Black Ops--top selling game of all time

[Sync]

Halo is simply not hardcore, it's about as vanilla as a game gets. Being an exclusive title has no bearing upon that. You can be a hardcore gamer on Halo, but you can be a "hardcore" gamer on anything if you play it enough to be considered as such. Like I said before, any major release title has been tailored to the largest market, and that is pretty much the average joe. Not the competitive guys.

I have no idea about the PS3 community on Killzone but I can safely say that being one of the best on a game like Battlefield, Crysis, or Gears means pretty much nada compared to being one of the actual best on Call of Duty. Not a random GB player with a decent team record, a youtube account, and an ego - one of the best. Mainly because the name of the game you're playing holds so much weight nowadays, not because the game takes more skill or whatever, the community is just huge and popular (for the right or wrong reasons, it doesn't matter much). If this was about pure skill games would not have evolved past point-shoot-dead gameplay mechanics and we'd all be taking faces playing CS:S on the PC.

It sounds like a couple of you should be posting on GB about stuff like this instead of on here since the casual gamer and the guys who play competitively experience completely different things when they play FPS games. A football forum is not the best place to get worked up about it... even if there is jack all to talk about in GD at the moment aside from the legal shenanigans.

:thumb:

[Amari24]

Halo is simply not hardcore, it's about as vanilla as a game gets. Being an exclusive title has no bearing upon that. You can be a hardcore gamer on Halo, but you can be a "hardcore" gamer on anything if you play it enough to be considered as such. Like I said before, any major release title has been tailored to the largest market, and that is pretty much the average joe. Not the competitive guys.

I have no idea about the PS3 community on Killzone but I can safely say that being one of the best on a game like Battlefield, Crysis, or Gears means pretty much nada compared to being one of the actual best on Call of Duty. Not a random GB player with a decent team record, a youtube account, and an ego - one of the best. Mainly because the name of the game you're playing holds so much weight nowadays, not because the game takes more skill or whatever, the community is just huge and popular (for the right or wrong reasons, it doesn't matter much). If this was about pure skill games would not have evolved past point-shoot-dead gameplay mechanics and we'd all be taking faces playing CS:S on the PC.

It sounds like a couple of you should be posting on GB about stuff like this instead of on here since the casual gamer and the guys who play competitively experience completely different things when they play FPS games. A football forum is not the best place to get worked up about it... even if there is jack all to talk about in GD at the moment aside from the legal shenanigans.

:thumb:

Like I said before, you're right, I'm just saying Halo is geared more towards those types of gamers, mainly due to it's complex storyline, which as you know, most casual gamers don't care about, they want to pick up and play, and enjoy the game. Halo is a little harder to follow since it's mixed with prequels, and cliffhangers. If you're a hardcore gamer, I'm sure you'd look for more in a game than just it's playability, and like I said, most casual gamers don't care about the excess stuff, like storylines, voice acting, replay value, all that stuff. Just my opinion.

I'll be the first admit that I'm not the best on CoD, I did however managed to maintain a positive k/d ratio, when I used to play on my cousin's 360, that was only with CoD4 and Black Ops though. I honestly don't remember what I got in MW2. Killzone 3 my current k/d is 1.24, and Killzone 2 it's 1.11

Hey, there won't be any football so what else is there to talk about aside from something in the 'anything but football' section?

[Amari24]

This post is a reply to RB's comment on Page 4. Just to clearify some things before moving on.

First of all, compared to other FPS, CoD's storyline felt underwhelming to say the least. FPS like Crysis, Halo, FEAR, are all known for more than just getting the job done, they're known for good memorable characters, and fantastic storylines. CoD's campaign was just lacking something that those games had. It's not much about length but it was just missing something. That said, I consider any campaign under 6 hours for a FPS, short. I beat the MW games in less than 5, maybe 4 hours. It took me almost 3 times as long to complete Crysis 1, which like I said, offers more than CoD as far as campaign and storyline goes, at least for me.

