Call of Duty: Cash Cow

The latest Call of Duty game was released yesterday for the PC, Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii. It’s receiving mostly good reviews. This one is set during the Cold War era; apparently the story unfolds through non-linear flashbacks as your character is interrogated by some Communists or something. I’ve decided not to purchase it, at least for the time being. I’ve got a few reasons.

1. Short Single Player. The hallmark of the Call of Duty franchise, at least over the past three or four years, has been its multiplayer. The developers put a large amount of effort into balancing and designing the multiplayer experience. It’s typically an excellent experience for that reason, but the single player campaign typically suffers as a result. Past efforts have remained solid, but short. When I purchase a game, unless it’s a multiplayer-only experience I prefer games that give me a deep, rich, and long single player campaign. The CoD games have always had involving storylines, but a game that clocks in at six hours is just a tad ridiculous. There were days when a ten hour campaign was short, especially when you have games like Fallout 3 and Mass Effect 2 taking at least forty hours to complete.

2. Treyarch and Infinity Ward. Treyarch is the developer of this year’s CoD. I have nothing against them; I thoroughly enjoyed Call of Duty: World at War, their last foray into the franchise. However, this is the first installment in the series after the massive blowup between Activision and Infinity Ward, which resulted in the creative minds behind the series up and leaving the studio and forming their own, independent studio. I liked the stories those guys put together, and Modern Warfare 2 was very much a cliffhanger ending. It frustrates me that when that story picks back up, it won’t be from the same minds that conceived it in the first place.

3. Activision and Bobby Kotick. If you don’t know, Bobby Kotick is the CEO of Activision. He’s been quoted as wanting to “take the fun out of making video games,” installing a culture of “skepticism, pessimism, and fear” at his company, and he’s proud of these things. He is responsible for running the Guitar Hero series into the ground, and he’s doing the same thing with Call of Duty. Just yesterday the company reserved the domains for Call of Duty expansions, indicating that they’re taking the franchise into space. The philosophy seems to be to take a successful franchise, milk it for every single penny, and drive it into the ground. Call of Duty 17, anyone?

No thanks.