The marquee match-up in the shooter world these days is Battlefield and Call of Duty. Both had games out this year, and both spent quite a bit of time saying that theirs was going to be better than the other. They sank millions upon millions into their respective games. Modern Warfare 3 shattered sales ratings and Battlefield 3 has been among the top sales as well. Plenty of people are playing, and the critical reception has been seemingly positive.
So why are these games both so bad?
Metacritic's user rating for Modern Warfare 3 is a 28. Let that sink in for a moment. And before you go saying, "Oh but that's just all the haters reviewing it poorly because they think it's trash." If you compare it to the previous three entry's there is a disturbing trend that one can see. Black Ops has at least garnered an average score from users of about a 58. But Modern Warfare 2 is almost as disdained with a score of 31. Then we look at Modern Warfare and see an 84. This series has been around long enough that those figures are not just people hating on the franchise. The critics always seem to give these games high scores, but in the court of public opinion, Call of Duty has never been worse. And you know what they say...the people are always right.
So why is it so bad then? Well if we again go to Metacritic, a lot of people are upset by the poor quality of the multiplayer, and the single player campaigns Michael Bay explosionfest. Most people are seeing this game as a $60 map pack, and the maps are average or worse. The only feature that hasn't been lambasted by players is the Spec Ops mode, but even that mode isn't having it's praises sung. People have accused Call of Duty of failing to change or do anything new or interesting, and given the way the player reaction to the newest installment, it's getting really hard to argue the point. In order to write this I sat down and play it myself for some firsthand perspective. The honest answer is: I found myself very upset and frustrated by this game. The multiplayer frequently had me in fits of rage has higher leveled players with ridiculous weapons and perk packages slaughtered me. I am no slouch at shooters, but I was almost always hovering at around an even K/D ration or worse and a score in about the lower end of the board. Some of the weapons are just ridiculously overpowered, and some even came back from Modern Warfare 2. The maps might be the worst they've been in a Call of Duty title. It really felt like they were assembled to the point of 'just good enough'. The campaign really is just a Michael Bay explosion experience. Whatever the critics are seeing, I, and many others, can't see it.
How Not To Make A FPS
But don't think Battlefield 3 is escaping my attention here.
This game has almost singlehandedly made a case for why shooters should just not bother with a story mode sometimes. Not only does it rip elements of other games (especially Call of Duty: Black Ops) to compromise it's story, it is the most emotionless shooter story I think I have ever played. I felt like a mindless drone playing it. And then, halfway through, they try to make you care about soldiers, whose names you've heard have maybe twice and have the emotion and characterization of a rock, by throwing in a 'tragic event'. Even as the game tries to insist that I should care about whats going on, I find myself with no reaction to anything that happens, aside from my appreciation of the production values. At least Call of Duty has the immortal Captain Price as a memorable character, not one character from Battlefield 3 will be remembered past the end of this year. I actually had to replay it briefly just to remind myself who the main character was. The multiplayer is decent but it has yet to blow me away. There are some issues with balance during some games, especially between players of high and low rank, and snipers can sometimes get to be too much of a problem on the more open maps. There is also a clear favor for most players to play the engineer class, sometimes entire teams ignore the other three classes. Again, I don't see how this game has been so well received by critics.
And these two are not the only games in the first person shooter genre that have caused some people to question where this genre is headed. Resistance 3 has been called average at best, Medal of Honor's reboot was but a shadow of it's former self, and Call of Juarez: The Cartel is one of the most insulting games to ever be released. Go watch this video if you want an explanation: Extra Credits: Call of Juarez
So all this negativity has to have at least one or two of you re-examining the FPS genre. Believe me, a few weeks ago I hadn't felt this bad about the genre but recent events have demanded we sit down and look at these games and ask some questions about what is going on here.
So, there are problems, we can see that now. The real question now is: Can we fix it?
Honestly, I don't know.