Bottom line: these are games about shooting and nothing more. that's their main purpose. lots of ammo and firepower and cool noises and explosions like a summer blockbuster. this spans ALL FPSs, not just CoD. every last one of them has the same template. point. shoot. move on.

I agree and disagee. People who only play CoD would probably have that mindset, but if you played other FPS, you know it doesn't work like that for all games. Going back to Crysis once again, that game focuses less on just shooting things to get to the next location, but more on using the Nanosuit's powers to finish your objective. This is why I stress games having good storylines, I feel more attached to the game when it has a good storyline. Games that have bad or mediocre storylines feel less likeable, or less rewarding than games that do. It's why I liked Reach so much, I actually felt like I was fighting for something as Noble Six, and not just shooting the convenant just because they're the main enemies in the game. I don't have that feeling when I play CoD, maybe some do, and that's fine.

And if you want to be honest all game types are the same.

Racing games, you're trying to get past the finish line.
Fighting games, you're trying to KO your opponent until you reach a boss.
Sports games, you're trying to competitevly win that type of game by scoring the most points.


It seems you're also getting the wrong idea. I didn't make this thread to complain, if I did you would see 'Black Ops sucks' as the title. I made this thread to inform other people about the game. This wasn't intented for the sake of arguing. I stated I didn't think the campaign was all that, someone else replied stating their opinion, then Barkdog follwed by asking what I thought would improve CoD, and I gave reasons, they disagreed, again that's fine, but when you're calling someone a "hater" just for not liking the same thing as you, I think you're the one that's arguing for the sake of arguing. It's ridiculous. And no I wasn't reffering to you RB.

I only used the movie example to make the case that sales don't equal a good product, and that has been proven so many times before in the game industry it just blows my mind that someone would actually believe that. I used the ET example a number of times in this thread. ET was a game on the Atari that sold well, but if you know of it/played it before, you would know that it's one of the worst games arguebly ever made, and I have played it and it's horrible. There you have it, one of many examples in the gaming industry that sales DON'T mean a good game.

Actually this was very common up until the 5th generation of systems, mainly because one game type didn't dominate the market, so developers knew they couldn't rehash the same product over and over again. Today, the US market is bottle necked by FPS, so developers can get away with it, if it's a FPS it will sell, period. But like I said, back then it wasn't like that, that's why we saw masterpieces such as GoldenEye, which was basically the launching pad for FPS.

btw: unless you are sponsored and actually make money and win company sponsored tournaments, you're a casual gamer also

that's like telling someone who rides those little child sized bikes and is really awesome at tricks and knows everything about the "sport" and can take his bike apart and put it back together and everything but uh... he still doesn't do it for a living...that he's a hardcore X-Gamer bike trick guy or whatever they call themselves lol

I disagree again. I consider a hardcore gamer someone who knows of the more rare and obscure gems, are not heavily influenced by the biggest game or genre. I also consider it someone who has expanded their knowledge past more than just the last generation or two, or someone who analyzes games heavily, and most importantly, someone who plays for a longer period of time compared to the average person. Simply put, someone who cares heavily on more than just one aspect of a game, and spend longer periods of time playing it.

A casual gamer to me is basically the opposite, they just want to play and enjoy the game for what it is, usually infulenced by the more popular game or game type, and they don't care about the storyline, characters, voice acting, they just want something easy to follow and that they can enjoy on and off, wether it's with friends, families, or playing online.

you're kidding yourself if you think one game has this vastly superior and complicated setup over another in this genre. the controls have basically been the same since GoldenEye lol.

No they haven't, if you haven't played many FPS I understand why you'd think that. But dating back to games such as DOOM, Wolfenstein, Quake, Duke Nukem, games that came before GoldenEye, the controls varied a lot.

In Killzone 2 the controls were vastly different than anything in CoD or Halo, and that pissed everyone who were used to playing those games, plus the heavy system, that the developers had to update the game to add more options. Hell I've seen someone on here complain about Killzone's heavy system. In Killzone 3 they basically mimicked Call of Duty's control scheme so people wouldn't moan about it, and they toned down the heaviness. It just goes to show the community will rave if something isn't like CoD, but when it becomes too much like CoD they call it a rip off like most people do with Crysis 2's multiplayer adding Killstreaks, or Halo Reach adding the sprinting.

