11 Reasons I Love Call of Duty 6-1
(Note: I decided to leave any specific game off the list, otherwise COD 4 would probably be #1)
6. BOOM GOES THE EVERYTHING: VEHICLE MISSIONS
It would be great to see them make vehicles a bigger part of a multi-player mode or spin-off title some day.
5. EXOTIC LOCATIONS: MAPS & MISSIONS
Location. Location. Location. One of the innovations of the Call of Duty series was to first take the World War II setting into both fields of battle as Americans, British and Russians. This innovation was carried out further in the Modern Warfare series, and in MW2, had you jetting to warzones and bases in America, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and South America. It became clear that one of the things setting the Call of Duty series apart from its competitors was its use of locations. This carried over into the maps.
From the sweaty favelas of Brazil to the frozen research centers of Antartica, Call of Duty takes players to exotic locations and builds maps of all sizes and shapes and, though, to be fair, their maps are no where near as large as those in Battlefield, varieties. The maps have personality and everyone has their clear favorites. The following are my favorite maps for each game since COD 4 on:
COD 4: MW- The Bloc
COD 5: WaW- Castle
COD 6: MW2- Terminal
COD 7: BlOps- TIE: Summit/ Nuketown
4. MUTTONCHOPS AND MOWHAWKS: CAPTAIN PRICE & JOHN "SOAP" McTAVISH
In the tutorial mission of Call of Duty 4, you are a young rookie to the SAS, nicknamed SOAP, and you meet your leader and mentor Captain Price. Price is almost undoubtedly the descendant of a World War 2 hero character of the same name and is a cigar chewing badass. Price and Soap met up in Call of Duty 4 and have stolen the show ever since as the protagonists. Price is unstoppable and Soap is unkillable. Most importantly, the two have become strong comrades in a war against the bad guys. Bromance of the century.
3. SNIPER MISSIONS: "ALL GHILLIED UP" AND NO WHERE TO GO
Pripyat, 1996. It it set 11 years before the rest of the Modern Warfare series. You are Lt. Price. You and your partner are sent to assassinate an ultra-nationalist terrorist by the name of Zakhaev in Pripyat. Armed with a suppressed M21 and a ghillie suit, you and your partner crawl through radiated wastes of Pripyat to find a vantage point. All the while, you must avoid packs of wild dogs, enemy soldiers and snipers. When you reach your destination, you set up the shot with an M82, later reclassified as the Barret .50 Cal, and take a fire at one of the most dangerous men in the world.
This was the mission the demonstrated at Xbox 360's E3 Presentation in 2007. I was sold but I had little idea of how big the series would become and, that within the the next four years, the series would come to not only dominate the first person shooter market but become on the biggest series in entertainment history.
2. SHOCK AND AWE: THE STORY OF CALL OF DUTY
Call of Duty's Campaigns are like a Michael Bay movie. Now, I am not a big fan of Michael Bay's film but being a hero in one of his films would be incredible. If that's what Call of Duty does, it at least does it well. The big action moments and ridiculous twists that take place in the campaign settings are often imitated but never bested by the other games of the FPS genre and its a blast to play these fast pace stories out.
On the flip side, Call of Duty, doesn't lack substance and is known for moments of uncomfortable trauma that stick with you for ages. SPOILERS! In Call of Duty 4, in the part of the campaign where you play an American soldier, you witness the devastation of a nuclear bomb going off. The game then has you wake up, crawling along the ground, as everything burns around you. For a moment, you believe that you can make it and then you are taken by whiteness. In World at War, you are given the choice of killing a group of Berliners by Reznov with your gun or letting him kill them with a Molotov cocktail. In MW2, there is the infamous No Russian scene. In Black Ops, you try to assassinate Castro. The list goes on of moments that both trouble me and make me think.
1. MULTI-PLAYER: RANKING, CUSTOMIZATION, & POINT/KILL-STREAKS
This is where Call of Duty makes it happen. Starting with Call of Duty 4, we were introduced to a new level of class customization relatively unseen on consoles, a system that ranked you based on your accomplishments as a players leveling you up until you do it all over again and gain prestige and a kill-streak system that rewarded you for multiple kills. Since 2007, this has evolved and grown from game to game by adding more customization, new modes of play, new types of kill-streaks and so much more. The reason COD's multi-player is so accessible and addictive is a fast "carrot on a stick" approach.
The quick-game play and the role-playing element of leveling yourself through progress and challenges, unlocking new guns, kill streaks, equipment, perks, pro perks and improving every facey of game-play pulls the player through tens to hundreds of hours of game play. You feel like you are progressing even if you aren't in the top 100, 000 on the leader board because, at the very least, you are making progress in your leveling, prestige and unlocks.
I could do a whole article about this number alone but instead...I think I am gonna go play SKYRIM! (lol)
