Treyarch: The phoenix crashed while rising from the ashes (bugs are suspected)

On the 9th of November 2010, a little (massive) game called Call of Duty: Black Ops was released. The hype which been created around it was incredible, and it easily tore apart Modern Warfare 2's previous sales records (which had been the world records across the entertainment industry at the time). Treyarch shook the world with its sheer awesomosity and innovation. The underdogs had come from behind to become the flagship developer of the Call of Duty series... or so the sales figures would indicate.

In reality?

I don't think Treyarch really realised the incredible position it held... with Black Ops they could make or break their name as a developer, and win over a market which had been teetering on the brink of adopting a new figurehead for their cult. There is an important distinction which needs to be made between successful in sales terms and what I mentioned above. The sales are a result of the fact that 'Call of Duty' is in the title of the game... there are a whole lot of people out there who buy a game for no other reason but that. What I am talking about, however, is the way the more autonomous quota of the community view Treyarch... not as important as profit, certainly not, but a more abstract reality. It may not matter in the scope of their success as a company, but I am going to write on anyway.

I'm pretty sure I outlined everything in my last post, but if you didn't read it then I suggest you scroll down the page a tad to contextualise this a bit better... at least skim it... please?
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Rightyo then, now that you have read and internalised (0.o) my post, let us sally valiantly onwards into the nitty (knitty? gnitty?) gritty of this here virtual publication!

So, Treyarch had it's chance to make or break itself in the eyes of the community. To make themselves, they simply had to create a game at least as mindbogglingly awesome as Call of Duty 4 (the standard to which all FPS games are compared nowadays, 'cause that's just how things work). To break themselves, they had to not do that.

In all truth, they were so close... they were so damn close. The game itself is amazing, it has the makings to easily rival CoD4, in addition to the added zombie mode which kicks ass like an ostrich on steroids... but. There are a few massive, pretty much gamebreaking bugs which have been around since the game's release – the kind of stuff which should have been dealt with in the Beta testing,

First of all, the game was written for quad-core PCs, not dual-cores... dual-cores being what most of the market runs on, of course. So, right from the word go there were huge performance issues felt by everyone running a dual-core system, despite the fact that their system specifications were at least equal to, if not greater than what was specified on the box. It was not only the dual-core crowd who suffered from performance issues either, and massive hindrances were also had by those with the kind of monstrous computers that eat little games like Black Ops for brunch, while hardcore PC nerds get all excited about during their happy time. Overall, the general trend indicated some sort of gamble which you (knowingly or not) entered into when you bought the game, the result of which would determine whether or not you would actually be able to run the damn thing, and as with any gamble the negative outcome was far more likely than the positive.

Second, the crashes. My word, the crashes... most prominent in the multiplayer aspect of the game, you are indeed extremely lucky if you manage a consecutive thirty minutes of game time before the game mockingly freezes up, just as your crosshair comes in line with the head of an unsuspecting n00b and you click the left mouse button, only to have the resulting crack from the gun isolated and looped over your speakers resulting in a continuous sound not unlike the sort of high tempo house music all the cool kids are listening to these days.

I vehemently believe that words can't adequately describe just how frustrating it is to have spend your money on a game, on a product, which by all means should work as intended upon the moment it is released onto the shelves of the various worldwide purveyors of gaming awesomeness only to not be able to adequately enjoy your new piece of software. Perhaps Treyarch would have been forgiven if they had patched the offending (I have only named the two which got to me the most) bugs out like they should have, but with it having almost been two months since the release of the game in question one does begin to doubt whether Treyarch really does give a hoot about just how it's market views it.

The scary truth is that it really doesn't matter how badly treated we are, they never feel the repercussions, because people just keep lapping up the games.

So, Treyarch has been on quite a journey regarding their standing with the community... at the start, they were laughed off whatever the hell a game developer can be laughed in an offwards direction of... then they managed to find acceptance by not completely failing their next installment. When Modern Warfare 2 epic failed the PC market into the ground, they became the last bastion of hope for our CoD fix this year.... and they failed to deliver. By a rather bare margin, perhaps, but a failure is a failure not matter the scale.

Good readers of this hither blog, I think it is time for me to declare that I have finally lost faith in the Call of Duty series... I tried optimism, I really did, but I prefer realism to be honest. Modern Warfare 3? Not for me, thanks.

Rightyo then, good and venerable fellow gamers, where to look for our next fix? Who to turn to now that the series which was the former king of FPS has sacrificed its standing and instead decided to turn Robert Mugabe on us? Well, that is a question which I have every intention of answering... in a further post, howver, as Starcraft 2 do be calling :D

Duncan
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