For this week, I’m jumping from the obscure world of indie games straight to the top of the AAA game heap: the Call of Duty series. Call of Duty has, in recent years, seen a huge drop-off in sales and influence, but at its peak it was by far one of the most famous and most-played video games of all time.
Call of Duty the stereotypical first-person war shooter. The main objective across every mode in every edition of the game is to kill as many enemies as possible while avoiding death yourself. The games have two major modes, the first of which is a single-player campaign, which across all entries in the series is a linear, story-driven experience which lasts about 8-10 hours. The games have different settings, including WWII, the Vietnam War, the future, and more, but for the most part, you play as the good guy and your job is to shoot the bad guys. The second mode, and the most important, is the multiplayer mode. In this mode, you join a lobby of 7 to 15 other players who are split up into two teams, then you and your team try to kill the other team as many times as possible. There are different game modes to choose from with different overall objectives; there’s a capture the flag mode, a mode where each player only has one life per round and whoever is left standing at the end of the round wins, and many more. Overall, though, the most popular mode and the most stereotypical is team deathmatch, in which it’s a straight up fight between you and the other team.
The gameplay across the Call of Duty series is very similar between games, and overall it’s very smooth. The game is always in first-person, meaning you only ever see your character’s hands and gun. Your character can run, jump, crouch, lie down, and shoot. There are various customizations that have had unique iterations in different versions of the game; one example is killstreaks, which allow you to have special bonuses once you kill a certain number of enemies in a row, such as an attack helicopter that automatically guns down enemies it sees or a radar that allows your entire team to see where enemies are located on your mini-map. For the most part, though, the gameplay is pretty much the same in all of the versions.
If it sounds like I’m being critical, I am, at least a little bit. Call of Duty’s reputation has gotten worse and worse as time goes on because players, myself included, felt like the producer, Activision, cares more about making money than actually updating the game and providing a new and fresh experience every time the players were expected to shell out $60 for the next game. However, that isn’t to say that I don’t like the games. The Call of Duty games, especially the 6th iteration, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, are some of the most fun games I’ve played in my life. In middle school and the early years of high school, it was a very social activity for me and my friends. On the weekends, me and a group of 4, 5, or sometimes 6 other friends would all get online on our PS3s and do nothing but play Call of Duty for hours on end, sometimes as late as 3:00 or 4:00 AM. That’s not necessarily something that I’m proud of, but the games were just fun. The action was so quick and intense that even when you were getting totally crushed by the other team, something fun and exciting was always happening. Playing with a group of friends also allowed us to joke around and come up with strategies that were just for fun. For example, we would all decide to play an entire round using only knives, or only rocket launchers. We would usually get stomped by the other team, but winning games like that were more fun than anything. Call of Duty wasn’t necessarily the best designed game, and it’s by no means my favorite game, but in terms of pure fun and connecting with friends, it will always be near the top of my list.
Emily Rothermel says
Hi Keefey! I’m creepin so hard core right now, but I just wanted to say hi! I completely agree that Call of Duty needs to step up their game. I have been quite disappointed in their quality of gaming lately. It’s such a shame that it isn’t what it used to be. I prefer Super Smash these days, and plus all of my friends tell me I’m amazing at it so I might as well keep going.
Marisa George says
I have only ever played Call of Duty once and I’m sorry I do not see how guys can sit there for like 12 hours straight and play that game. I agree that it is fun to play but I feel that there is just so many versions out now that after awhile does it not get boring? My little sister, who is 16, even asked for Call of Duty for Christmas two years ago because there is so much excitement around this game.