Call of Duty - Black Ops

[teddymeow]

We could have a 'guess the celebrity voices' sweepstake!

World at War was Kiefer Sutherland and Gary Oldman so who do you reckon for the next Treyarch game?

It needs a British side to the campaign so they can have Stephen Fry doing even more games! And Hugh Laurie. Not that I'm suggesting that this should be a Blackadder game...

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...actually, World War I might be quite interesting. The smoke effects are certainly good enough to do the whole battlefield thing in a pretty intense way.

[Spatial]

Seriously, Call of Duty 7...

In the current climate you can't blame them for pushing them out if they know the franchise is a winner and going to shift. They're a business at the end of the day and games like CoD still sell by the bucket load.

I thought WaW was pretty poor after the nerdgasm that was CoD4, but it still sold bucket loads. The whole thing says more about the market than the developers.

Look at the cracking games which tried to do something different and just fell by the wayside. Joe Public just doesn't seem to agree with you I'm afraid and money talks.

[Uli]

where's the problem here? it's just a franchise name they use... and if they keep pushing the genre forward with every second CoD game there's no reason to complain at all.

[Matt]

As I've said, I'd like to see the talented IW team stretch themselves, try something else. Seems a waste of talent to repeat a process over and over, can't be very satisfying to the creative sorts at the company.

Also what does it say about gamers when they're foaming at the mouth for sequel after sequel?

[PeteJ]

I think there have actually been ten Call of Duty games, plus a few expansion packs for the original.

It is complete overkill on the franchise just like what is happening with Guitar Hero and Rock Band. As Uli says though, so long as every second CoD game (ie, IW developed) pushes things forward then that's the main thing. I also agree with Chain that by seperating Modern Warfare all they are achieving is creating a new franchise to milk - if we end up with a Call of Duty and Modern Warefare title each year then it will have gone too far.

edit - it would be great to see IW do something else, they've basically been perfecting Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for seven years!

[mr_woo]

I thought Treyarch did a mighty fine job on World At War after the woeful COD3 so look forward to seeing what they do with a Vietnam setting.

After playing the abominable Shellshock 2 I look forward to a vietnam setting done at least decently, even if it just uses the COD template.

[Jebus]

It is complete overkill on the franchise just like what is happening with Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

To be fair to Rock Band, they've made two games total with a handheld on the way. Guitar Hero yes, Rock Band, in my opinion, no.

[Matt]

I agree with that. RB aren't putting out a new game every 3 months. And all their titles are cross-compatible, so no changing disc nonsense.

[gaz@manc]

The 'Call of Duty' tag is back on for Modern Warfare 2 according to a news item on CVG a few days ago

[chopemon]

You work in the industry and say things like that?

Yes I do.

Don't even think about questioning my love for original and innovative games but I enjoy a wide range of games and I am quite happy to give my time to the latest geek chic original release as I am to good old fun.

Games don't always have to innovate. That's crazy talk.

Sometimes it's nice to just blow the heads off a bunch of dudes and Call of Duty serves that up nicely.

There is a huge variety of games out there and if I want something original I can go and find it. If I want a solid, dependable piece of entertainment I can go to a franchise like Call of Duty.

[Malc]

I feel sorry for the developers at Treyarch who are essentialy playing second best to Infinity Ward. They are being used to pump out games with the Call of Duty brand on it, and don't inovate or progress the franchise on. They simply take what IW has done and that's enough for people to still buy it and gives Activision some money.

I don't wish to support these developments processes and so don't buy Treyarchs games unless they do a real good job. Give any developer a hugely sucessful game and they would be able to re-dress it slightly and make money. I only buy IW games as they actually CREATE a great war FPS.

But then there's enough people willing to buy any game with COD on it for people like me who wants to encourage progression (not necessarily inovation) in games, that I'm irrelevant to Activisions marketing plan.

[Uli]

I feel sorry for the developers at Treyarch who are essentialy playing second best to Infinity Ward. They are being used to pump out games with the Call of Duty brand on it, and don't inovate or progress the franchise on. They simply take what IW has done and that's enough for people to still buy it and gives Activision some money.

you sure about that? guess who came up first with a co-op campaign and crazy stuff like the Nazi Zombie mode?

[PeteJ]

I agree with that. RB aren't putting out a new game every 3 months. And all their titles are cross-compatible, so no changing disc nonsense.

Yeah fair enough. They have announced more titles which make me suspect they are going down the same road though (RB Lego, RB Pearl Jam, RB Beatles).

But anyway, that's another story!

[MonkeyWrench]

Rumours abound that it is set in Vietnam.

Let's hope it features zombies!

[Flabio]

I'll let you in on a secret. When you're actually working on a game it's really hard to tell if it's any good or not. As long as the work is fun it doesn't matter too much what the game actually is. I've friends whose favourite projects have been kids games and shovelware, there's less pressure to produce something AAA and the crunch isn't life destroying.