You’d never have thought that a series as popular asCall of Dutywould need championing like some scrappy little underdog, but if you move in the right circles you soon come to learn that Activision’s shooter series is battered and dumped upon as if it’s the class nerd in an entirenationfull of jocks.
Tearing a lump out ofCall of Dutyis as popular as mocking Justin Bieber or declaring that you despiseAngry Birds, and the motivation for doing so is pretty much the same all over — it’s successful. IfCall of Dutyhad the sales draw of, say,Psychonauts, something tells me we would have a few more people sticking up for it. Conversely ifPsychonautswas the game selling millions at launch, I dare say an army of detractors would crawl out of the woodwork.
Simply dislikingCall of Duty, however, isn’t the issue. Everybody is of course free to dislike whatever they so wish. It’s when that dislike becomes something more — or at least tries to be — that we have an issue.
Recently, John Walker ofRock, Paper, Shotgunencapsulated perfectly the sneering arrogance that has come to accompanyModern Warfare 3criticism. For the record, I am a starry-eyed fan of RPS and I absolutely love John Walker’s editorials, but when it comes to this particular game, I can’t help butfind his assessmentthe perfect example of what’s wrong with the current critical stance.
Walker callsModern Warfare 3an “un-game”, a designation he is undoubtedly quite proud of. He complains thatModern Warfare 3does not let him choose how to play and restricts him to tight, unyielding corridors. In his latest article, he attempts to argue thatlinearityisn’t his problem (thus freeing him up to enjoyHalf-Lifewithout being hypocritical) but he simply confirms that itwashis problem. Because honestly,Modern Warfare 3is about as “open” as theHalf-Lifeseries. More importantly, it’s as open asCall of Duty 4: Modern Warfarewhich everybody loved before the series became too popular and needed taking down a peg or two.
Walker exposes the real problem he has withModern Warfare 3when he defends his enjoyment ofHalf-Life, saying: “Corridor shooters have been one of gaming’s greatest genres in all its lifetime, from the joy of realising it was a possibility in mazes likeWolf 3D, to the spectacular fixed-rail rollercoaster rides of theHalf-LifeEpisodes. Not having a choice about which direction to go in is never a problem when there’s only one direction youwantto go in.”
That is Walker’s problem, distilled. It’s not thatModern Warfare 3does anything different fromWolfenstein 3DorHalf-Life. It’s that he just straight up doesn’t like it. Linearity is fine when it’s a game heenjoys, but if it’s a game he doesn’t? Well, that’s anun-game. That’s something especially bad. But it’s not extreme enough to simplystatehe doesn’t appreciateModern Warfare 3‘s creative direction, or that he doesn’t think it is fun. There is, after all, only one way in which criticism can be leveled at Infinity Ward’s latest — with extreme prejudice.
I think this is the biggest issue with people who dislikeModern Warfare 3. It’s reallynotenough to simply say you don’t like it anymore. You have to discredit it as a videogame entirely. CallingModern Warfare 3an un-game is, by gaming standards, perhaps the harshest thing you could do. You are ostensibly saying it is incompatible with your professional standards as a game writer, and has no place in the life of those who enjoy videogames. You are to invalidate its existence as a gamer’s product entirely, and since it’s intended to be a videogame, you assert that it shouldn’t exist at all.
You are basically putting it on the same shelf asDragon’s Lair, and everybody knows there’sonly one gamethat’s come close to such an honor in recent memory.
[Edit:Speaking ofDragon’s Lair, some people are arguing that Walker is exactly saying that, by claiming theMW3experience is too guided. Now, I agree that such things can be a problem — I didn’t likeHomefrontbecause it made the player a spectator, for example — but I don’t thinkMW3can be accused of that. The player is called upon to act and react and be the driving force, unlikeHomefront, a game where you weren’t even allowed to open a single door. At leastCODputs you IN the action, rather than makes the action happen in front of you.
Still, as much as I dislikeHomefront, I wouldn’t say it’s an un-game. If a guided experience likeMW3is not a real videogame, then what the hell do we callThe House of the Dead? Think about it — if you take the ability to move away fromMW3, then you have pretty much the same thing as an on-rails shooter, which I believe we would still call a videogame. This leads me to ask: is your problem withModern Warfare 3that itisn’ta true on-rails shooter? Would you have given it more slack if it was? I don’t know Walker’s thoughts onHouse of the Dead, nor do I know anybody else’s. I think they’re fun if done right, and ifMW3is an on-rails shooter with player-prompted movement, so be it. It’s still damn fun, and it’s still a game.]
Everybody knows by now that I’ve dished out some pretty harsh review scores over the years. Naturally, I’m all about expressing dislike when one feels the need. However,Modern Warfare 3apparently seems to have brought out the monster in some people. Of all the reviews I’ve written over the years, not one article has generated as much vicious, venomous,shockinganger as thepositive review ofModern Warfare 3. You are free to read through the 500+ comments that followed, from people who again couldn’t simply dislike the game — they activelycould not bear the thoughtof somebody else liking it. They didn’t want to just express the fact that they weren’t fans, they had to take their hatred to a whole new level and invalidate the game to its very core.
The reasons for this are hypocritical to the highest degree. Some have said it’s exactly the same asModern Warfare 2— which is either a base lie or complete ignorance, because it’s not. It re-uses assets and the engine, but almost every sequel does. It refines rather than dramatically alters, sure, but most sequels do. There is no extreme level of rehashing going inModern Warfare 3, not by the standards of this industry. I didn’t see this level of abuse when we gave glowing scores to therecentHalogames, for example.
And to the idea that it’s not a videogame because you think it’s too restricting? Surely we should also invalidate the existence of, say,every single point-and-click adventure game in the world. By the standards put forth, they’re un-games as well. Surely Telltale should call itself something other than a game studio, because it doesn’t make games at all, right?
No … Telltale makes games. So does Infinity Ward. They may not be games you like, and they may not be games you think ought to be so successful, but it’s excluding arrogance of the highest order to say it’s not a true game. I playedModern Warfare 3, I had a lot of fun with it — the exact same kind of fun I have had with plenty of linear shooters,Half-Lifeincluded. BecauseCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3is a videogame, plain and simple. To say otherwise is to be Roger Ebert, declaring that videogames aren’t art because he’s afraid that if he admits they are, then he’ll have to deal with their existence.
You can dress up your disregard for the series with a sense of artificial intellectualism, butCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3is a videogame. Nut up and deal with it.
