Why Infinity Ward should spend their ill-gotten gains in HELL

Infinity Ward, the creators of the multi-award winning and rabidly popular Call of Duty series, has been doing something right for at lest 5 years now. In 2003, they released what is, in my opinion, the absolute best WWII shooter to date: Call of Duty. Since then, they've released enough follow-up titles to make even the most rabid fanboy drool enough to put Pavlov's dogs to shame. It's almost a pity, then, that despite their awards, despite their millions of fans and despite their talented team, that they can't make a new game. At all.

I played Call of Duty when it first came out, mostly due to my obsession with all things World War II during my High School days. I had been a fan and frequent player of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault as well, and so when I first played CoD, I was blown away. The missions were all phenomenal, the voice acting was superb, the action was intense and balanced - everything worked and worked well. There was not a single thing that I can find to complain about it, and I still reinstall it from time to time, because it kicks ass. I'll even go as far as to say that it's better than Call of Duty 2, or 3, or 4. Although I don't really consider Call of Duty 3 a sequel - it was an over-glamorized expansion to Call of Duty 2.

It's true, and you all know it. Call of Duty 2 was a small improvement over 1, and it was mostly because of the graphics and those few tiny little game quirks that made stuff just a BIT smoother. But there was always something that bothered me, and I knew what it was when the first Nazi bastard fell down with a face full of lead: his was a scripted death. Let me remind those who aren't aware: this is at a point where America's Army, a free shooter game made by the Army, had adopted ragdoll physics at least a year prior. Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault sported not only full ragdolls, but an interactive environment (note: I'll not praise Pacific Assault for much, and the 'interactive environment' was limited to stuff falling off tables on occasion - but still an improvement over CoD 2's laughble physics). Let's not forget about Half-Life 2, which was released almost a full year before CoD 2, and sported a physics package that is second to none. Also on the list are Far Cry, Unreal Tournament (in whatever iteration of 4 years ago), Halo 2 and a myriad of other games. My point is, there was no excuse in 2005 to not have ragdoll physics, and there is certainly no excuse in 2007.

I can't imagine any other game developer that could smack it's customers around like this and get away with it. I understand the perspective 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' mindset, but at this point it's like your grandad hanging on to a generator that was made in 1932 that he has to hit with a sledgehammer to get it to work simply because 'he has it in the garage'. Seriously. It's 2007. Slapping a number on the end of a game you've already made and giving it a make over won't cut it. At leas that's what I'd like to think. But it's apparently not what everyone else thinks. They continue to shell out pretty copies of a 5 year old game and laughing while they count all the money they're raking in. If you doubt me, you should play CoD 1, then pop in 4. Notice any similarities? Any characters? Any familiar mustaches?



They shouldn't make another Call of Duty until it deserves that additional number along with the title. Something that brings something new to the genre, not a skip ahead in time. A shooter should have physics for a start, destructible, open environments for an added bonus. Standard operating procedure in World War II was to blow a fucking hole in the wall instead of running into the friggin' machine gun lined up at the door. They do the same in Iraq, if interviews with the guys who fucking did it are any indication, so why haven't we seen the ability to do that in any game after Red Faction? You'd think with a company as creative and lucrative - not to mention prolific - as Infinity Ward would be able to spend the money and hire the guys who can make that a possibility. But they don't. They continue to shell out a game that should have stopped getting perfect cores with the first copy they forced on us, but you'd think by the fourth the gaming community would get wise and see past the veneer of "Modern Warfare".

But, as ever, I'm forced to look elsewhere. Gearbox as on the right track with Brothers in Arms, and I hope that Hell's Highway turns out to be as mind-meltingly awesome as it looks. Fact is, Call of Duty 4, despite being a fun and intense game, is as outdated as the mullet. But Developers will never get that idea unless us gamers start voting with our wallets and telling them we won't take their shit anymore.