all over hell and half of Georgia. CoD4 had an unexpectedly engaging script, CoD5 had a piss-stained leaflet, etc. I'm not delving into that part, though, because I've spent so much more time on the multiplayer side of the several games, and my online social circle grew up (and has faded to a few stalwarts) in CoD servers. I suppose this post is the intervention we all should have had back in 2007.

CoD has seen one or two (admittedly significant) graphical upgrades, and some relatively minor mechanical changes (sprinting, drivable vehicles) that have come and gone and come again. Apart from those superficial differences, the core game play has been pretty consistent. I do mourn the loss of the Quake-style fluidity between UO and CoD2, but that wasn't a deal-breaker.

In the worlds of CoD, it's all about getting through the choke point, either to reach an objective or to find more guys to kill. The multiplayer game has never been more complicated than that, and more to the point, it has never grown beyond that. Search and Destroy feels the same no matter how pretty everything looks. And all of it – every last bit – is derived from games like Counterstrike and Medal of Honor, which were derivative works themselves.

Recycling ideas isn't a bad thing when the original ideas were good, but you should be doing something innovative on top of those ideas five games into a series. Ranks, perks, and challenges don’t cut it, especially when those mechanics were cribbed from yet another game (Battlefield 2, and maybe others).

This is why I'm playing Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead right now, instead of CoD5. It's why more than a few of my CoD friends made the somewhat radical migration over to World of Warcraft. We all got sick to death of running out of the spawn towards the HQ. No amount of new weapons, new maps, or even new technology changes the basic formula, and after a while, you get numb. When I finally started committing to different venues, I found that I couldn't go back to the thing with which I'd become so familiar. I just didn't realize - until now - how bored I've been for the last two years.

This post is already too long, so I'm going to quit with this graph. I am a stupid consumer, (perhaps) in recovery. I've shelled-out money for the same game five times over a span of four years. I even made a couple of maps, and a multitude of mods for it, but it never occurred to me why I found that necessary. I can already feel Modern Warfare 2's fingers probing my spine, but I am resolved to resist. I've put Call of Duty on the shelf, and the part of me that has a smidgen of dignity left is determined to leave it there.