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.
Mar 31, 2009
More OF2 footage...
...and it seems that Codemasters have thrown down the proverbial gauntlet at the feet of Infinity Ward.
The trailer's not that great, actually. There's even a perceptible graphical fall-off from the last trailer, but that might not mean anything. The really interesting part is at the tail end: Operation Flashpoint 2 is billing itself as "open world modern warfare." I take that to mean the Masters of Code are trying to position their game as a direct competitor to Modern Warfare 2 (that is, Call of Duty 6, for those of us too observant to be bamboozled).
I could be reading too much into it, I guess. Videogamer.com has a hands-on preview (for the 360 version, mind you). Here's the visual:
The trailer's not that great, actually. There's even a perceptible graphical fall-off from the last trailer, but that might not mean anything. The really interesting part is at the tail end: Operation Flashpoint 2 is billing itself as "open world modern warfare." I take that to mean the Masters of Code are trying to position their game as a direct competitor to Modern Warfare 2 (that is, Call of Duty 6, for those of us too observant to be bamboozled).
I could be reading too much into it, I guess. Videogamer.com has a hands-on preview (for the 360 version, mind you). Here's the visual:
Another beautiful apocalypse
Scheduled to be released with the movie, sometime in May, Terminator: Salvation the game has a pretty impressive trailer. I'm not thrilled that all the robo-murder is viewed from the third-person, but the devs haven't skimped on the eye candy:
Cinematic trailer (I was listening to "Paradise City" when I first watched this. A trite irony, indeed).
Director interview
Think about it: the original Terminator movie didn't look this good, did it?
Cinematic trailer (I was listening to "Paradise City" when I first watched this. A trite irony, indeed).
Director interview
Think about it: the original Terminator movie didn't look this good, did it?
SecuROM neutering kit
The bag stays, however...Electronic Arts have released a SecuROM "deauthorization" tool (really, a set of tools) that basically cancels one computer's "permission" to run a game, and allows the user to authorize a different computer to dispense the jollies. A box art list of eligible games is available here.
It's a start.
Playing by his own rules (of physics)
The only operative law here is "unintended consequences," and the result is kind of amazing (but only if you've played Versus on L4D). I'm assuming Valve didn't expect that the hunter-pounce mechanic to reach this level of sheer awesomeness, but it happened anyway.
More videos: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
More videos: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
Mar 30, 2009
Eulogy now; death later.
Traditional bricks-and-mortar retail faces a bleak future, as digital distribution looks set to become the standard across the videogame market.
That's according to a number of games industry veterans, who agreed that the evolution of music sales online is evidence that consumers are accepting and demanding their entertainment digitally.
"What percentage of record sales are iTunes?" asked Brian Fargo, founder of Interplay and currently CEO of inXile Entertainment. "The writing's on the wall there. It's not looking good for retail," he said.
Acclaim's David Perry pointed to Apple's pioneering digital sales methods, which will prompt more company's to follow its lead and sell cheaply and directly to connected consumers.
"Just look at the success of the iPhone App Store, and the fact that everyone's going to copy it, and clone it and do their version of it anyway," he said.
Will Wright, the designer behind The Sims and most recently Spore, suggested that the industry was close to a tipping point, with the jump to digital as standard just around the corner.
Sixteen Million WoW Quests Completed Each Day
1up.com deepens my depression:
Well, according to World of WarCraft lead designer Jeffrey Kaplan (via Kotaku), the multitudes playing WoW complete 16 million quests per day on average. And that's not even the most impressive number.
From July 2007 to March 2009, WoW players have completed 8,570,222,426 quests. So more quests than the number of people on the Earth. Nice.
Trippy: Stalin vs. Martians
File this one under: "Games That Will Be Forgotten Instantly." The TF2 meets Company of Heroes vibe is goofy as all hell, but the trailer is fascinating nonetheless.
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