On Tuesday, November 5th, a need member of the Call of Duty series family was released to the thousands of eager fans. This tenth, and newest, member of the series was named Call of Duty: Ghost. While met with great enthusiasm from the fans of the series, Call of Duty: Ghost was criticized to be ridiculous and somewhat overly repetitive of old themes used by older games over and over again.
No matter how much the fans may say otherwise, there was a substantial amount of evidence that supported the criticisms made by New York Times writer Chris Suellentrop. The biggest repetition of theme was definitely the plot of foreign invasion into the United States. We see similar stories in Call of Duty 8: Modern Warfare 3, where the U.S. was invaded by Russia, and in the game Homefront, where a new Korean superpower successfully occupied the United States. All of these games feature adventure stories of main characters fighting back invading evils through a series of massive gunfights and eventually save the nation. After seeing so many games featuring the same topic, it is hard not to associate such trend with a sense of superiority the United States expressed as the leading nation of the world today. In all of these games, producers placed the United States in such a place of absolute justice, without even slightly describing the hardships or the pursues of the oppositions. It is rather unsurprising that the people would get bored of such topic after going through so many games that featured the same theme.
On the other hand, some traits Suellentrop also described to be obsolete were actually evident of the series producers’ efforts to better the game and not at all obsolete. The greatest example of which was the new feature of being able to actively control vehicles. Compared with the previous works, Call of Duty: Ghost has greatly improved that feature. Now, it may be true that being able to use a vehicle in a First Person Shooting game is nothing new, but the Call of Duty series have always lived under the shadow of the Battlefield series in this prospect. It is only natural that the producers of the Call of Duty series would put better feature of using vehicles into the games.
Despite some obvious points of obsoleteness there was a lot of opinions on Sullentrop’s article that could be further discussed. As a fan of the Call of Duty series I do not deny the possibility of holding an subjective point of view on this matter. Yet, I still hope the readers could consider contents of this piece before making any decisions regarding the game.
Suellentrop, Chris. “A Fantastical Shootout, Moving Across Space and Time.” New York Times. N.p., 5 Nov. 2013. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/arts/video-games/call-of-duty-ghosts-begins-with-an-attack-on-the-us.html?ref=video-games&_r=0>
I’ve been seeing a lot of talk about the Call of Duty series lately, and this would explain why. Perhaps at this point, the creators of the game need to stop producing games in that series and start focusing on new games–like Valve did with Portal, and like Bioware decided to do with Mass Effect.
At the same time, I liked that you pointed out the ethnocentrism of the U.S. by the creators of the Call of Duty series, and the point about the theme becoming repetitive was apt. The creators either need to focus on expansion of the cultural background or to begin anew and create a different series. That being said, I was a tad disappointed that there was no discussion about the graphics and artwork–was it the same as previous CoD games? Was there a difference? Was the art better or worse? Did the vehicles get upgraded visually? It would have been nice to see a comparison of the visual arts between Ghost and previous CoD games.
I agree with the author says that there are elements of the game that are repetitive, however, I think this is done intentionally. There are only so many scenarios you can create to attract “videogamers” to play. Obviously, for a game centered in the U.S., it would make sense to create a game that involved another country attacking the U.S. This to me doesn’t seem like a flaw, but rather a piece of ingenuity. It is smart to create a scenario like this, because really, who wants to be invading Antarctica? Would a game that revolved around capturing villages in Africa really stay true to the Call of Duty name? I think that, partially, they need to stick to what they do to stay true to the series. Beyond this, I think that they are doing a good job from game to game. They are simply making each game a better and more advanced version than the last and for this reason I disagree with the authors point that this is a bad thing, for all games in a series follow this type of pattern. If you wanted to you could pick apart every other game series like GTA or Starcraft for being a better, but similar, version of the past.
I agree with your assertion that the storyline of this instance may be somewhat extremely similar to the ones of past games in this series, but there are other aspects to a video game that make the game successful. If every idea had to be unique, there would be little chance of any games ever being released. The gameplay of a video game and the graphics are also very important aspects that must be taken into account when assessing a video game. Certain series of games are also well known for certain things, so a deviation from the norm would be a risk for the game enterprise to take. People also sometimes like reputation, examples that further this are new versions of films that have been released many, many times. Often these remakes of old films have great reception amongst the masses.
Although the plot is very similar to previous games regarding foreign invasion into the United States, something about Call of Duty still appeals to the masses. With the compelling action based fighting and beautiful scenery in-game, I can see why players are drawn to it sequel after sequel. With each new release, new aspects are added to each game, although multiplayer is always the same. In order to introduce a new Call of Duty, I feel that a revolutionary idea needs be implemented – something that hasn’t been in previous games before. Call of Duty, in a sense, releases sequels based on events in history.
As a Call of Duty fan, I agree with the criticism of this game. I made a conscious decision not to purchase the game (at least at the ridiculous price of $60) because of the repetitive nature of the series of games. However, I expect to find myself left in the dust, as every year, when a new Call of Duty game is made, the majority of players migrate from the old Call of Duty to the newest one, leaving the multiplayer aspect of the previous game deserted for players who’d rather play the older games.
Not only were the themes of the game repetitive, but the content was, as well. The game’s developers came under fire for using the same animations that they had used in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. However, I’m willing to overlook this repetition, as many animators reuse old animations. Take Disney animated movies, for instance. Many of their older animations repeat in their newer movies, like dance scenes from Snow White and The Jungle Book. It’s a technique used by animation studios to save time and money, but it’s also understandable since animation takes a lot of time.
I do agree that many video games have the same elements, not just Call of Duty itself. But you have to think about it in the way that if Call of Duty didn’t have the same elements, it would not be known as being the video game it is today. In addition to that, all video games have similar concepts and ideas. Call of Duty is known for being a military-style game. Grand Theft Auto is known for being a car-driving type game based in a large city. That is what the video game is famous for and it has worked in the past years. There is not reason to fix what is not broken and if it is working and has been working, then there is no need to change except make technical improvements.