The Call of Duty school of writing

Call of Duty: Black Ops was released last week. Many streets here in Frankfurt are filled with ads showing a guy with two guns, one of them called Sally. I'm not going to play it yet because I don't have too much money right now and the UK release is a bit overpriced, so I'll have to wait until it's cheaper. But I realized that I never played Treyarch's 2006 game Call of Duty III because then I was only a PC gamer and this was a console exclusive. So now it's a good time for me to catch up...



A few days ago, Jeffrey Yohalem (an Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood writer) said in a Spanish interview that "the game mechanics are always more important than the script". Then, amazingly, he mentioned Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time as the main influence for his work. But as Ben Croshaw cleverly observed, PoP: TSoT is one of the best games ever made and is miles beyond its sequels even when the second and the third game have substantially better combat and overall gameplay. Why is that? Because TSoT has an amazing script.

So I've been playing for a couple of days the infamous Call of Duty III, who earned Treyarch the unfair reputation for doing the "bad" Call of Duty games. It has -*sigh*- decent mechanics, but no script whatsoever. Just "go there and shoot the bad guys" all the time, with the odd vehicle section here and there for a change of pace.

I guess after making this game somebody realized that they needed scripts for the Call of Duty games to make them less boring. So, starting with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, it looks like they decided that they had to blow our minds. I mean, literally. So then it was like this (total SPOILERS follow):


CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE:


"At the beginning of the game, you go in a car with the bad guys, they take you to a main villain and he shoots you in the head."


"So, how can we top that?"


"Then you go in a helicopter with the good guys, you run away from the same main villain, and then he... er, he throws an atomic bomb on you."


"That's so f***ing cool! After this, nobody will want to play a Medal of Honor game ever again..."



WORLD AT WAR:

"So, you've seen Call of Duty 4... Any ideas?"

"Nazi zombies?"





MODERN WARFARE 2:

"They really loved the atomic bomb bit. Now, give me something really shocking."

"You go and... shoot civilians with the bad guys, but then they shoot you in the head."


"That's so clever. And so original! So, how can we top that?"


"Er... Well, the good guy is... a main villain... and he shoots you... and then he pours gasoline on you..."


"You are a f***ing genius! We have GOTY material in our hands!"



BLACK OPS:


"So we have to top Modern Warfare or we are dead... Ideas?"


"Well, you go and shoot Fidel Castro in the head."


(Silence.)


"Only that... it wasn't him."


"That's... genius! Amazing! Modern Warfare, you are so screwed after this! So, how can we top that?"


"Well, after that, you... shoot... Kennedy."


(Silence.)


"Only that... well, you don't really shoot him. But they make you think that you shot him."


"Polish those Oscars! I mean, maybe there are no video game Oscars, but we're all going to be rich!"





So, here's the Call of Duty school of writing. Here's a good lesson for game designers all around the globe.

The new censorship

As you can see in the comments from users here, the Steam software forces you to upgrade your version of Plants vs Zombies to the GOTY release even if you don't want it. Yes, even if you have disabled automatic updates for that game. They have blatantly ignored the choice made by players to keep the old version of the game, following the rules set by Valve to handle Steam.

This kind of disregard for what the player wants, taking advantage of the power they hold when they fully control your access to the games, is what makes me skeptical about digital downloads. They can tamper with your game in any way they think appropriate. Now they are saying, "oh, sorry, some character in the game may get us sued so we are removing it", but at some point you can log in to your game account and be confronted with a disclaimer telling you that "sorry, a big Earthquake killed 100,000 people in California so the Quake games are in bad taste and you can no longer play them". Or maybe one day you try to play "Rock and Roll Part 2" in a Guitar Hero / Rock Band game but then Gary Glitter is arrested for molesting a child, so then the song gets patched out of the game because some parents complained about it... You know what I mean!

And then I, as a player, will yell "stop screwing me! I just want to play my game in peace! Don't take anything away from me!". But now there's nothing I can do, because in the digital era nobody can hear you scream.

CCG's Game Of The Year 2009!

And our game of the year is...

PLANTS VS ZOMBIES

Why? We all agree (and "all" means SuperViv, JR and me) that Plants vs Zombies surpassed all our expectations and gave us lots of hours of good, solid fun. This game wasn't hyped to death, but word of mouth has made it a success. JR found this game and told me that I just had to play it. He was right! Then I bought this game for my brother, and he really loved it! And SuperViv was told that she just had to play this game... by a friend from Israel! Yes, everybody around the globe loves Plants vs Zombies. Just because it looks like a "small" game, this doesn't mean that PvZ is worse than any of the Big Names.

