I figure I might as well start off my blog with something that I enjoy very much, the Call of Duty(CoD) games. My first introduction to CoD was playing split-screen multiplayer CoD4 at my friend's house for hours on end. The game was fun and addictive as hell and we'd stay up all night playing deathmatch.

Then, when I finally got my own 360, I bought World at War(WaW). WaW was great, in my opinion. The campaign certainly had more gravitas than that of CoD4. Oh yes, you can say that witnessing a nuclear explosion in first person drives home the dangers of modern combat, but seeing your buddy get a cigar to the face and then get gutted by a Japanese officer or waking up in a pile of your dead comrades does far more to realize the the atrocities that people can inflict upon each other in times of war. Now yes, I'm looking back on the events of WW2 through the point of view of an American when I talk about the way WaW's campaign was more gritty and realistic than CoD4's but I'll get to that soon.

When I heard that CoD4 was getting a sequel, I was ecstatic. What was the most addicting multiplayer experience for me since Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was now getting a continuation and I wanted to be part of that. I ended up pre-ordering the hardened edition and picking it up at my local Best Buy at the midnight release. It was everything I had hoped for and a bit more. The insanely addictive multiplayer was back, only with more weapons, more customization options and better maps (in my opinion), The campaign was certainly more interesting to me (even if it was riddled with plot-holes and the like), and spec ops was a welcome addition considering that MW2 did not include a wave zombie mode (one of the elements that helped WaW on its road to success). Again though, the campaign failed to hold the same gravity as that of WaW, though emerging from the bunker to see the Washington Monument, the National Mall, and the surrounding buildings in ruins certainly helped.

The problem with MW2, however, is that it tried to top CoD4 in every way. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but the (I'm assuming) forced two year schedule seems like it had an unexpected impact. But as to how it attempts to top CoD4: Want more realism than a war in a far-off land? Set the main war in the heart of the target market's nation. Not entirely happy with the loadouts in multiplayer? We'll give you more guns and ways to customize them that you know what to do with. Dedicated server? Ha, you don't need those. The matchmaking system works just fine for the consoles. And then there's my personal favorite: first-person nuclear explosion death not enough for you? Set it IN SPACE!!!!!! Now I'm not trying to say that improvements are a bad thing, but many of the 'improvements' in MW2 seem to be a bit contrived and have an air of copy/paste-on-steroids-from-CoD4 about them. For example: you break into a Russian Gulag to rescue Price so he can set off a nuke above DC that will cripple the Russian forces that have been attacking DC and its suburbs for quite some time... It works, but if I wanted to read Tom Clancy, I'd read Tom Clancy.

This same general lack of genuine innovation is one of the main things I think has become a problem in not only CoD but any game series that has been around for that similar amount of time. The only reason these series are still afloat is because they don't depart significantly from a formula that has worked for them for however long they've been around. This is especially prevalent in the fps genre where if you've played one, you've really played them all. Since the basic formula is the same, a new and exciting story is needed to engage the player once again and draw them into the world the game creates, and in terms of fps games, WW2 is a stagnant pool that can't be stirred up anymore. CoD4 and the new Medal of Honor were and will be, respectively, a breath of fresh air in an otherwise staling experience.

Now, I do have a theory about why there are so many WW2 games made, and that's because it was really the only war in which America got to play the cavalry, coming in at the tail end and giving that last push needed to win the day. Whether or not this is true, it is the war that most Americans are proud to say their country was part of. All of our other wars have been focused on either expanding our lands, protecting our interests in foreign countries, or 'policing the world' (something I don't believe we should be doing but I'll spare you all my soapbox speech). The fact remains, however, that while there was a massive loss of life, while it became brutally evident what people could do to each other, it is the war American's look back on most fondly because it made us look like the good guy. That has a lot to do with these kinds of games and it creates a vicious cycle of nostalgia, but I digress.

The main point of this article is to commend the new innovation of the CoD franchise, Black Ops. I, personally, am really looking forward to this game. I do have my reservations about the fact that it only took two years to make and it could therefore suffer from the same plotholes as MW2, but the point is that the Cold War is a relatively untested area of games, reserved mostly for alternate-history sci-fi. There's only so many times I can save the world from the Axis of Evil and at this point, modern warfare is becoming passé. CoD4 got it right, in my opinion, especially in the multiplayer aspect. But it's far from the only one out there. There have been several Battlefield games set in the modern era, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six. In many ways the modern era has become the new WW2 in games and that will make Black Ops' Cold War era story so much more refreshing: it's not WW2 but it's also not a modern military fiction. Treyarch is exploring fresh waters with Black Ops and I plan to support them in their endeavor.