There's a few reasons I think that way, and first and foremost is sales. I can sit here and point out flaws all day, and the public opinion can dip into the negative numbers on Metacritic, but the big companies have made it pretty clear that if we keep buying these games they will keep making them, and they will stay the course unless the backlash is big enough. Medal of Honor's reboot is getting a new game, desptie some harsh words against it from critics and payers alike, all because the game sold millions of units. Video Games are a business after all. I get that. Developers and publishers want to rake in as much as they can.
But you reach this point (reason number two inbound) where you start sacrificing quality for quantity. I think we are defiantly seeing that with Call of Duty, which Activision insists must be released yearly. Battlefield's main series does not have a game every year, but the Battlefield franchise also seem to be on the boat of yearly releases. These games have started getting progressively worse, that is almost undeniable, and part of it is the publishers insistence on having a new iteration of a franchise every single year. When you put that kind of development window on the table, even if you have two studios taking turns the way Infinity Ward and Treyarch have been, two years or so is not enough time to craft a masterpiece. Corners have to be cut, and deadlines must be met.
Pictured: The Boat of Yearly Releases
Which brings me to reason three. The apparent lack of progression. For some reason, these games don't seem to take steps forward in the areas that really matter. Example: Modern Warfare 2 was a real step backwards from Modern Warfare in a lot of peoples eyes, and Treyarch was due to release the next Call of Duty title. They had to come up with some ideas to try and get people back into the franchise. So they came up with COD points, a system where you earn spendable credits while playing the game to buy equipment and weapons as you progress. While it was a somewhat skeletal system overall, there was a clear framework in place for a big step forward in how a player progressed in the Call of duty series. With some more tweaks and support it could have become a staple feature. Instead, after Black Ops came out, and Infinity Ward was up to bat yet again, they insisted that the two development teams were separate and would not use each others work. Guess what they did not even consider bringing back in Modern Warfare 3? That decision made no sense whatsoever from any standpoint. It hurts the franchise's progress, and it subtracts an interesting feature from your game.
And now we come to point four of this increasingly depressing list. The lack of will to try and be different. Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, and Medal of Honor may all be different franchises with different backgrounds but they all have two things absolutely in common. They are setting their games in the 'modern war' time, and they do not show any signs of trying anything different anytime soon. The lack of creativity is starting to spread it seems, and it is really making the genre a stale place to be. Yes Halo is out there still, and sure Resistance and Killzone are trying, but the sales (yet again) don't lie. For whatever reason we are not yet sick of going to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Russia to fight terrorists. And now there's the disturbing trend of blowing up, or threatening to blow up, New York City (see: Modern Warfare 3/2, Battlefield 3, Rainbow Six: Patriots). This happend with the World War II setting as well, we got game after game in the setting, the sales kept growing and growing and then they just, stopped. Players started to get bored and started accusing developers of a lack of originality. So why is that not happening now? It's been nearly five years since Modern Warfare really kicked off this trend, and it is still running strong. Does no one else want to shoot something other than a terrorist or Russian for once in a game?
"Are they Terrorists or Russians?!" "Whats the difference?"
I have a list that goes further than this but I'll stop because my point has been made. All of these things are contributing to a genre that just is not what it used to be. It used to be hard just to pick which FPS you were going to go with, now it's getting hard to decide if your even going to get one, if any. Fixing this problem will not be easy, and it is going to require some of us who aren't voicing our concerns to step up and start letting these developers know we need some changes. We can make this genre interesting again, it's not so far gone that it will always be a world of explosions and dull grey and brown, but we have to be a part of making the change, or else developers and publishers will keep giving us the same things over and over again.
Well that was...long. I was going to start getting into how to fix it, but I think it's easier to just go through my points about what is wrong and just add to the end of it 'so fix it'. I hope you guys liked this one. As usual, please, spread the word, go like the facebook page (link to it on the page coming soon) and give me some feedback. Comment, email me, give me some ideas. I'd really appreciate it.
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