Robert Bowling ( Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward ) in a tweet stated that Activision’s upcoming magnum opus Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – which is being developed by Infinity Ward, Raven Software and Sledgehammer Games- is using the same game engine as Modern Warfare 2. According to him, developing a new game engine from the ground up is “counter productive. An engine takes years and years to develop and get right.”
Call of Duty: Black Ops is the successor to Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2; developed by Treyarch. Being a sequel to a highly acclaimed game, developers Treyarch would obviously have been under a lot of pressure to not only deliver a thrilling experience like the one we all enjoyed in the last game, but to outdo it. In some areas, Black Ops does out-perform Modern Warfare 2. That isn’t to say that the game doesn’t fail in some key elemental areas, which it does.
Game development is not an easy task, we all know that. The developers sweat it out just trying to get everything right, and in most cases, they don’t. That’s because they set deadlines which are almost impossible to realize. It’s true that the longer a game takes to release, the quicker the game starts to dwindle in terms of popularity; but that’s not the case with Gran Turismo 5, right? As long as you’re producing high-quality games, gamers are willing to wait.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’d probably know that Treyarch’s latest shooter – Call of Duty: Black Ops eclipsed Infinity Ward’s magnum opus Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in terms of sales and units sold.
According to Activision’s Day 1 sale estimates, Call of Duty: Black Ops ( developed by Treyarch ) has sold 5.6 million copies, all in all raking in $360 million. That’s $50 million more than Modern Warfare 2’s sales, which sold 4.7 million copies on day one. So basically, Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 are the two biggest game launches ever, respectively.
“The game’s success underscores the pop culture appeal of the brand. Call of Duty: Black Ops is the finest game that Treyarch has ever made and raises the bar for online gameplay by delivering the deepest and most intense Call of Duty experience yet,” says Bobby Kottick, the boss over at Activision.
Call of Duty: Black Ops which will probably the biggest launch in the gaming industry, is a mega-asset for publishing giant – Activision. And already, Activision has already confirmed that a new Call of Duty game will release sometime in 2011, or say 2012. Apparently, the developer is going to be Sledgehammer Games, a game studio which Activision itself created just after the infamous Infinity Ward – Activision fiasco. Now, we already know that Modern Warfare 3 is in development ( an obvious fact since Modern Warfare 2 raked in enough money to probably enable Activision every other game studio out there! ), but could it be that Sledgehammer Games is tasked with its development? Only time will tell…
Medal of Honor is Danger Close’s latest offering, published by EA (Electronic Arts). The game borrows positives from the two otherbigger franchises – Call of Duty and Battlefield. The game takes place in urban settings and relatively small environs (like Modern Warfare 2) and has a toned down procedural destruction system (thanks to the immensely powerful Frostbite engine, by DICE).
Medal of Honor initially set out to differentiate itself from the previously mentioned shooters, and carve out a niche for itself in the overly – saturated FPS segment, and it has. Just as in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, you play as 4 different soldiers in all – Rabbit, Adams, Deuce and Hawk.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is one of the best-selling games in history. No doubts in the figures. Call of Duty: World at War is also one of the best-selling games in history. Wait, what? No it isn’t, right? It’s not.
Apart from the fact that the two games were made by different developers, the main reason, in my opinion, why CoD: MW2 was huge hit compared to CoD: WaW – which was anything but “another game in the franchise” – is because CoD: MW2 didn’t have a BETA. No, I’m not kidding. With WaW’s beta, all gamers knew how mediocre the game was and many decided not to buy it. The fact that those who did buy the game loved the Nazi zombie mode is a given, but WaW’s sales figures are nothing compared to MW2’s.
Let me get this straight: the new Medal Of Honor Multiplayer BETA (PC) impressed me. I liked it. But let me also get this off my chest- the game is as good as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, but nowhere close to Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Yeah, I just said that.
Let me justify my opinion: There are two modes- Sector Control and Combat Mission. In “Sector Control”, you spawn and go control flags which are represented by flags (essentially a Capture The Flag mode). That’s mainly how you rack up points, apart from killing enemies. Capturing flags (or as I just said, controlling sectors) is more like what it is in Modern Warfare 2 than like what it is in Bad Company 2- its really quick, and it takes less than 10 seconds. That’s actually good considering you don’t like getting bullets pumped into you!
Modern Warfare. Modern Warfare 2. Bad Company. Bad Company 2. inFamous. inFamous 2.
Notice a trend? Ayup, that’s what’s happening in the Games industry now a days. Sequels. Sequels are the easiest way by which a developer can either refresh a series or take it to the dumps. Sequels are the easiest way a developer can make money by adding very less; very less as in- all they have to do is improve the game on the visual front, new story, tweak the gameplay experience and voila; they have a new title. There aren’t many companies which try to innovate and bring in new games which provide gamers a wholly new and different experience.
Hardcore Gaming News 