132 - Daylight

[Grabthehoopka]

You know, actually, I remember the first time I played Call of Duty at a friend's house, (this would be Call of Duty 1, back when it was a spunky WWII shooter in 2003), and I remember it being the first war FPS shooter with high production values that took war and the "war experience" seriously, and it's basically the standard now, but back then, being put in the middle of a battle with dozens of other friendly and enemy soldiers and the cacophonous sound of nonstop gunfire and explosions filling the air was a new experience, and as far as I know, it was the first time it had been done. I think they very effectively portrayed the horrors of war in its most basic form by doing that, and I remember having to stop and take breaks in the middle of the missions cause it was just too much for me to take all at once. Oh, how far we've come since then.

I think the Soviet campaign levels did the best job of this, since the first level had you crammed onto a boat while a Commissar loudly regaled the unit with inspirational speeches while the boats around you get torn apart by artillery and aircraft fire, and when you finally land at the beachhead, there's practically nothing left of Stalingrad but a giant pile of rubble. Then, since the red army couldn't manufacture enough weapons to arm every single soldier, when you finally get off the boat, you're unarmed, and you have to storm up a hill with an army of fellow conscripts, about 3/4s of whom get mowed down by machine gun nests and blown up by artillery fire along the way. And in the next level, right off the bat you have soviet soldiers running for their lives and fellow soviet soldiers getting ordered to ruthlessly shoot them all in the back for deserting. And so, I was wondering if they were playing it up to make things more dramatic, and as I looked it up, it turns out that all of it is true, and everything in the game is based as closely as possible on things that actually happened, which lends a lot of weight to the crazier parts of the game.

I think the intention of all of the Call of Duty games is never to show war and conflict in a positive light, but their recent trend of changing the focus from one tiny soldier in the middle of a giant war to more character-focused, special forces unit stuff, as well as the focus on neato advanced and future technology, has moved the tone back to the one-man-army style of game that Call of Duty made a name for itself by setting itself apart from in the first place. It's really bizarre.

[matt]

I was under the impression that Call of Duty was actually derivative of Medal of Honor. Infinity Ward was formed by vets from 2015, who worked on Medal of Honor for EA. I think Spark Unlimited (who did Call of Duty console) was also formed by guys from Medal of Honor, I don't recall their story specifically.

The original Medal of Honor had a story by Steven Spielberg, and I think was supposed to have a sort of Saving Private Ryan feel to it. I haven't actually played any of these games though so this is speculation.

Over the years, I imagine they lost the idea of representing war and instead focused on "epic" action and big moments. It seems like the action may have been the draw to those types of games and not actually the representation of war - judging from the success of the games since. :-/

[RightClickSaveAs]

I think the Soviet campaign levels did the best job of this, since the first level had you crammed onto a boat while a Commissar loudly regaled the unit with inspirational speeches while the boats around you get torn apart by artillery and aircraft fire, and when you finally land at the beachhead, there's practically nothing left of Stalingrad but a giant pile of rubble. Then, since the red army couldn't manufacture enough weapons to arm every single soldier, when you finally get off the boat, you're unarmed, and you have to storm up a hill with an army of fellow conscripts, about 3/4s of whom get mowed down by machine gun nests and blown up by artillery fire along the way. And in the next level, right off the bat you have soviet soldiers running for their lives and fellow soviet soldiers getting ordered to ruthlessly shoot them all in the back for deserting. And so, I was wondering if they were playing it up to make things more dramatic, and as I looked it up, it turns out that all of it is true, and everything in the game is based as closely as possible on things that actually happened, which lends a lot of weight to the crazier parts of the game.

Whoah I'd forgotten about that part where you play as a Russian soldier. Yeah that was intense and pretty chilling. Sitting there in that boat completely defenseless, slowly being piloted into a slaughter while other boats are getting blown up all around you really drives it home that this isn't a typical action hero game. You still kinda save the day at the end of the game, but if I remember right, they did a great job at making you feel like you were just a small part of this huge, awful experience. The latest games seem to focus on that special forces, rah rah, Army of One recruitment thing where you save everyone and take out the bad foreigners basically by yourself.

I think it'd be great to have a short game where you're just a faceless grunt in a sea of soldiers and you can be randomly killed at any time. Sure it might not be "fun", but something small and experimental to show just how destructive and chaotic war actually is. A lot of games like Call of Duty have touched on that with scenes like the Normandy beach invasion (they all blur together in my head, so I don't remember if it was that game specifically that dealt with Normandy beach), but they ultimately have to tell a hero's journey, so the player will be safe and can just reload if they die.

I never played Medal of Honor, but looking it up, the first one came out in 1999, wow. Call of Duty's first one was 2003.

[matt]

Yeah, I think Medal of Honor was basically the same thing and was super popular, so Activision grabbed the team that did the best game, Infinity Ward. I found an article that outlines the whole saga. Interestingly, Activision is the underdog in this story and they were looking to catch up to the EA juggernaut! Oh, how the tables have turned!