When/how did Call of Duty became a mega hit?

[gongo]

Im surprised to hear how fun COD4 mp is...youtube vids i saw looked pretty pop and gun....not as fun as the gunplay from CS....i never played COD4 admittedly...but if its anything to go like the past COD...the mp and the sp were pretty formulaic....AFAIK...PC gamers never touched COD mp once they are done with the sp...and COD had always been more popular on PC.

p.s You can tell im not a big fan of COD and its success.....

 

[dskneo]

COD was a hit because of the right mouse click gun view.

That was the reason why me and all the ppl I Know played it endlessly . It was a novelty and it stuck.

Before that it was all about UT99 and Mohaa:AA Spearhead and breakthrough.

 

[AzBat]

If I liked Special Ops: Red Mercury, is it safe to say I would like CoDMW or MW2 even more(excluding multiplayer of course)?

Tommy McClain

 

[Tap In]

Joshua----



--you nailed it... great write up... that could be a published article.

 

[Iron Tiger]

What did it for me was seeing the first "realtime" trailer for MGS4. Seeing the detailed warzone with debris blowing in the wind, and running at a vivid 60fps left me and a lot of people drooling. CoD4 delivered what the MGS4 trailer baited, and filled it with the solid non-stop action the CoD series had been known for. MP was also so focused on being a thrill-a-minute, that it made other tactical modern shooters like SOCOM look geriatric. That instantly gratifying aesthetic has massive appeal.

 

[thatdude90210]

Im surprised to hear how fun COD4 mp is...youtube vids i saw looked pretty pop and gun....not as fun as the gunplay from CS....

Only played it on the PC, but some of the servers with huge number of players were just grenade spam-fest. A lot of times, you die before even getting a sense of where you are.

I think where COD4 SP nailed it was the cinematic quality. And the AI body movements were some of the best I had ever seen.

 

[(((interference)))]

The RPG like levelling system in MP, which rewards grinding and lets anyone level up regardless of skill level.

Also the whole illusion of realism thing, where gamers think it's realistic but in reality it's as arcadey as any other FPS.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I like COD4 MP up to a point. The gameplay is smooth and fast and generally good looking. I played CS most of my online MP life(from beta to source) and still do think it's better than COD4MP(imo) but times change and you go where the action is(so to say).

That said, what I don't like about COD4 MP is the bullet physics and some of the mp maps.

The bullet physics of having a uzi or scorpion shoot through a metre of steel yet not being able to shoot through a dustbin with an AK/M16 seems just so wrong to me. That same little gun can also shoot through two different walls and kill you. Didn't know the 9mm bullets were so tough in real life. Throw a grenade and it can either go 5m or 15m, but it'll never go a standard distance i.e. one round you can throw a grenade at 45 degrees and it'll travel 15-20m and kill someone and the next round at the same spot you throw another grenade at 45 degrees and kill someone 5m from you from the blast. The bomb blasts from all the different weapons seems to vary slightly, but so very slightly that it seems to do almost the same damage. The perks don't work all the time i.e. the UAV jammer perk that stops working when the time reaches the last two minutes yet people with other perks get to keep their perks. I can understand that the UAV becomes permanent, but if you're hidden from the enemy and have the perk, it should always work until the enemy spots you.

My favourite combo is the P90 silenced, using the dead silence, martyr and UAV jammer perks yet I get killed many times by the enemy which seems to know where I am when looking at the quick death replay.

The MP maps are not all good and if you're dominating(or getting dominated) it can be horrible for the opposition(or vica versa). The helicopter shooting 15 directions at once is also crap imo. and it seems the higher you are up the leaderboard you are, the heli will kill you first 98% of the time e.g. sitting on top of the leaderboard, enemy calls the heli and lo and behold, if i'm out in the open i'm always the first to die and the guy next to me will survive without a scratch, I resurrect and the heli will cut me down again with people around me not taking damage. Weird that and annoying.

In the end I still believe CSS to be a better game overall as it's more tactical and graphics are very good and the environment physics in source are good but in the end you have to go where the action is and atm. COD4 MP is where it's at because CSS is almost dead now(or at least it is in my country).

I can't wait for MW2 and hope they sort out the bullet physics during MP.

 

[Rangers]

The RPG like levelling system in MP, which rewards grinding and lets anyone level up regardless of skill level.
.