Enclosing, I agree on a lot of points you made, and just wanted to clearify a few things, concede, or explain some things I didn't agree with. I'll gladly agree to disagree on the matter as no one will change anyone's mind on the topic, which is fine. I understand everyone's opinion on the matter, and I also understand not everyone likes Crysis, not everyone likes Killzone that's fine. I don't like CoD, so I would expect some people would understand that and not consider me a "hater" just for not liking the game, which I wish I could like, I really do because I loved CoD4, I just don't like the direction the series has been gonig since then.

[InsaneBlaze23]

This post is a reply to RB's comment on Page 4. Just to clearify some things before moving on.

First of all, compared to other FPS, CoD's storyline felt underwhelming to say the least. FPS like Crysis, Halo, FEAR, are all known for more than just getting the job done, they're known for good memorable characters, and fantastic storylines. CoD's campaign was just lacking something that those games had. It's not much about length but it was just missing something. That said, I consider any campaign under 6 hours for a FPS, short. I beat the MW games in less than 5, maybe 4 hours. It took me almost 3 times as long to complete Crysis 1, which like I said, offers more than CoD as far as campaign and storyline goes, at least for me.


I agree and disagee. People who only play CoD would probably have that mindset, but if you played other FPS, you know it doesn't work like that for all games. Going back to Crysis once again, that game focuses less on just shooting things to get to the next location, but more on using the Nanosuit's powers to finish your objective. This is why I stress games having good storylines, I feel more attached to the game when it has a good storyline. Games that have bad or mediocre storylines feel less likeable, or less rewarding than games that do. It's why I liked Reach so much, I actually felt like I was fighting for something as Noble Six, and not just shooting the convenant just because they're the main enemies in the game. I don't have that feeling when I play CoD, maybe some do, and that's fine.

And if you want to be honest all game types are the same.

Racing games, you're trying to get past the finish line.
Fighting games, you're trying to KO your opponent until you reach a boss.
Sports games, you're trying to competitevly win that type of game by scoring the most points.


It seems you're also getting the wrong idea. I didn't make this thread to complain, if I did you would see 'Black Ops sucks' as the title. I made this thread to inform other people about the game. This wasn't intented for the sake of arguing. I stated I didn't think the campaign was all that, someone else replied stating their opinion, then Barkdog follwed by asking what I thought would improve CoD, and I gave reasons, they disagreed, again that's fine, but when you're calling someone a "hater" just for not liking the same thing as you, I think you're the one that's arguing for the sake of arguing. It's ridiculous. And no I wasn't reffering to you RB.

I only used the movie example to make the case that sales don't equal a good product, and that has been proven so many times before in the game industry it just blows my mind that someone would actually believe that. I used the ET example a number of times in this thread. ET was a game on the Atari that sold well, but if you know of it/played it before, you would know that it's one of the worst games arguebly ever made, and I have played it and it's horrible. There you have it, one of many examples in the gaming industry that sales DON'T mean a good game.

Actually this was very common up until the 5th generation of systems, mainly because one game type didn't dominate the market, so developers knew they couldn't rehash the same product over and over again. Today, the US market is bottle necked by FPS, so developers can get away with it, if it's a FPS it will sell, period. But like I said, back then it wasn't like that, that's why we saw masterpieces such as GoldenEye, which was basically the launching pad for FPS.



I disagree again. I consider a hardcore gamer someone who knows of the more rare and obscure gems, are not heavily influenced by the biggest game or genre. I also consider it someone who has expanded their knowledge past more than just the last generation or two, or someone who analyzes games heavily, and most importantly, someone who plays for a longer period of time compared to the average person. Simply put, someone who cares heavily on more than just one aspect of a game, and spend longer periods of time playing it.

