Call of Duty Needs To Improve to Stay On Top

PCN: "We see articles everyday about how a new Call of Duty, currently Black Ops, has broken sales records. The nice thing is marketing usually doesn’t kick in till later and promotion give aways are not common. However in order for Activision to keep their beloved Call of Duty on top of the food chain, things will need to change. Here are our top things that need to improve in Call of Duty. "

[scar20]

Na it just need's to die already it should have stopped after cod4.

[Organization XII]

DIE COD DIEEEE, or just a reboot without thinking about or smelling the money and how to rip people off

[TheLastGuardian]

It's too late now. I've learned my lesson. I'm never buying a COD game again.

[Anarki]

Nah, idiots will buy it no matter what. As long as they keep the same multiplayer - they're bound for success.

[rockleex]

Why would they need to improve when they're still on top despite downgrading so much from one series to the next?

[HarryMonogenis]

Black Ops has made Activision over $1 billion so far -- I'm pretty sure they're not going to bother trying to "stay on top", as it's going to be hard for developers to get gamers off of Call of Duty..

[StanLee]

Call of Duty seemingly doesn't have to improve to stay on top. Each iteration since Call of Duty 4 has been fraught with balance, connection, hacking and other community issues yet it's popularity has increased. Halo Reach and Battlefield Bad Company 2 were much better competitive multiplayer FPS options this year and yet, each game's community is dwarfed by Call of Duty's. For better or worse, much worse, Call of Duty has built a community so large that they would have to change the formula so drastically to alienate it's masses, the game would have to no longer be Call of Duty.

[Akagi]

Bet each one of you have BlOps.

[rockleex]

Not me. Good thing I got to try it out at my friend's place first.

[LilMissGoddess]

yea they might, but me nah, see i like this thing called "renting" saves me a lot of heart ache. this franchise in my opinion gets worse every year, but it sells more every year, screwed up huh?

[TurismoGTR]

Call of Duty is a Multiplayer game. All they need to do is just release Modern Warfare 3 in 2011-2012.

Then just release DLC every time they wanna release more maps and such.

We dont need a new COD every year. DLC is the answer.

[Dave1351]

only a multiplayer game? maybe for the noobs and the little kids. i always play single player before i touch multiplayer.

[Pillage05]

I thought we had finally got rid of that word...noob

[Dave1351]

haha i didnt get the memo

[solidsnake222]

Sadly no it doesn't. Everybody will buy it every year no matter how few things change. And why, because it's Call of Duty, one of the most well known FPS games ever. SHOULD thing change? Of course. WILL they? No.

[thereapersson]

I was just going to say that.

People expect some sort of miracle turn around in the general public, like everyone out there is some how going to wake up one day and realize

"hey, maybe this is all just pretty shallow, and we're giving these developers more credit than they deserve?"\

Ain't gonna happen, though. CoD is like Heroin. You know it's bad for you, and you know it's a shallow, pointless experience. But, for some reason, you just can't stop using.

[VenomProject]

I've played every CoD from CoD4 to MW2 and I stopped cold turkey.

No Black Ops for me, thanks. I'll be enjoying Bad Company 2: Vietnam.

[Baka-akaB]

It has proven three times in a row that i doesnt need to .

[TheLastGuardian]

This

[mastiffchild]

Question is, can Acti push things far enough to kill the golden goose. COD4 is still the high water mark in MP, SP and balance terms for the series and it was always a fully functioning gam,e on and offline from day one because it was the last one they bothered testing(QA and beta) properly and the last one where the ad budget wasn't twice the dev budget.

Blops andf MW2 aren't BAD games at all-COD4(which is the core of what they are)was a big step forwards for MP on console esp but swince then the care and passion has left the development as Acti have made devs cut every corner possible to save pennies and it shows more every year. Right now the sales of Blops suggests not enough gamers care or have noticed these things(or the fact that as market leader in online shooters should have dedicated servers on every platform)but the law iof diminishing returns(in quality this time) insists they will one day and when they do, if Acti haven't started updating and improving rather than milking the formula they could be in a PES position and go from top of the pile to looking(as PES now does at Fifa)at another franchise filling their gap. Shingo and Konami went too long thinking they needed to do very little to stay top and it bit their arses hard. Acti are milking even harder and with even fewer yearly innovations AND overpriced DLC so the penny will drop if the games keep running worse every year and NEVER move forwards and have increasingly banal SP campaigns.

