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.

Breaking news! Those two guys...

Well, it's not really news, is it? Zampella & West have formed a new company. Yes, with some help from EA. Anybody surprised? No? OK.

Nothing about this is surprising. We knew the guys actually making the Modern Warfare games would leave the rotting carcass of Infinity Ward as soon as possible, and of course that has already started.

Well, maybe I'm too harsh. Infinity Ward it's not dead yet after all. They are pumping out those expensive new maps! Well, not really new, but you know. They may become another Treyarch. But then Activision will realize that they can't afford to have the same developer twice, so they will close down one of them.

Come on! It's not easy to have talented people on your team. And if you have them, you don't force them away. See what happened to now-in-name-only Guns'n Roses. Did Axl Rose really think that he was going to replace Slash and the other guys just like that?

...


UPDATE: From now on, I hope we can forget about this whole mess until Respawn releases their first game (or maybe if there's something really big happening). If you are really interested, I recommend you to follow Kotaku's great coverage.

Activision's overkill

Activision, WHAT the hell are you doing?

I've been mean to those companies that consistently make a string of mediocre or bad games and then they go bankrupt. This is a tough business, and nobody has money to buy bad games. If your game is bad, we will know it as soon as the first review hits the internet.

But sometimes it's just not fair. You make great and successful strategy games, but then you are shut down by Microsoft. Or you create the Guitar Hero series, you are bought out by Activision and forced to churn out game after game until the market says "Stop!" because we are sick and tired of plastic instrument games, and then Activision shutters the studio .

I agree that if you release a piece of crap like Haze you deserve to go under. But if you make a good game like Prototype... is that fair? NO, IT ISN'T.

Activision, stop. Just stop.