A casual gamer to me is basically the opposite, they just want to play and enjoy the game for what it is, usually infulenced by the more popular game or game type, and they don't care about the storyline, characters, voice acting, they just want something easy to follow and that they can enjoy on and off, wether it's with friends, families, or playing online.


No they haven't, if you haven't played many FPS I understand why you'd think that. But dating back to games such as DOOM, Wolfenstein, Quake, Duke Nukem, games that came before GoldenEye, the controls varied a lot.

In Killzone 2 the controls were vastly different than anything in CoD or Halo, and that pissed everyone who were used to playing those games, plus the heavy system, that the developers had to update the game to add more options. Hell I've seen someone on here complain about Killzone's heavy system. In Killzone 3 they basically mimicked Call of Duty's control scheme so people wouldn't moan about it, and they toned down the heaviness. It just goes to show the community will rave if something isn't like CoD, but when it becomes too much like CoD they call it a rip off like most people do with Crysis 2's multiplayer adding Killstreaks, or Halo Reach adding the sprinting.

Enclosing, I agree on a lot of points you made, and just wanted to clearify a few things, concede, or explain some things I didn't agree with. I'll gladly agree to disagree on the matter as no one will change anyone's mind on the topic, which is fine. I understand everyone's opinion on the matter, and I also understand not everyone likes Crysis, not everyone likes Killzone that's fine. I don't like CoD, so I would expect some people would understand that and not consider me a "hater" just for not liking the game, which I wish I could like, I really do because I loved CoD4, I just don't like the direction the series has been gonig since then.

I agree completely.

There is 2 types of hardcore gaming, theirs pro and there is underground. Pro is getting paid to do it, not getting paid to post videos on youtube or Machinima, but getting paid to actually play the game. If you don't get paid to play, then your not a pro.

So most of the hardcore community falls into the underground type.

Hardcore is playing games more often than casual gamers, being better than good, having a better understanding of gaming, the ability to actual judge gaming, and this

I consider a hardcore gamer someone who knows of the more rare and obscure gems, are not heavily influenced by the biggest game or genre. I also consider it someone who has expanded their knowledge past more than just the last generation or two, or someone who analyzes games heavily, and most importantly, someone who plays for a longer period of time compared to the average person. Simply put, someone who cares heavily on more than just one aspect of a game, and spend longer periods of time playing it.

Now I'm not saying all gamers that play CoD have no skill and suck at hardcore games, but I am saying that 75% do. Most of the big name youtube people, whom are underground players, not pro. Of all of the "popular" posters, Fist might be the only one that actually gets paid to play games, along with Gunn and next gen tactics. But anyways most of the "big name" youtube posters, play other games. They play whats out now, and most of them have now started posting homefront videos, anything else is normally a vlog or wager match.

Overall I agree with Amari on his reply to RealBronco.

[Sync]

@Amari I get what you're saying about hardcore gamers simply being the people who know and are more interested in everything about the game, i.e. Halo fans who are truly interested in the canon, character backstory, and such. I guess it depends on your definition, a lot of people (me included, up 'til now, hence the prior disagreement) use the word hardcore to refer to the uber-competitive online gamers, when the word used to be just about serious fans exactly as you described them.

IMO I think having a good, exciting story is just as important to the pick-up-and-play market though. The average guy won't care too much about racking up impressive stats and making a montage online and will probably spend just as much time playing the single player by him/herself or in co-op. That's kind why I think Halo went downhill so quickly after CE, because they were caught between making a story that was deep enough to satisfy the guys who'd really got into the first game but basic enough that the people who'd just picked up an Xbox for the first time could enjoy it too.

P.S. I'm just gonna remind everyone that Call of Duty is rushed out once a year by alternating developers and you should remember that when comparing it to other games. The production time is essentially nothing when compared to other titles, e.g. compared to how long Bungie take. The fact that the story even makes a modicum of sense is an impressive feat. Perhaps if Activision laid off milking the series we'd actually see an improvement, but that ain't gonna happen.











