Why are only some games allowed to do something?

Potential-Monke

Coming from the Battalion thread, a comment which echoed what a lot of people are saying about Call of Duty. When CoD went futuristic, it was immediately met with 'clone of x game' or 'it's basically y game'. I'd imagine a lot of people never even played the games because of this. CoD had done 10 games from 2003 to 2014, all roughly the same boots on the ground, period weapons and setting. When they made Modern Warfare, people loved it. It was a big change from the slew of WW era shooters from multiple devs. People loved it, it was fresh, new, exciting, even though it was reskinned WW CoD.

There were, you could say, 5 'modern' games (can't remember if Ghosts was modern), so 50% WW era and 50% modern. The next logical step was near-future, Advanced Warfare. Now, I absolutely adored this game, and it's behind MW2 as my most played CoD. Everything about it was amazing. The movement, the guns, the characters, the gameplay. It was CoD with jetpacks, which most people immediately thought was a Halo/Crysis clone and didn't like it, even without playing it.

Then we had Infinite Warfare, another brilliant game imo, and by BlOps 3 which was received better than IW and AW even though they were basically the same (people just liked BlOps better for some reason and were ok with the futuristic stuff because it was BlOps).

Activision listened, and MW4 was changed to WWII and it didn't do great. BlOps 4 were back to BOTG but kept it modern, people still didn't like it. We're going back to MW now and while it does look promising, and I know I will love it, I can already hear people giving out saying it's stale, the same as before, etc.

So they've done WW era, modern era, back to WW, modern again, inbetween, near future, future, back to WW and then modern-ish, and soon to be modern. Where do they go? What do the fans expect? They've done everything, even space ffs. Call of Duty: French Revolution? Call of Duty: Fraser Expedition?

And why did CoD get such slack for going futuristic? I genuinely never understood it. Also, people giving out stink about releasing the same game with a different skin every year, but completely ok with the 67 million FIFAs and PES's? Seems CoD gets it bad just because it's CoD and because it didn't live up to every hyped fanboys expectations?

Advanced Warfare sold more than World at War (a highly lauded game), BlOps 3 old more than MW2 even though it was futuristic. There's no consistency.

/end rant

I've liked nearly every CoD, except Ghosts. WWII felt like a rehash of WaW, and I wasn't a huge fan of that one either. And I think AW and IW are miles ahead of BlOps 1, 2 & 4.

super_furry

Infinite Warfare also had the best campaign in the entire series.

nix

Well my viewpoint is, and the reason i hate cod games is they just make too many games, the focus is multiplayer so they should just make one game and support it for years. Like how counter strike is done, let a community/competitive scene grow.

Then add in different "futuristic" weapons/maps etc to freshen it up if its wanted, as thats all that game was, a reskin of the prior COD game.. Thats all the COD games are, bug ridden reskins, new games out before they even bother trying to fix issues with their games..

Theres a new COD every year, its an absolute joke of a shooter tbh.. Gimme yer money and enjoy this nowhere near finished game thats highly monetized, fix bugs? sorry bit too busy making the next CoD..

Same goes for Battlefield.. They flood their own game market o_O

Now if Counter strike decided to go WWII era or futureistic... Thats something that would likely get praise.. You know you will get atleast 10 years out of it instead of a month :pac:

B.A._Baracus

To me COD was at it's best with either WW2 or Modern Warefare scenarios. Fun, great games. Never had an interest once they went future. That's not to say they're not good games. Thing is, I wasn't really bothered to pick them up.

TerrorFirmer

Revisiting the same era is perfectly fine and it works fine for other franchises. It's about innovation and creativity and a few COD releases have been fairly innovative.

For a lot of people, the issue with some of the annual COD titles is that they didn't do anything new, they were just by-the-numbers games that were competent but unremarkable.

The first Black Ops for example was a real knock-out, even coming from a franchise that already had solid classics like MW2 under its belt. Unbelievable story, great MP, superb maps, loads of great new game modes, etc. Totally exceeded all expectations. Tended to be very much a case of diminishing returns with the sequels, but BO4 was reasonably innovative with its inevitable foray into BR.

Treyarch did the same with COD: WaW, it was a pretty innovative title that brought a lot of new features we hadn't seen in a COD title before that point....but even aside from that, the MP mode was inherently excellent, as was the campaign.

