“Call of Duty.”
Three words that once evoked unanimous praise and thunderous applause in the gaming industry, now reduced to a scapegoat ripe for the butchering.
With the advent of new iterations in the “Call of Duty” series being developed on a yearly basis, including the new “Advanced Warfare” title releasing in November, the furor won’t be dying anytime soon.
Created by Infinity Ward and published by Activision in 2003, the first Call of Duty was a groundbreaking anomaly in the world of action games.
It introduced and popularized the concept of “looking down iron sights” and “shell-shocking” the player.
It provided an immersive and innovative experience of fighting alongside and against AI-controlled soldiers that would effectively use cover and maneuvering tactics, something never thought possible at the time of its release.
Obviously, a smash hit needs sequels, so Activision nabbed the gold ring and started doing just that, and on a yearly basis, no less.
But, like in cinema, the quality and experience of the series started to, and still does, degrade with every release.
After the massive success of “Call of Duty 4,” it seemed apparent there was less emphasis on innovation and enjoyment and more concentration on squeezing every single penny from the piggy bank.
Every title since then has been nothing more than a rehash of the original formula, and while that may work a couple of times, spreading that idea over the course of six games — and counting — is pushing it.
Sledgehammer Games aims to shake all that up with “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.”
Admittedly, when the E3 demo was displayed to the public eye, it looked like “Call of Duty” was reinvigorated, bringing in interesting and clever ideas that seemed essential to the first-person shooter experience, rather than a pile of gimmicks being thrown at the screen one after another.
Suffice to say, what was shown looked pretty darn good.
However, the substance of the end product can unfortunately fail to live up to the style and hype stacked against it, a situation that is not entirely uncommon in the entertainment medium.
Gamers have been fooled before with 2013’s lackluster “Call of Duty: Ghosts,” which promised a better graphics engine, advanced AI, an exciting campaign and other new features.
It’s too bad nothing in that statement was true.
But even if “Advanced Warfare” collapses under the weight of massive expectations, you definitely can’t say they didn’t try to do something different.
At the very least, they certainly put forth actual effort to revive a dead horse instead of just beating it.
We can only find out once the game flies off store shelves and into our consoles this November.