I miss when I came to this forum to talk about football

[InsaneBlaze23]

@Amari I get what you're saying about hardcore gamers simply being the people who know and are more interested in everything about the game, i.e. Halo fans who are truly interested in the canon, character backstory, and such. I guess it depends on your definition, a lot of people (me included, up 'til now, hence the prior disagreement) use the word hardcore to refer to the uber-competitive online gamers, when the word used to be just about serious fans exactly as you described them.

IMO I think having a good, exciting story is just as important to the pick-up-and-play market though. The average guy won't care too much about racking up impressive stats and making a montage online and will probably spend just as much time playing the single player by him/herself or in co-op. That's kind why I think Halo went downhill so quickly after CE, because they were caught between making a story that was deep enough to satisfy the guys who'd really got into the first game but basic enough that the people who'd just picked up an Xbox for the first time could enjoy it too.

P.S. I'm just gonna remind everyone that Call of Duty is rushed out once a year by alternating developers and you should remember that when comparing it to other games. The production time is essentially nothing when compared to other titles, e.g. compared to how long Bungie take. The fact that the story even makes a modicum of sense is an impressive feat. Perhaps if Activision laid off milking the series we'd actually see an improvement, but that ain't gonna happen.











I miss when I came to this forum to talk about football

I agree kinda, I know about how often they come out with Cod, thats the reason why I compared it to madden before. Madden comes out every year, but has little to no improvement. Fact of the matter is, I enjoyed the Modern Warfare series story mode, CoD4(MW1) was fun online, then for some reason it just went downhill. Like instead of getting into a match for fun, now it's either "which corner do I hide in" or "where do I think the enemy will hide."

It's hard for me to enjoy any online game, when the few times I die, it's bye some punk camping, thinking he is a beast. But thats not my only reason for disliking CoD.

As for your football comment: Just picture what will happen when the season doesn't start. Other than maybe college, football will be the least thing talked about since there is no season.(as of now)

[RealBronco]

P.S. I'm just gonna remind everyone that Call of Duty is rushed out once a year by alternating developers and you should remember that when comparing it to other games.

the way you've worded this sounds like you don't understand what you're saying here, or you're cleverly wording it to make it sound like something it isn't. the key words in this are "alternating developers"

Call of Duty games come out every two years in alternate fashion from each developer. Much like the Olympics are every 4 years but because there are Summer and Winter Olympics they show up every 2 years instead.

IMO Treyarch is the lesser of the two and it is the one responsible for the bad reputation. People hate on WaW and BO because they just aren't as good as MW.

It's Infinity Ward that has made the strides to make CoD better, not Treyarch. Neither developer is involved in the other's video game creation. That's why one must be careful when lumping all CoD games together.

I think there was a big enough quality difference between MW1 and 2 in regards to graphics which is a step forward considering they do still come out every 2 years (like you said most developers spend a bit more time on their games, but not really when they crank out sequels). The story continued from the first and flowed rather well. I think this is where some get mixed up. They say the campaign mode is too short, well it's long enough to span two games. We see no argument about a game like God of War being too short because its storyline spans three installments (even though each individual game is short as hell).

Anyway, people need to understand that though a "Call of Duty" title comes out every year, it's not the same developer that's churning them out. This is why a comparison to Madden is erroneous because EA is the only developer and they just crank them out every year with little to no changes. Even though Treyarch is inferior to IW, they still made huge changes between WaW and BO (albeit not in graphical quality it seems). And really, when the game is an extension of its previous self why does there need to be huge changes? Especially with a sequel? Why would a sequel be completely different from the first one? That just doesn't make any sense.

Anyway, I just find it amusing that people think the game comes out every year from the same people. I suppose you could broaden it out a bit and say Activision is the one creating them all, but they still contract separate developers to make them, and they each take two years to put out a game.

I would say that if they expanded a bit and did it like the Olympics they may be able to make better improvements, but they don't need to so they won't.

I miss when I came to this forum to talk about football

why do you come to a video game forum to talk about football?

i think you are looking for this instead.