EA(and whatever EX IW do for them), DICE, Bungie, Epic and the Sony devs aren't idiots and if Acti continue to be arrogant on top if being blase about keeping their No 1 spot don't imagine no one is capable of unseating COD as COD4 did to MoH. So, while it seems people will keep rewarding what's really a good game allowed to go stale in my eyes they won't do so forever.

[gcolley]

it hasnt really improved since CoD 1 gameplay wise and it still kills at retail. it is a mainstream shooter for casual and hardcore.

[sway__z]

Sold my Black Ops & Medal of Boredom. I got fed up with the lame PS3 port (don't care if it's fixed now).

Unless something fresh happens next in the franchise, this could well be my last COD game under Activisions watch.

Looks like i'm stick with BC2, MW2 and the (hopefully when released) good BC3.

MOH....Pffft, nostalgia can make you bad decisions!

[Serjikal_Strike]

Cod 3
Cod4 MW
Cod WaW
Cod MW2
Cod B.ops

yup..I think B.ops is my last Cod game...I give in every year and buy it 1st day...
I will say the damn game is addicting!

[kornbeaner]

I felt it too, I thought Black Ops was the best one since MW1, but being the PS3 version had Issues I just couldn't overlook any longer, decided to trade it in for $40 and used that to get Assassin's Creed:Botherhood. AC:BH is a lot more fulfilling experience from a gaming stand point. and MP in AC is more engaging then CoD as well, I just wish more people were playing it.

[Ducky]

The reason it has been on top so far is because no-one has been competing with it (or well, not since CoD4).

Now that it finally has a real multi-platform competitor with EA getting back in the game, CoD will have to improve. Otherwise, EA will cook up something better and knock it down. BC2 was one step in the right direction, MoH kinda didn't go as well as planned, but Vietnam is good and BF3 is on the horizon.

With the EA/Activision lawsuit, I expect both publishers to put more effort since things are a bit more personal. Might mean more innovation for the genre... assuming they don't end up suing each other to bankruptcy first. =/

[vickers500]

True, Call of Duty has no competition at this point.

You could say Bad Company 2, but that would be stupid seeing as how they are two completely different games.

If Call of Duty is to be toppled, then a dev needs to create a fast paced, arcade style shooter with as much or more customization than Call of Duty.

Otherwise, I don't see it being surpassed, because right now, the Call of Duty games are the best FAST PACED fps games out there (on consoles).

[LunaticBrandon]

One game that changed the series followed by three that did nothing and still sold more, I don't think it does. People will keep eating the shit up with a smile on.

[Simco876]

Author has a love for Medal of Honor. Played the beta and I decided to pick up Call of Duty. I loved Uncharted 2 multiplayer, but not enough people played it. 9,000 players at its peak! 16,000 during the free beta.

COD has 400,000 on at all times (PS3), its just easier to play CoD

[Redempteur]

those 16,000 numbers aren't the real number of people playing the game

[BXbomber]

9000 players?? I don't kno what u mean cuz I play uncharted 2 mp on a daily basis and as I'm typing this on my iPhone I can tell u the peak amount of player is alot more then 9000, it says right on my screen there's 53870 so u wrong.

[punisher99]

Call Of Duty represents everything thats wrong with this generation of gaming. The franchise is just a simple mindless game, that gets rehashed every year, but its constantly rewarded with high sales so therefore, that means they will keep rehashing game. Its like gift wrapping a turd and it just somehow sells like crazy.

[kornbeaner]

It's the Madden for this Gen of Gaming. Remember how well Madden games used to sell during PS2 & Xbox1 days, it was just as crazy and look what happens when you rest on that recycled success. Madden struggles to meet expectations both sales wise and gameplay wise this gen and seeing as it is the only game with an NFL license, thats pretty sad.

[vickers500]

Some people still have fun with the game, so who in the hell are you to tell them that they are wrong? What makes Call of Duty a mindless over something like Killzone 2 or Bad Company 2? Hmm? Because they both have the same objectives: kill, die, respawn, kill, die, respawn rinse and repeat. Of course the formula changes as you change modes, and becomes kill, capture/destroy objective, die, respawn, rinse and repeat.

