Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Eric Vs. 365 - Day 304 - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered

Today's Call of Duty 4 Remastered video is a doozy. It didn't really go at all the way I thought it would. I thought I was just going to romp through what I remembered as one of my favorite levels, but instead everything went wrong and I think I might actually hate Call of Duty now. Yeah, it went that bad. Read more and watch here.

Back in 2007 when COD4: Modern Warfare came out, no one expected it to become the massive Halo-killing success that it ended up being. And if anyone says they did, they're freaking lying. Previous Call of Duty games, and every other FPS, had multiplayer modes and they were always just OK. Fun for a while, but then you'd fall off and usually go back to Halo. For some unknown reason, however, COD4's multiplayer blew up and turned the series into the juggernaut that it is now. Why was it, or any other COD game that followed, so popular? Honestly? Fuck if I know. I genuinely don't know why it is popular. It feels just as soul-less and generic as ever.

I always played the Call of Duty games primarily for the single-player campaign. I liked that they were all epic and cinematic and exciting and stuff. Looking back, though, I think they might actually kind of suck. You don't so much play Call of Duty campaigns as you're just along for the ride. You have to walk when they tell you to walk, shoot when they tell you to shoot, and always look where they tell you to look to ensure you see the big pretty explosions. The levels are linear, the encounters are entirely scripted, and it's kind of boring. You're on a guided tour of a battlefield rather than actually really doing anything. 

The fact it took me so long to figure all of this out is kind of embarrassing. I liked COD2 and COD4 and Modern Warfare 2 (the only COD games I ever beat) and enjoyed my time with Advanced Warfare and Infinite Warfare, but looking back I think I'm really, really, really tired of the COD formula. The Battlefield franchise does the same thing, so it isn't just a COD problem. These games are just boring.


Like I said at the top, I didn't think this video would go this way. I played "All Ghillied Up" and always loved it. But in this video I basically have a breakdown by the end because nothing went right and all I could see was flaws in the game design. It was a bad time.