Oh yes i DEFINITELY agree with this. I think this was a huge part of COD4's success. Huge.

I've always thought the first WoW style MMORPG on console (FF14?) is gonna do banannas money. COD4 was some proof of that imo. It introduced only mild MMORPG elements and shot through the roof in popularity.

I read somebody say that the single reason COD4 was so big, was the "+10" that pops up over their head when you shoot somebody.

COD4 is what CliffyB is referring to when he said FPS are turning into RPG's.

 

[fearsomepirate]

stuff.

Are you playing PC or console? A lot of that stuff sounds like cheating to me.

 

[nightshade]

Are you playing PC or console? A lot of that stuff sounds like cheating to me.

I can easily tell that he has played the PC version.
Personal experience.

Btw when playing this game in Promod its a whole new story altogether, hit detection is improved [& its superb int he latest version], Bullet spamming ie spraying through objects is very very balanced & the core gameplay mechanics is an exact copy of CS, but with the class system of COD4.

 

[Phil]

To be honest, the only reason why I got into the Call of Duty friends is because my friend plays it a lot and it was a good chance to get into a game and join them.

While the SP is a one-off experience due to the scripting, I like the gritty modern setting and the authentic experience. War really feels like war in this game. Stun grenades that blind you momentarily, grenades that limit your hearing if it goes off just around you, disorientation with smoke grenades and the lethal damage any weapon will do. I like that it only takes 2 hits to kill someone - from the handgun right up to the more lethal weapons. It also means the online multiplayer makes it a lot more about knowing the maps, moving strategic and using your weapons well. And the best part - it looks and plays great and runs at 60fps!

Despite all this, CoD4/5 don't appeal as much to me as some other shooters. I'm not a big fan of the perks and I think the whole deathmatch/team-deathmatch is a bit outdated. It's also not very strategic. Even if I play with friends and we try to coordinate things with the headset, it's still less coordinated and less teamwork going on than what I get in say KillZone2 playing with total strangers.

I preordered MW2 and am hugely looking forward to playing it with my friends again, but I doubt it'll push the KZ2 experience off the podium for me. If they make sure it stays glitch free (not like CoD5), it should be great for quick accessible games though, no doubt.

 

[flynn]

I've recently tried COD4 on a friend's computer (Mac version) and found it quite enjoyable but not better, not by a long shot, than KZ2. The heavy scripting is annoying at times but I truly enjoyed some missions, that one where you follow McMillan and sneak in was great.

The thing I don't like about COD4 is that higher difficulty levels mean you get spammed with grenades, rather than more "intelligent" enemies.

With U2 coming out this week I will probably pass on MW2 for now, but might give a shot in a few months if I get tired of KZ2.

The game is very smooth but the low res textures are a bit disappointing. Hopefully MW2 will improve on this.

 

[obonicus]

There's been little press about it but a while back IW said they were looking into paring back the infinispawns and quarterback-arm grenadiers. There's been very little mention of that so far, but then I can't imagine the press would want to compromise access to IW by bringing up the first game's flaws.

 

[DonaldDuck]

Joshua, what a great description of the franchise.

I´ve played CoD1, 2 and 4 in PC, and the single player was well executed, but the visuals were not mindblowing. Lot of scripting, but (as you said) "intense" action. Really really good movies. I remember the time when a WWII shooter game always had a sequence taken from a WWII movie, e. g., MoH:AA had Utah Beach from Saving Private Ryan and CoD the Volga crossing from Enemy at the Gates. CoD franchise continues that trend.

In fact, I perceived the short duration of CoD4 as a positive thing, from the "movie" perspective. A longer campaign becomes repetitive, because the mechanics that build the experience are clearly obvious. In my case, that prevents a second playthrough. All seems to be "seen", too streamlined, a bit boring and artificial. But what a first play.

MP is a totally different thing. The mechanics that make you feel confident in the campaing (fast handling, good control, precise shots, ironsights, and, in console, smoothness) are there too. You start and the reward is inmediate. All seems to be in place, maps, weapons, klling is accesible. Great comparison with CS. I die, but I kill as well, I feel "dangerous" even being a rookie.

The offer is clear: a bright movie done with archaic, albeit effective methods, and a excellent multiplayer with a lot of life, long lifespan, and the bonus of a massive hype and marketing campaing. Bundles, community, prestige... all is in.

The phenomena of the generation in the HD department.

And excellent job of the developers.