All online shooters are mindless.

[punisher99]

Well for one thing. There aren't Killzone games every year. Secondly, Battlefield games have a lot more objectives than COD games making the game atleast feel more meaningful.

[vickers500]

There's really not A LOT more objectives in Battlefield then there is in Call of Duty.

There's repair, ammo supply for your team mates, and healing. Black Ops actually has more modes and a bigger variety of modes than Battlefield games (at least the Bad Company games, I'm not sure about bf2) have.

There's more things to do, sure, but not WAY more things to do. Also, Battlefield REQUIRES team work AT ALL TIMES (if you want to have any chance of winning that is), where as in Call of Duty games it can really help, but isn't necessary. And it's only pure luck (for me at least) that I get onto a team that actually gives a sh*t about the objective, most everyone on my team is either sitting on a hill sniping in a huge group, or is just playing the game like it's team deathmatch.

[dorron]

Battlefield is way better than COD...IMO.

[sway__z]

I predict that COD will have it's swansong on the next gen PS4/XBOX3. It'll be a launch show piece, dazzle the eye candy brigade with its amazingly lifelike visuals, the game play will remain exactly the same as this gen, people will flock to it like sheep...then it will die out slowly, making way for a more substantial FPS.

This is how it has always been, this is how it will remain.

EA it's time to show em how it's done. MOH was just a practice run (I suspect), you have BC3/Dice, and you are no longer the anti-christ of gaming...Activision has taken the mantle.

Take Activfistin to the mat!

[Blaine]

No it doesn't--CoDtards will keep buying them up.

Much better games sell a lot less. Therefore quality has no bearing on the sales of CoD.

[punisher99]

"Much better games sell a lot less. Therefore quality has no bearing on the sales of CoD."

+bubbels for this comment

[CobraKai]

Activision doesn't know the meaning of the word "improve"

[BeAGamer]

well they certainly know how to "improve" their bottom-line.

[sleepy3]

....or for that matter ANY GAME

We are on what? the 6th GOW or something and he's still running around with his chains doing combos eating up big bosses with QT events.

Zelda still has to find the hookshot.

Master chief still kills brutes

And Killzone 3 is Killzone 2 with jetpacks.

Now we can argue that there are other subtle differences, but so can CoD fans. There were zombies, then upgradeable perks, the split scren missions, then dead ops, then wager matches. But of course it has not changed totally. What do you want? CoD in space with sharks that shoot lasers out of their heads?

That's like asking Killzone to ditch fighting the same identical enemies over and over have the game be about shooting pigs with sling shots....IN SPACE. lol.

If Kratos can continue his run of the same thing with chains and combos and the QT events and the big bosses, then we can't really complain.

[dkgshiz]

You mean the 3rd? Unless you include the PSP games. That would make it a total of five games.

[Baka-akaB]

The argument is crap anyway .

They have changed quite a lot . Zelda even introduced quite often key and genre defining gameplay mechanics

Hell you know what happens at least when a sequel doesnt change the gameplay ? They drastically improve the graphics .
Even sports games have that amount of courtesy

Cod doesnt even do that with still the same engine since mw1 ...
And some argue the online code is even getting worse each new game .

[Soldierone]

This comment area is pretty much dead, butoh well. you talked about single player experiences, and with that in mind those games have improved lots. They have bigger better stories with differnt gameplay aspects for the single player experience.

COD has not done this. They expanded what has already been done, but havent changed a thing.Its as if they are afraid they will break it. The visuals never change, its still ambush after ambush in SP, the online is small maps with crap spawn points to make it interesting, and its the same mechanics and everything. At least kZ3 tweaked the mechanics, added new mechanics, polished the graphics even more, and polished the SP.

[Rubberlegs]

It needs a new game engine. Nothing that drastic needs to change to make it still good. BF series has always been a big battle field style game and its destruction fits for that type of game.
CoD is to small and doesn't need to be like BF. Maybe give it a new background like a scifi version but its still going to play the same.

[dkgshiz]

For sales yes. For everything else its way behind.