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Rumor: Third Developer to Heed the Call of Duty

Nathan Grayson — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:36:54 -0600

Of all the crimes Activision could be accused of, extreme restraint isn’t one of them. If a property in its stable of games fattens its way into bonafide cash cow territory, you can bet that Activision will milk it bone-dry. But if you’ve ever tried chugging an entire gallon of milk, you know that people’s tolerance for the stuff is a bit lacking. Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero are already facing diminishing returns from consumer fatigue, and at this rate, it won’t be long before Call of Duty wears out its welcome – especially if yet another developer hops aboard Activision’s favorite money train.

The LA Times, however, is reporting just that. “Although Infinity Ward and Treyarch have produced sequels in alternating years since 2005, the publisher now has a third development studio working on future versions,” read the publication’s article on Modern Warfare 2’s launch.

As for this third mystery developer’s purpose, little is known. Speculation says that the series newcomer could be digging the development trenches on a Call of Duty MMO – something Activision boss Bobby Kotick has expressed interest in on multiple occasions. Or maybe Call of Duty: World at War’s ever-popular Nazi Zombies are finally getting their own game. We really have no idea.

Or – and this is crazy, but work with us here – maybe, after nearly a decade of working on the same series, Infinity Ward is ready to move on to greener pastures, and Activision’s called in a new team to pick up where the Call of Duty creator left off.

Naaaaah.

No BS Podcast #123: The Toledo Effect

The Maximum PC Staff — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:11:01 -0600

Remember, remember the fifth of November! Topics discussed this week: On a slow news week, Will fueled Gordon's rage by briefing him on the Call of Duty PC controversies, then the guy discussed Left4Dead 2 a bit more, and closed the show with an extra-long Doctor section and another vitriolic episode of Rant of the Week!

Do you have a tech question? A comment? A tale of technological triumph? Just need to get something off your chest? A secret to share? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are standing by.

Subscribe: http://feeds.feedburner.com/maximumpc/1337

Activision Wanted Infinity WWII Shooters from Infinity Ward

Nathan Grayson — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:56:25 -0500

Activision’s about to declare war on gamers’ wallets with Modern Warfare 2, and we imagine Bobby Kotick and co. couldn’t be happier. However, according to Call of Duty creator Infinity Ward, Activision wasn’t always so gung-ho about pulling the series out of World War II.

“With Call of Duty 2, we were dead set against it being World War 2," Infinity Ward boss Vince Zampella said, "but Activision really wanted it, the compromise sort of being that we'd get some dev kits for consoles in exchange for doing a World War 2 game.”

"And something I'll add to that, Activision also did not want Modern Warfare. They thought working on a modern game was risky and [thought], 'oh my god you can't do that, it's crazy!' They were doing market research to show us we were wrong the whole time," he explained.

As of last count, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare sold over 14 million copies.

Bobby, if we were in your shoes, we’d hire Infinity Ward not only as a consultant for Activision as a whole, but as our own personal life counselor. We’d also donate a few million dollars to Future’s Maximum PC publication, with the stipulation that 40% of it is to land in the pockets of a blogger named “Nathan Grayson.”

Just trust us on this one.

War Everywhere in March’s 20 Best-Selling Retail PC Games

Nathan Grayson — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:55:48 -0500

Nine of last month’s 20 best-selling PC games’ titles contain the word “war” in some way or another, including colonial chart-topper Empire: Total War. Special honors go to Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II for having “war” in its title twice. Videogames encouraging violence? No way.

Here’s the entire, blood-soaked chart for your viewing pleasure:

Empire: Total War / Creative Assembly / $48
World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard / $38
The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $19
Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II / Relic / $48
World Of Warcraft Battle Chest / Blizzard / $38
World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20
The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $19
Spore / EA Maxis / $49
World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $29
Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst / Big Fish Games / $20
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 / EA LA / $28
StarCraft Battle Chest / Blizzard / $20
Fallout 3 / Bethesda / $49
Civilization IV / Firaxis / $21 (Average)
Empire: Total War - Special Forces Edition / Creative Assembly / $70
The Sims 2 Pets Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $19
Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning / EA Mythic / $29
The Sims 2 University Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $19
Call Of Duty: World At War / Treyarch / $50
Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $36

With the way mainstream headlines have been going lately, we can’t imagine that “Country X Delcares War on Country Y, Videogames to Blame” is far off.