In our words:

Such a simple idea. Yet, the execution is perfect. The graphics, the writing (the descriptions in the zombie guide are just hilarious), the gameplay... The difficulty is so finely tuned that you get the feeling that this game was playtested to death. (Danda)

Plants vs. Zombies is very addictive. It's not particularly difficult, but it gets slightly more difficult in every level, which makes you want to progress further and further. After every level, you end up with a new item that you just quickly want to try - so that 45 minutes later you're still "just quickly trying" a new item. The game is simple and really goofy in an endearing way. They paid a lot of attention to detail, too. The graphics are nicely cartoonish, the different types of zombies are funny, the music doesn't get on your nerves even after an hour or two, and the whole game sounds good from every shot and explosion to the zombies' muttering of "brains!" (SuperViv)

PvZ is quite cool! It may be less addictive than Defense Grid but it's more entertaining and varied. It's a really nice game and as you progress in the game you find a lot of hilarious stuff the makers put in the game. It's also very varied because it has a ton of minigames. I think it's a good purchase. And it's perfect for girlfriends! (JR)

So that's it. Oh, and my runner-up is...

UNCHARTED 2

That game is just perfect. Everything about is carefully built up to be great. OK, the story may be a little shallow if we compare it with a (good) movie, which is what it would like to be, but for the usual videogame standards, the script in Uncharted 2 is Shakespeare. But this is not like Metal Gear Solid 4: if you skip all the cutscenes (like I did on my second playthrough), you still have a dozen rock-solid hours of game.

And my definitely-not-game-of-the-year is...

MODERN WARFARE 2

Why would I pay extra to play the same game from 2007, all over again? No way. I only played this game because I managed to find, amazingly, a new copy for 17€.

I guess I'm supposed to find the airport level shocking (the game even offers to skip it), but the most shocking thing was the ending for that level. I was thinking "that's what you deserve for shooting the wrong people, you moron". Was I supposed to feel that? I'm not sure.

So, what about the "new" stuff? Oh, yes: I had to rescue hostages at an oil rig. Didn't I already do that in the early Rainbow Six games? Of course I did. And the snowmobile? Didn't I already do that on No One Lives Forever 2? Yes! Then, what about fighting on American soil? Oh, you mean, like in Resistance 2? And defending a diner from the ceiling? I think I already did that on that weird Area 51 kind-of-sequel, Blacksite.

Derivative, that's the word. Even the music is not as good as in COD4. Zimmer, you lazy man! Did you even write it, or did you just put your name on it?

And I don't care if you don't agree. It's just my opinion.

Danda

I'm back... but you are gone!

Hi SuperViv!

It's strange how things change in a short amount of time. Four days ago, you were sitting in front of me in the office. Now you are gone, and you'll be in Australia soon... It's strange. Will you still be playing games there? Or maybe you'll spend your whole time in the desert, catching snakes and photographing kangaroos? (By the way, the first and only time I ate a "kangaroo burger" was here in Frankfurt!) My best friend spent a whole year in Australia too, but he came back. I was fearing he would get to love Australia (and/or Australian girls) and stay there forever! But that could also happen to you, you know.

Even with your new life, I suspect you'll probably have more time than me to play games. I've been struggling to find time to play the really short campaign for Modern Warfare 2. I'll probably wait until I'm done with it to say more, but I'm definitely underwhelmed. It feels like an "expansion pack" for the previous game. Which for many people is probably a great thing.

For your travels, sites like Steam or GOG.com (especially GOG!) are just perfect. You can download your games anywhere in the world, so you can have 500 games (like me!) and you can play them anywhere in the world (well, almost... Steam is blocking some games in certain territories) but you don't have to carry the discs with you. You just need a decent internet connection!

And now, let me catch up with you:

So you fell from your GTA IV bike many times! Well, I think they fixed that in The Lost and the Damned (well done!). I used to ride a motorbike a few years ago. I really enjoyed it, at first. Then I started hating it... but then I had to do it for my job! Thank god I'm doing what I do now so I don't have to go back.

Sadly, DJ Hero bombed. I guess manhandling a turntable hasn't got the same pull as pretending to be a rock god.

I have Dragon Age: Origins, but it's the last one in my RPG Chain of Play. It goes like this:

-Family 1: FALLOUT -> FALLOUT 2 -> FALLOUT TACTICS -> MORROWIND -> OBLIVION -> FALLOUT 3
-Family 2: KOTOR -> [KOTOR 2] -> JADE EMPIRE -> MASS EFFECT -> MASS EFFECT 2 -> DRAGON AGE

I probably won't play Knights of the Old Republic 2 because it's not available on Steam.

There's a thing I really hate about Bioware's new releases: they offer some great "exclusive items" if you pre-purchase the game. That's just nasty! So if you don't have the money now, or you are on vacation and you don't have an internet connection, you lose the chance to get an advantage forever. And then you also have to pay $10 extra for the "Digital Deluxe Edition", which gives you more great items. It's so unfair! I wish someone would just hack the game to give those items for everybody.

I wasn't impressed by Avatar. It was just like "Dances with Wolves" dumbed down for kids. And I wasn't that impressed by the 3D effect. But maybe that was just me.

But it's not me who says that the Avatar game is terrible. All the reviews are terrible, so I'm sure it really sucks! I will still play it when I can get it for $5, though.

After saying this, let me prepare our own special GOTY post! Too bad I haven't heard from JR in a while, but I'll include him somehow...

Later,
Danda