But COD has badly fallen victim to this vicious cash-cow business model and new releases being demanded on an annual basis. EG, I think most people would put games like Infinite Warfare and Ghosts in the "didn't really add anything" list for certain. (in terms of MP, very few people play the campaigns to be honest, IW had a fantastic one alright that had some new stuff, AW was also pretty good, but COD titles are pretty much exclusively judged on their MP offerings for quite some time).

A few of the latest CODs also seem more interested in being all things to everyone too, with the aim of generating every last possible $ through lootboxes and in-game purchases. Whacky cartoony skins, pink glitter unicorn guns, etc..... wanting a slice of the Fortnite pie.

COD WW2 was one I was looking forward to personally but I thought it was very weak - story mode was poor, MP was alright but had painfully generic maps, the game itself just didn't capitalise on its WW2 theme at all, and the wacky customisation was really offputting.....guys running around in Leprechaun outfits and dressed like old poets, put me right off it. It wasn't that it was a WW2 title. It was that it was a poor WW2 title, but some people interpret that as "you can't win either way" as oppposed to "it just wasn't that good of an effort".

There's still plenty of life left in COD as a franchise. People don't get jaded of it because it's the same old theme, or that they demand some sort of radically different scenario with every offering....it's simply because many of the annual releases are the same old MP shooter formula with little innovation on offer, regardless of whether they're set, and just aren't that exciting. They just exist purely to make money and of course, Activision are flogging the horse as hard as they can as well, a little too hard.

It's an inevitable problem when you set a target to release a new game every year. You would get exactly the same problem with other major franchises like Halo or Battlefield if they took the same approach, you might get some interesting results, but equally you'd also get unremarkable results that would probably do little to set themselves aside from their precedessors. (case in point, Battlefield Hardline)

Fifa or whatever are slightly different I think, as each release reflects real-life changes in rosters, teams, kit, and all that, which is important to some people.

Potential-Monke

I don't get your view nix, honestly have never felt the games were broken. Bugs? Yes, but usually fixed quick enough in my experience. All games have bugs, some don't bother fixing them. CoD does try at least, and I have yet to encounter a game breaking one.

It's definitely better than Fifa, there's a lot more videos of Fifa bugs than CoD bugs, and Fifa is worse for the yearly releases imo. Each CoD is somewhat different (similar core gameplay) but Fifa is literally the same game every year.

And I agree, the MW era and original non-mp CoD's were brilliant, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the futuristic ones. It felt fresh, it was tight and the gunplay was, imo, as good as always. While I had loads of amazing moments in the non-futuristic ones, running along a wall jumping behind enemies and getting kills was something I personally never experienced before and thought it was amazing. People compared them to Halo, but I thought they were miles ahead of Halo. But that's personal opinion.

BeerWolf

They should do a CoD with flintlocks...

Dave_The_Sheep

Some publishers and some devs have had every chance to do something.

Some publishers and some devs have had every chance to do something different.

Some publishers and some devs have had every chance to do something even slightly different.

They declined.

At some point, and that point is long past, we owe nothing to these predatory publishers. They had their chance and squandered it in favour of cheap money making ploys.

Activision, Infinity Ward, etc. have made their bed. They may lie in it*.

* and may roll around in it ala Demi Moore in Indecent Proposal in a bed of actual cash, because let's be honest, what we say here makes no different. There are enough ****in idiots out there to finance this ****.

awec

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I don't get your view nix, honestly have never felt the games were broken. Bugs? Yes, but usually fixed quick enough in my experience. All games have bugs, some don't bother fixing them. CoD does try at least, and I have yet to encounter a game breaking one.

It's definitely better than Fifa, there's a lot more videos of Fifa bugs than CoD bugs, and Fifa is worse for the yearly releases imo. Each CoD is somewhat different (similar core gameplay) but Fifa is literally the same game every year.

And I agree, the MW era and original non-mp CoD's were brilliant, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the futuristic ones. It felt fresh, it was tight and the gunplay was, imo, as good as always. While I had loads of amazing moments in the non-futuristic ones, running along a wall jumping behind enemies and getting kills was something I personally never experienced before and thought it was amazing. People compared them to Halo, but I thought they were miles ahead of Halo. But that's personal opinion.

FIFA is definitely not the same game every year. The gameplay always changes, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but it's always different.

It's a poor comparison, as FIFA is based on something that's real and COD isn't. FIFA is updated every year for changes in the roster, improvements
in game play and AI improvements. It's more complex than COD.

