Editorial: Just Why Is Call of Duty So Popular?

I haven't done an editorial for a while, and it got to me. Call of Duty: Black Ops has just released on all three major platforms and PC, and I wondered why this series was so popular. Then a thread on NeoGAF popped up asking the same question. "It's just fun" isn't a reliable answer. Why is it fun? What makes the game more enjoyable and selling more than something like Halo? (Obviously Halo is exclusive to one system while Call of Duty is not.) Let's try to figure this out in my latest editorial.

Call of Duty is a massive franchise in the Western video game world. There's no secret about that. Every year it seems like a new CoD comes out, and it destroys sales records of its predecessors. To the untrained eye, it would seem like the series was just new missions with the same old gameplay. Perhaps that could be the case, but is there some better reason why millions upon millions of people play the Call of Duty franchise?


Call of Duty is no doubt popular with fraternities and the demographic of males 18-35. How many voices online are that of these people shouting "Ooh-rah" into the mic, cursing out others, and being overly aggressive in their playing? Quite a few is the answer. This demographic is one of the keys to Call of Duty's popularity. That isn't to say that's all the people who play this epic franchise. You can bet though that the majority of people playing Call of Duty are that of the-- I hate this term-- fratcore.

Another explanation to the success of Call of Duty could be attributed to the ease of playing. Even a casual gamer who plays games every now and then can jump in (no reference to the Xbox 360 intended) and mow down Nazis or whatever enemy of the year there is for that installment. The generous number of checkpoints, different difficulties to choose from, and how easy it is to take enemy soldiers down makes for an easy experience for a casual gamer to have a good time. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. More hardcore players can choose a more challenging difficulty if they so desire. Still, it's very easy to take down enemy soldiers and feel like an American marine, navy man, or army soldier in the process. Perhaps that's a reason.


Something else that caught my attention was the multi-player. You gain experience from doing tasks such as kills, kill streaks, k/d ratios, and so forth. The littlest things give the player experience, and with this experience it feels like you're being rewarded for doing the simplest tasks. This system is so popular other FPSes have been using it to reward their players. By gaining enough experience, you gain levels. Levels award the player with new perks, weapons, and abilities, so playing for hours on end just to reach level 25 isn't a big pipe dream to most players. Is it this simplicity of being rewarded for simple tasks a reason for the series being so popular?

Finally, there's one big elephant in the room to broach about. Advertising and marketing. If you think Kinect is overmarketed, you haven't seen a Call of Duty ad campaign. Countless commercials airing on all the major networks that people ages 18-35 would watch. There's your Spike TV, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, ESPN, among others. Each release is treated like some godly event that if you miss out, you'll hate yourself for the rest of your life. The point is, Call of Duty gets a lot of TV time. It gets billboards on the sides of buses, ads in magazines, and so much more. Is this the reason the games are so popular?


My conclusion is that not one of these is the reason the Call of Duty franchise is so popular. Instead, I choose ALL of these answers as my reason why. Call me a gutless coward for not finding the exact reason, just don't call me Shirley. While I haven't played every Call of Duty game, I do find the series enjoyable if not a bit shallow. If people love this series, who am I to tell them to stop liking it? Hopefully future iterations of the franchise change things up quite a bit and don't become complacent. Aw, who am I kidding? This is Activision the company that killed three of their brands due to complacency! Oh, that was a close one!

Why do YOU think Call of Duty is so popular of a series? Let me know in the comments section.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition (Wii) Review

You know what would be sad? If this next game gets used as an example on why third party games don't sell on Wii. You know why. Enough about that though-- it's time for a brand-new review. This time we're taking a look at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition for Wii. It's a two year-old port of the original HD Call of Duty 4. Is this reflex agile enough for the Wii?

Think Fast!

The original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was a hit on a grand scale-- no, make that an epic scale. With a Hollywood-style presentation, great levels and multi-player, and a harrowing single-player experience, Modern Warfare was 2007's big blockbuster. It's two years later and the sequel to the game is hitting the HD consoles while the Wii is just finally seeing the original Modern Warfare. Says a lot about the state of third parties on Wii, doesn't it? Regardless, has Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition been worth the wait for Wii owners, or has this mission failed?

The world is in turmoil. A fictional Middle Eastern dictator has possession of nukes, and he's not too shy about using them. The United States and England take his threat of nuclear proliferation seriously, and the two superpowers team up to try to track this terrorist down. In Modern Warfare you switch off between playing as a member of the U.S. Marines and a soldier for the British Special Forces. The story itself is your typical big-budget video game story. Though it does an admirable job of trying to emulate Hollywood-- more specifically, a Michael Bay film. The story has plenty of twists and turns to keep your mission interesting, and everything ends with a satisfying conclusion.

