This is a reprint of a note I did on Facebook a while ago, which will serve as a nice intorduction to the Treyarch/Black Ops related post I have in the pipeline, which should hopefully be up tomorrow.
With CoD7 imminent, and one announcement in particular that made me very, very happy, I'm going to be doing an overall CoD7 note very much soon like, but before I do I figure I should just set the CoD scene a bit, enjoy...
Way back in late 2003, the original Call of Duty was released. Developed by Infinity Ward, it was generally groovy and cool and people enjoyed it. Nowadays, however, it finds itself decently dated and as such has faded into obscurity. A mere harbinger of the awesomeness to come. Almost exactly two years later, Call of Duty 2 was released, and with it came a decent step up in quality from the original - the sort you would expect from any sequel worth its salt. Also developed by Infinity Ward (IW from hereon), it finds itself slightly less dated than it's predecessor, and remains epic to play, despite having next to no community. Then, in 2006, Call of Duty 3 arrived. It was the first installment of the series to be developed by Treyarch. The gaming world cringed one long, collective, horrified cringe. No one is entirely sure what went wrong, it just sucked ass. The gaming communities faith in Treyarch was irrevocably shaken... or so it seemed. But more on that later.
Luckily for the CoD series, a shining light so bright and holy and awesome that I am barely worthy to bask in it's reflective glow AND that it demands its own paragraph emerged from the development studios of IW - I am, of course, talking about Call of Duty 4. Arguably the best game of the decade, easily one of the top contenders, it kicked the crap out of all that came before it and set a new benchmark for the FPS genre, which has not yet been surpassed. In short? It OWNED, and without it the CoD series may well have died then and there. But it didn't, so yeah :P
A new paragraph, for a new year, a new developer, and a new game. In 2008, Treyarch released Call of Duty: World at War, and the gaming community did a prepared action cringe... until they realised it wasn't that bad. Treyarch has seen a formula that worked, decided to adopt that formula and add a personal quirk to it - as a result, CoD5 was essentially CoD4 set in World War 2, with zombies. And no one can argue that zombies aren't awesome... well, you could, but you'd be wrong. It was easily one of the best games in the series, although the fact that it cloned CoD4 wasn't too well received - luckily, zombies redeem it tenfold. A massive improvement by Treyarch over CoD3 - not enough to redeem it in most gamer's eyes, but certainly enough in mine to make me at least optimistic for future prospects. In 2009, Infinity Ward, or Activision, or whoever the hell it was decided to pull a massive middle finger at it's most loyal fanbase (the hardcore PC market) and not include dedicated servers in cod6. I would use capitals and a full, proper, respectful name, but then again, I wouldn't. I don't think I've ever held a grudge this long... pricks...
In terms of upcoming games, we have two:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops, being developed by Treyarch. Slated for release on the 9th of November, this year. Get ampd. Note to come soon. I wish I had money :(
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Developed by 'Infinity Ward'. Release in 2011. :/
So, now we have the games out of the way, let's take a very brief look at the developers...
Infinity Ward, hailed as the king of CoD and purveyor of all that is good and awesome, up until CoD4. When cod6 was announced, people had big hopes. Very big hopes. But then the announcement came for the lack of dedicated servers... and lack of modding tools... and the lack of a freaking lean function... and perceptions changed very quickly. They went from being king to the village idiot who people laughed at and blamed their problems on. Then there was a massive legal debacle between them and Activision. No one is entirely sure what the hell went down, not even the aforementioned...
Treyarch, originally hated by the entire CoD community for the pig vomit which was CoD3, managed to slowly win back the trust and affection of the gaming community with CoD5, which was really very ok! They could not have imagined how fortunate they were about to become, however, with the massive cod6 conflict and widespread hated of IW which stemmed therefrom. Luckily for them and us, they realised the delicate position they hold... with their next game, they can either win support from the entire PC community (by not failing), or put them off CoD for the rest of ever (by being like IW). Luckily, they realised that they didn't need to reinvent the wheel, rather improve the spokes... which is exactly what it seems like they are doing.
So, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed the summary, and please do forgive me if there are errors or it sucks, it was written a while ago...
Duncan
Out
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