Is Call of Duty Good for Gaming?
By: Ryan Bird
Tags: Gaming, Videogames, Entertainment, Electronics, Life

The Call of Duty franchise has undoubtedly changed the FPS genre forever. Where Halo made it accessible to everyone, Call of Duty made it fast and bite-sized. Where CS GO took multiplayer to another level Call of Duty made it fast and Furious.

But, when is it time to throw in the towel? No doubt Call of Duty has become a household name. Grandparents buy it for their grandkids and parents have played with their kids as they got old enough to fire a headshot. But, it is formulaic. They have the “if it ain't broke, don't fix it” approach now. A new coat of paint, fix a few dents, refresh and release. They all play the same save a few minor tweaks.

The stories and set pieces are eye candy but short-lived. There is next to no replayability in the campaign, and that is where I spend my time with games. I like a good story and a sweeping narrative to accompany. Skyrim, Deus EX (Invisible War), Halo, the Nathan Drake series even all have certain replayability. They hit a mark that sends the senses reeling for more.

Call of Duty games have variety to some degree, be it the storylines, the Zombie brain dead fun multiplayer, or the kill confirmed teamwork collecting dog tags. Yet again it’s just another coat of paint each time. Is it good for gaming? At that point, no. It is not good to sell the same game in new clothes over and over, but that is not up to me.

Consumerism reveals they want it. I guess.

from statists.com as of October 2019

I personally feel they started as a great asset to gaming when Modern Warfare first released. World at War gave the series a visceral addition and made you really get the sense of horrid war byproducts with the cutscenes and content. In my mind, it could have stopped there. Black Ops' only real addition to the gaming industry was (in my opinion) the multiplayer. I felt they nailed it in level design, gun play, connectivity, and community. The upgrades were great and really felt well earned and the consistency was refreshing after the mess that hacking made of World at War mulit-player. So those are the only real additions to the industry that made a difference.

Humanity has a need for moving forward, the new and latest thing, the hottest thing they can get their hands on. The ad campaigns for COD are amazing. The celebrity appearances, the set pieces, and the thrill of the amazing gameplay is thrown at us from every angle. In this day and age of social media, we can’t escape it.

But then we miss the others. When Black ops 2 came out in 2012 how many people bought Kingdoms of Amalur: Reconing? Dishonoured was amazing but I know it didn’t gane speed until later on. It would have sold more had we not been bombarded by COD ads.

Photo by thiago japyassu from Pexels

Don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing and got a sequel and DLC, but I didn’t get the whole picture until Reviews On The Run showed me how good it was. YouTube was swamped with COD reviews and little other at the time. Now these other titles are celebrated as “retro” titles in some aspects. They have cult followings and are alomost lost to the ages.

I racked up a tonne of hours in Dishonoured’s interesting world of steampunk parquor level design and causing rats to create havoc to the baddies as a diversion to poison the liquor barrels. Yep, that’s a thing and it’s amazing.

Lollipop Chainsaw ring a bell? Suda 51 and Grasshopper making insane games with off the wall stories and gameplay. The fun is just figuring out where the hell they make up these things.

Binary Domain and Persona 4 Golden. Binary Domain had an aspect of team AI development that kept you responsible for appropriate actions. Persona 4 Golden on P.S. Vita. Remember that one? Best P.S. Vita game that many, MANY people didn’t play due to, well, the P.S. Vita.

Who’s got the WiiU? I do. It’s awesome and I use it regularly. But I think that I am the only one.

I strayed from COD as a player, but as a collector I still got them. On sale when I can, but I still buy them. I have that one thing that almost all of us have. The addiction to collecting them. They look good as a tangible object in alphabetical order on the shelf. From old to new in all the different systems including the DS, P.S. Vita, o.g. Xbox and Gamecube, along with the PS2 all the way to the P.C. and the current consoles, PS4 and Xbox One. I can’t help myself. But at least this addiction doesn’t send me to the hospital.

Is COD good for gaming? It was at the start for the first 2.5 games when starting at Modern Warfare. The older ones on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and the rest are on their own as individual experiences when COD gaming wasn’t quite as formulaic. Now they just cost me money and sit on the shelf. A little use at the beginning but then shelf real estate. I’m done with them. They are no longer good for gaming. Time to move on to another franchise Activision.