Ooh-rah.

Modern Warfare takes place in three acts and a prologue and epilogue each. This totals up to around eighteen missions to tackle. Most missions you'll be following the instructions of your squad leader and teaming up with fellow squadmates as you blow away terrorists with a myriad of militant weaponry. Your teammates are quite smart, and they can take down large numbers of forces without you. Though unless you want to sit around for a while waiting, it's best you get into the action, too. Some missions you'll be using stealth and camouflage to outsmart enemy forces who will otherwise cut you down with bullets in a flash. This is one of the more stressful but not frustrating missions in the game. Another mission will have your squadron moving from enemy house to house, taking down all enemy forces inside. The list of objectives and requirements for mission completion are wide and varied. Seldom do you feel like you're doing the same thing. At the same time, the level design is created so it's basically moving from one big firefight to the next most of the time. Nonetheless, this formula seldom gets repetitive even with this structure.

This mission is all about stealth
and using your camouflage well.

I spoke of weaponry earlier, and there's plenty of it. Your character can hold two weapons at the same time, and enemies drop valuable weapons that can picked up and switched out. There's AK-47s, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, pistols, grenades, and other military weapons to use. On the gadget side, there's ground-infiltrating claymores, night vision goggles for those particularly dark spots in the game, and C4 which can be planted to various vehicles and buildings to blow them the heck up. There's so much to use that players will quickly find a gun that's perfect for them.

While this mission is about avoiding that searchlight.

Hidden in most of the levels are intelligence computers owned by the enemy. By downloading these throughout the game, you'll unlock cool cheats such as paintball mode and infinite ammo that can be used in the game's Arcade mode. This unlocks after the game has been completed, but with four difficulties, there's a level of challenge for everyone who plays.

Apart from the single-player mode, there's an entire armada of multi-player options to select from. You can either join a party, add a friend (using those damnable friend codes), or enter yourself randomly into a game. The cool thing about multi-player is that even if you're losing, you're still making progress. Every kill, every assist, you gain points. These points are used to gain new ranks. As you earn ranks, you earn new abilities, perks, and weapons to use. New modes also open up for higher ranked soldiers. These aforementioned perks give you cool bonuses such as being able to call in for an air raid on a specific target or group of enemies. Treyarch is actively supporting the community, kicking out hackers, having double experience days, and adding new fixes to known glitches, so you're taken care of online. Additionally, there can be four separate profiles on one system which is always good for people with more than one gamer in the house/apartment/foxhole/whatever.

There's sixteen different maps to explore online. Most of these are taken directly from the single-player campaign, but some are new, too. There's also plenty of modes to participate in including your standard solo and team deathmatch, a capture the flag type mode, and many, many more which are unlocked as your rank increases. Overall, lag isn't too much of a problem in Modern Warfare Reflex, and the community seems as active as ever.

Online is just as hectic as its HD big brother--
just without helpful voice chat.

Moving from multi-player to the controls, Reflex allows players to fully customize theirs. Turning too slowly? Re-size the bounding box to a smaller size. There's a robust amount of customization options to utilize and make your own. You can even change what each button does to your liking. Don't like reloading with a shake of the nunchuk? Then you can map it to a button instead. This grand amount of customization is truly appreciated. Like any other Wii FPS, turning is done by pointing your Wii remote to one of the sides of the screen. In conjunction with the analog stick on the nunchuk, you can move and aim around simultaneously with ease. Sure, it may take someone used to dual analog some practice, but once mastered it becomes hard to go back to dual analog.

Activision did their best to hide the existence of Modern Warfare Reflex. Perhaps they were afraid it would steal sales away from the Modern Warfare 2. Regardless, it couldn't be because of embarrassment as Reflex runs and looks very well. Obviously it's nowhere near the level of the HD platforms, but it looks nice enough. There's some muddy textures here and there, and the occasional framerate jump, but other than that everything is here and pleasant to look at. The voice work and soundtrack (including that god-awful rap at the end) were ported directly from Reflex's big brothers, and yes, they sound just fine.

Gunfire everywhere but not a drop to drink.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition may be two years late, but for Wii owners it's the best first-person shooter on the system. It has an intricate online system, terrific controls that I greatly prefer to dual analog (but not quite keyboard and mouse), and all of the options and fun of the HD original. Although the visuals are severely downgraded compared to the PS3 and 360, they won't ruin many players' experience with this game. Now one of the best military shooters of all time is now available to Wii owners, and fans of the genre certainly shouldn't miss out on it.

[SuperPhillip Says: 8.5/10]