I agree with whoever said above that there are too many COD games. I used to play them all the time, but I just got bored as they were all so similar, and other types of shooters grabbed my attention instead.

Penn

awec wrote: »

FIFA is definitely not the same game every year. The gameplay always changes, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but it's always different.

It's a poor comparison, as FIFA is based on something that's real and COD isn't. FIFA is updated every year for changes in the roster, improvements
in game play and AI improvements. It's more complex than COD.

I agree with whoever said above that there are too many COD games. I used to play them all the time, but I just got bored as they were all so similar, and other types of shooters grabbed my attention instead.

I don't think the gameplay in Fifa ever changes enough to warrant a new game every year. If they did it even every second year, with roster/jersey changes delivered via downloadable update at the start of the next season, maybe gameplay changes would be more noticeable.

2Mad2BeMad

Penn wrote: »

I don't think the gameplay in Fifa ever changes enough to warrant a new game every year. If they did it even every second year, with roster/jersey changes delivered via downloadable update at the start of the next season, maybe gameplay changes would be more noticeable.

There not giving up that yearly cash grab for FIFA UT points I know a lad that buys FIFA every yr and the only money he spends on ultimate team is when it's first out to just build a half decent squad puts 100 into it on top of the price of the game.
I'd imagine alot do it that way.

Gotta milk that cow

Sabre0001

As said above, any game is allowed do anything. But when you're at the top (regardless of field), some want to see you falter and will take any attempt to diminish what you're doing. There will always be comparisons with something that's out there (of course, none are coming to mind right now - maybe Battle Royale modes and people equating that to Fortnite).

One nail that you hit on the head is "not liking without actually playing it" though. And we see that a lot. Trailers for Doom got slammed because of the glory kills and those turned out amazing! But we have moved away from demos so now it's a bigger risk to get to play the game that you're uncertain of.

I appreciate that CoD has mixed things up, although my play of the series has been sporadic. I enjoy the single player more than the multiplayer (and sometimes don't want to delve into the stresses of that side of things at all), but the price of CoD doesn't really drop so that puts me off. Some iterations give more weight to the single player side than others and those would be the ones that I'd be more tempted by.

Retr0gamer

There will always be fans that are never happy. Any changes will alienate some of the audience while remaining stagnant will do the same.

There's also the fact that a lot of the general public are dumb dumbs and you get moronic backlash like the one against the visuals in Wind Waker.

You've then got franchises like Final Fantasy which are built around completely reinventing themselves with each new game yet you have people missing the point and screaming for the game to be more like the old games.... which is to say totally different from what came before.

Potential-Monke

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Coming from the Battalion thread, a comment which echoed what a lot of people are saying about Call of Duty. When CoD went futuristic, it was immediately met with 'clone of x game' or 'it's basically y game'. I'd imagine a lot of people never even played the games because of this. CoD had done 10 games from 2003 to 2014, all roughly the same boots on the ground, period weapons and setting. When they made Modern Warfare, people loved it. It was a big change from the slew of WW era shooters from multiple devs. People loved it, it was fresh, new, exciting, even though it was reskinned WW CoD.

There were, you could say, 5 'modern' games (can't remember if Ghosts was modern), so 50% WW era and 50% modern. The next logical step was near-future, Advanced Warfare. Now, I absolutely adored this game, and it's behind MW2 as my most played CoD. Everything about it was amazing. The movement, the guns, the characters, the gameplay. It was CoD with jetpacks, which most people immediately thought was a Halo/Crysis clone and didn't like it, even without playing it.

Then we had Infinite Warfare, another brilliant game imo, and by BlOps 3 which was received better than IW and AW even though they were basically the same (people just liked BlOps better for some reason and were ok with the futuristic stuff because it was BlOps).

Activision listened, and MW4 was changed to WWII and it didn't do great. BlOps 4 were back to BOTG but kept it modern, people still didn't like it. We're going back to MW now and while it does look promising, and I know I will love it, I can already hear people giving out saying it's stale, the same as before, etc.

So they've done WW era, modern era, back to WW, modern again, inbetween, near future, future, back to WW and then modern-ish, and soon to be modern. Where do they go? What do the fans expect? They've done everything, even space ffs. Call of Duty: French Revolution? Call of Duty: Fraser Expedition?

And why did CoD get such slack for going futuristic? I genuinely never understood it. Also, people giving out stink about releasing the same game with a different skin every year, but completely ok with the 67 million FIFAs and PES's? Seems CoD gets it bad just because it's CoD and because it didn't live up to every hyped fanboys expectations?

