Call of Duty | Stan Rezaee

After the official trailer for ‘Call of Duty: Advance Warfare’ was unveiled, one of the most talked about moment has been the performance of actor Kevin Spacey as the main villain.

The game will be set in a future were Private Military Companies have grown to have great influence around while one of them decides to turn against America. Spacey portrays the villainous head of a PMC and is featured delivering a monologue to the viewer about the futility of democracy.

Spacey’s performance has been well-praised by pundits in the game media while gamers have welcomed his talent to the series. In no time his name started trending on Facebook and Twitter while gamers discussed his role on websites like N4G.

Scott Watson stated on Twitter, Well damn me it’s @KevinSpacey turning up in the latest @CallofDuty game. Is there nothing this man can’t turn his hand to? Looks EPIC \o/.

Lachlan Davidson stated on Facebook, Not really a CoD fan but I’d be interested to see Spacey’s contribution to the game.

Several gamers have refereed to Spacey’s involvement as making the game feel like “House of COD” or “Call of Duty: House of Cards” (a reference to House of Cards). Luke Plunkett of Kotaku added, “If there’s one thing that could revive my interest in this most flagging of franchises, it’s by injecting a little House of Cards in it (not literally of course, that’s not Frank Underwood, but the tone and the timing of the casting says it all).

Spacey has joined the ranks of many Hollywood stars who have had a performing role in the Call of Duty series. In 2008; Gary Oldman and Kiefer Sutherland both had a major performing role in Call of Duty: World at War. Oldman returned along side Sam Worthington and Ed Harris for Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Worthington would return for Black Ops II while Harris was replaced by Michael Keaton. Meanwhile the role of Elise T. Walker in Ghosts was performed by Stephen Lang.

Call of Duty: Advance Warfare will be the eleventh game in the popular series that has sold over 100 million copies and on average has 40 million active players a month. The game is set to be released on November 4.

Written for Digital Journal

5/2/2014
Original Article: Kevin Spacey’s performance in ‘Call of Duty’ has generated buzz

Call of Duty is a unique franchise, for twice in one decade did its revolutionary game-play redefine a genre and set the new standards for other games to follow. One has to appreciate the first time when it broke with the “lone wolf” concept while pushing the Quake III-engine to its limits.

The second time; Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare took what made the franchise successful and introduced a fast-paced action game-play set in a visually detailed environment while making the game itself user friendly. This was the final push that made video games a respectable media and a major part of mainstream culture.

However it became less about making an actual game and more about making a game that tries to be an action movie (an issue pointed out by Luke McKinny in 6 Video Games That Just Didn’t Get It). Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was great the first play through but over time it loses the fun and it feels like you have no say in the action except for “kill or be killed”.

Unfortunately because of Call of Duty’s popularity; FPS (first person shooter) franchises have attempted to imitate its success. A few have done it successfully by borrowing some of its desired elements while many have just done a “copy & paste” the content into their games.

Medal of Honor, Crysis 2 and Killzone 3 are good examples to look at for games that have borrowed elements of Call of Duty successfully. Both used what they felt was needed to enhance the game-play without having to compromise the aspects that made it a unique game.

On the other side of the spectrum you have games like Homefront, Battlefield 3, and Goldeneye 007 that took the “copy & paste” approach. Homefront was over hyped as a new style of shooter created by John Milus only to be nothing more but a watered down Call of Duty. Battlefield 3’s single player campaign was heavily panned for being too much like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 at a slower pace. It was the Call of Duty-aspects in the Goldeneye 007-remake that robbed gamers of what made the original so unique.

Like with the sand-box / crime trend that was started with Grand Theft Auto III; developers are taking a style that is popular and imitating it in the laziest way possible. Also like Grand Theft Auto III; for every original work that was released the market was flooded with five clones.

The harsh point is that, just like Grand Theft Auto, the game-play aspects that have made Call of Duty a success only works with Call of Duty.

Sadly one could not expect for this trend to fade away soon due to the volume of success and cost effective production. For example: 24 hours after its release; Call of Duty: Black Ops sold 5 million units while earning $360 million, that is double the success of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt.1 on its opening weekend. Meanwhile: Grand Theft Auto IV made $500 million during its release week but was produced on a budget of $100 million (making it one of the most expensive games developed). Call of Duty: Black Ops had an estimated budget of $10 million.

With this volatile market; the gaming industry is taking a cue from Hollywood and playing it safe. So while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 may not have added anything new for the FPS-genre; it has made Activision a lot of money at a small production cost. Unfortunately too many developers will very poorly try to imitate Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in 2012 thinking it will produce the same results

Written for GameBeats
12/12/2011
Original Article: Why shooters should stop imitating Modern Warfare