Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and more announced

When I picked up Call of Duty on the PC waaay back, I thought....finally a mod which has heaps of scripted events. The game was solid but it was actually just quake or doom or any other fps but heaps of scripted events, some of them seemingly based on real skirmishes or confrontations but every single game in the series has been exactly the same....it's just Medal of Honor but more polished.

It pisses me off that this generic series time and time again get the sales and GOTY votes. I did buy COD2 cuz when that came out there wasn't much out on the 360 so I did it to keep myself busy. The game was solid but it was COD 1 but with different scenery. I also bought COD4 but it was mainly to participate in a bit of multiplayer gaming which I did for about 1-2 weeks but mates and I got sick of Counter Strike gameplay which we got sick of back when we had counter strike (no and i'm not talking source).

I know people will argue that every game ever made is just an extension of what came before it but Jibbs has summed it up perfectly, it's a game made of hoops, you jump through them at the developers pace, no deviation whatsoever and then you do it all over again, using the same weapons you had in counter strike, medal of honor and numerous other games that came before it.

Seriously people wonder why I hold the original Halo in such high regard and it's because of the cohesiveness of the whole experience, the weapons, enemies, voice acting, AI and especially the vehicles all felt like they were from the same world and you could interact and with any of these elements at any point in the game (if you see all the fan made videos you will believe the vehicles can basically be taken anywhere for some experimentation). Jumping into a banshee felt like jumping into a ghost but you could actually fly instead of just hover....it all just felt right, it did the 2 weapon thing, the recharge shield thing....both of which I had never seen in a game before. Imo it has done more for FPS than most people will realise. No game before it had such seamless vehicle intergration. Oh yea the physics....floaty and arcadey fun...that's what it was. Anyways COD has NEVER done any of this!! If you get to use a tank it's when the game tells you to, you can't get out of it, infact you pretty much just drive in a straight line following the other tanks or whatever script has been written for that chapter. I've never seen any awesome physics, infact lots of clipping is the order of the day in COD when you usually kill someone, whereas in Halo the dude goes flying and drapes himself over the landscape....which is not only awesome, it's write home take a phote sorta awesome!

Yet a majority of people love COD no questions, will buy COD no questions. It really comes down to the fantasy vs real world settings imo. The world has got so many Gomer Pyle wannabe's that no matter how superior a game, base it on a fantasy setting and it'll never sell as well as something based in real life. That imo is the problem with the world, wow i'm getting like major deja vu right now....anyways...actually that's all.

There are AI soldiers fighting alongside you in Halo just as there are in COD, infact they die and don't respawn like the ones in COD so they're not as superficial. Infact they display a much wider range of moves and AI scripts, the ones in Halo are dynamic, jump in a vehicle and they'll jump in with you, bloody COD team mates just run from one area to another based on whether you have passed an invisible line. They'll wait next to a door way untill you pass through this door way and that's all they'll do. In Halo they might grab a stray ghost or they might follow you wherever you go and they don't all behave like this, some might act like COD teamates and be completely scripted but other aren't which shows atleast a big of variety was injected into the programming instead of just 'cut n pasting' one comrades AI into another.

Also the enemies in Halo are as far from Doom/cannon fodder type enemies as you can get. You haven't fought a single enemy that has better AI than an Elite. The thing will duck, roll, strafe, flank, use vehicles, try and ram you with said vehicles, hide for safety and finally go berserk and kamikaze it when all hope is lost. I still haven't seen a single enemy fight for their lives, these Elite's might aswell be living breathing creatures as far as i'm concerned.

Whether you like vehicle components in a game or not, having it intergrated seamlessly into the game and not forcing you to use them (i've completed every part of the halo games without vehicles, much more challenging which is the reason I did it) cannot be chocked up as a negative against the game.

Amazing how little details like these escape people. Halo is superior to COD in everyway shape and form.

Look i'm not saying COD sucks, i'm just saying it's got that Wii effect, more casuals will play it cuz it's something that they can relate to and more testosterone fueled meat heads play it...for obvious reasons and then you have gamers which pick up the game cuz it's just solid further adding to the games sales. So nothing against COD, it's the market/demographics which make it what it is.