[Hoserman117]

Just commenting on the whole CoD is harder than Halo thing....

1. You kill people in about 4 shots on CoD, you don't need to aim for any reasonable amount of time to score a kill. My girlfriend can go 15-34 in a game (bad, yes I know) but she has basically no idea what's going on and just looks at people and squeezes the trigger. In Halo she'll go like 0-25 because you actually have to do some consistent aiming.

2. You start with awesome weapons in CoD, in Halo you have to go find them. Anybody remember the noob tubes from MW2? Please kill me.

3. I've played Halo religiously for years and truly care about my KD ratio online. I keep it around a 1.7, and that's pretty good. I just run around maps and unload on people in CoD and I think it's a 1.66.

Also... in what universe was MW2 better than Black Ops? Noob tubes, nukes, heart beat sensors, dual 1911's, sprinting knifing ass wagons, the list goes on and on, that game was unbalanced garbage. Black Ops is much better IMO. The only thing I preferred about MW2 were the maps. Also Black Ops had a kick ass storyline, something I really wasn't expecting.

Also a hardcore gamer doesn't have to play the game professionally. To be a hardcore movie buff do you have to make movies, or professionally review them? Do I have to be a coach to be a hardcore football fan? Hardcore gamers are simply the jaded crowd of video gamers, and expect a little extra something from the games they buy. They can also come off as a little d-bag-ish, which is understandable (I consider myself to be one of them).

[Hoserman117]

Also, while yes, each new CoD game is made by a different developer, it's naive to assume they don't share anything. They game engine is the same, and they both just magically decided to implement a perk system at the same time? Yeah right.

[Hoserman117]

Also... controls for FPS games change all the time. Anybody ever played Rainbow 6 Vegas? B for grenades? LT for cover? RB for night/thermal vision?

Who cares anyways. It's not like having the same controls makes the games the same. That's like saying Halo is the same as F.E.A.R. or The Darkness just because the controls are similar.

[InsaneBlaze23]

Also... controls for FPS games change all the time. Anybody ever played Rainbow 6 Vegas? B for grenades? LT for cover? RB for night/thermal vision?

Who cares anyways. It's not like having the same controls makes the games the same. That's like saying Halo is the same as F.E.A.R. or The Darkness just because the controls are similar.

Agreed, I've played all 4 of the games you named, and known of them feel the same in controls, even when I know there similar.

As for Rainbow, I liked there controls, but if you stopped playing it for a while, play a game with CoD controls(easy controls) then play Rainbow again, you make the mistake off throwing C4 at yourself.

[CoryWinget81]

Especially with a sequel? Why would a sequel be completely different from the first one? That just doesn't make any sense.

With the interweaving story lines, I consider Black Ops a sequel to WAW. And, I agree with what you said.

[Amari24]

The thing is, we're not asking for changes, we're asking for IMPROVEMENT, and both developers have failed miserbly in that regard. Infinity Ward is doing better than Treyarch, but that's not saying much, that's like saying Activision cares about their customers more than EA does.

[CoryWinget81]

You can't win with the hardcore crowd.

Release 1 every two years, and its rushed and not improved.


Take 4-5 years to release one, and every single thing that might be criticized becomes a reason its terrible, I mean, after all...it took them 4 years to make it, it should be perfect.

This is the reason developers don't cater to "hardcore" gamers.


When I first started playing Halo 3, I was like "pre-rendered backgrounds...really? What is this, 1998?"

[Hoserman117]

You can't win with the hardcore crowd.

Release 1 every two years, and its rushed and not improved.


Take 4-5 years to release one, and every single thing that might be criticized becomes a reason its terrible, I mean, after all...it took them 4 years to make it, it should be perfect.

This is the reason developers don't cater to "hardcore" gamers.


When I first started playing Halo 3, I was like "pre-rendered backgrounds...really? What is this, 1998?"

Mass Effect appeased most of us Civilization 5 did a pretty solid job of appeasing all of the Civ die-hards like me as well. Civ 3 is still the best though.