Advanced Warfare sold more than World at War (a highly lauded game), BlOps 3 old more than MW2 even though it was futuristic. There's no consistency.

/end rant

I've liked nearly every CoD, except Ghosts. WWII felt like a rehash of WaW, and I wasn't a huge fan of that one either. And I think AW and IW are miles ahead of BlOps 1, 2 & 4.

Nah its not cool that FIFA and PES does it too. If it was a normal PC games, these updates would come in the form of patches, not a rerelease every year. Even pokemon are doing it. They are bleeding their fans. I got into COD:MW2 and BLOPS4. I feel like I've played them all now. Same reason that I haven't played pokemon since 2nd generation.

ERG89

Penn wrote: »

I don't think the gameplay in Fifa ever changes enough to warrant a new game every year. If they did it even every second year, with roster/jersey changes delivered via downloadable update at the start of the next season, maybe gameplay changes would be more noticeable.

I think since moving to frostbite FIFA & Madden are worse games to play now. So it has changed, just not for the better.
Its weird with PES & FIFA for me one is always better/fresher to play than the other for me. PES 1-6 was great, 2008-2013 felt incredibly dated, 2014-now plays great if a little more familiar each year. FIFA then 1998-2000 enjoy, 2001-2007 didn't like & 2008-2013 enjoyed, 2014-now feels worse every year.

Stone Deaf 4evr

The problem it had from going futuristic was more down to the 'advanced movement' they added, gone were the days of holding down your lane in a domination match, now you had lads double jumping over walls, and attacking from all angles, and then further diluted the formula by adding operator abilities which couldn't be defended against - so tough luck if you were building a scorestreak and someone on the opposite team gets a powerup (that doesn't have to be earned) to end your run, it just fundamentally messed up how the games played.
Black Ops 2 was the sweet spot, in that it had some slightly advanced tech but kept the run and gun gameplay and had none of the operator nonsense.

Greyfox

Potential-Monke wrote: »

It was CoD with jetpacks, which most people immediately thought was a Halo/Crysis clone and didn't like it, even without playing it.

And I think AW and IW are miles ahead of BlOps 1, 2 & 4.[/size]

For me near future was a disaster, jetpacks and ray guns meant I felt like I was no longer playing COD so I never could finish the AW or IW single player Thankfully WW2 seems to be the start of actually going back to what made the earlier games so good. The problem for me now is I'm use to a zombies mode and like to sometimes play against bots and these options likely wont be in this years COD MW. I dont know how anyone can put AW above Bl Ops 1&2, they had superb multiplayer and zombies modes at the time.

Skylinehead

awec wrote: »

FIFA is definitely not the same game every year. The gameplay always changes, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but it's always different.

It's a poor comparison, as FIFA is based on something that's real and COD isn't. FIFA is updated every year for changes in the roster, improvements
in game play and AI improvements. It's more complex than COD.

I agree with whoever said above that there are too many COD games. I used to play them all the time, but I just got bored as they were all so similar, and other types of shooters grabbed my attention instead.

There's some gameplay tweaks in FIFA, sure, but the interface has barely changed in 10 years, Career Mode the same....a new version of FIFA just feels like a minor update these days. Not something that warrants another 60 quid.

nix

A fifa game could be prolonged for years and years, any changes made are minor and could be done by just releasing a patch for the game to tweak AI or the jersey on a player and team he plays for, that is nothing more than the rotation of code.

It doesnt warrant a need for the game to be released every year with "improved" graphics, you're just being milked by EA, same can be said for any sports game really.

Fifa 18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojW7xQPBtpY

Fifa 19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RN0JEKJutI

The only difference is the UI colours/fonts and grass they are playing on, which i suspect changes anyway depending on the club you're playing at, anything else that's actually changed is unnecessary if it worked before and a kick in the nuts if it gets broken and you've to wait until the next game for it to be fixed? :eek:

I'm all for people loving and playing different games, but it annoys me to see a group of people being taken advantage of so blatantly and unnecessary as those who play games like Fifa

gimli2112

nix wrote: »

Well my viewpoint is, and the reason i hate cod games is they just make too many games, the focus is multiplayer so they should just make one game and support it for years. Like how counter strike is done, let a community/competitive scene grow.

this is why I hate it. They allowed their games to be hacked to bits. it makes sense from their perspective as people have to move on but it's why I won't support them