So, what’d you buy last month?

Action Games May Improve Vision, Says Study

Nathan Grayson — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:49:26 -0500

And you thought the majority of today’s first-person shooters were only easy on the eyes. As it turns out, playing a fast-moving, state-of-the-art action game might be less like a warm glass of milk for your poor peepers, and more like a monolithic can of Monster.

According to a study conducted by Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester in New York, a few rounds of games like Call of Duty or Unreal Tournament may be enough to improve your eyes’ contrast sensitivity. Translated into the hip vernacular you kids have grown so accustomed to: Capping fools, punks, or whatever these are could save you from dying in a fire.

“People who used a video-game training program saw significant improvements in their ability to notice subtle differences in shades of gray, a finding that may help people who have trouble with night driving,” noted the study.

While undoubtedly cool, the study’s results were far from expected. Apparently, contrast sensitivity doesn’t typically undergo significant change without an alteration to the optics of the eye -- glasses or surgery, for example.

The games played by each group, for those interested, were Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 for the “action” group, and The Sims 2 for the non-action group. The first group saw a 43 percent improvement in contrast sensitivity, while the second saw none – possibly due to blindness or some other malady that our cruel universe has chosen to afflict upon those who are not truly hardcore.

Don’t sit too close to the screen, huh? Oh how the tides have turned.

Xfire Debate: The Future of Call of Duty

Andy Salisbury — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:02:32 -0500

This past Wednesday (the 18th) I had the unique opportunity to represent Maximum PC in The Two-Handed Sword’s debate about the Future of Call of Duty.

Paneling the debate was Destructoid’s Anthony Burch, MoBdeep’s Call of Duty 4 Team Leader Matthew Gomez, Team Pandemic’s Joseph Amorosa, PC Gamer’s very own Evan Lahti, the Cyberathlete Amateur League’s Operations Manager Sean Henderson and myself. And, the man in charge of moderating the whole rowdy lot of us was Dan “Shoe” Hsu (who you may remember from the late EGM).

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in checking out, you can find the transcript here. And, be sure and check out other debates in the future over at Xfire! They did a great job setting up the event.

Image Credit: Xfire

Call of Duty: World at War

Norman Chan — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:00:00 -0600

The odds have always been stacked against Call of Duty: World at War. This sequel revisits an undeniably exhausted FPS setting—World War II—and wasn’t designed by series creator Infinity Ward, but Treyarch has delivered a sufficiently compelling shooter. World at War doesn’t bring any lasting innovations to the FPS genre, but it has enough unrelenting shootouts and dramatically scripted events to keep us immersed in the action.

Like Call of Duty 4, the seven-hour single-player campaign is split between two parallel plotlines, each showing a different theater of war. Wading through the swamps and jungles of the South Pacific to rescue POWs and raid airfields in one campaign is very different from sneaking through the ruins of Stalingrad to stalk Nazi generals. Though these battlefields feel a little too familiar, the missions are filled with enough gritty and explosive set pieces to keep us distracted from the feeling of déjà vu.

Just don’t expect much resistance from the AI enemies. Your foes are easily dispatched and don’t react realistically in combat; the concept of suppressing fire, for example, is nonexistent. Waves of enemy grunts will perform kamikaze rushes or snipe you from trees, but their behavior feels like that of theme park automatons (albeit with bayonets). Still, the large-scale firefights are varied enough to be memorable.

Cooperative multiplayer with three other players is the best way to play through the campaign, though the competitive co-op mode wasn’t as fun since players don’t have much incentive to help each other. We also couldn’t warm up to the new vehicle maps or the new set of multiplayer in-game perks. An unlockable Zombie game mode is a pleasant surprise, but it won’t take the place of Left 4 Dead.

Call of Duty: World at War doesn’t disappoint us, but it never matches the riveting excitement of Call of Duty 4. It’s worth your gaming dollar if you like first-person shooters; just remember to manage your expectations.

Maximum PC's Gaming Awards 2008

The Maximum PC Staff — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:00:00 -0600

It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. We’ve spent a good deal of the last 12 months hunkered down at our PCs playing every game that’s come our way. The very best of them have pulled us into their imaginary, action-packed worlds and stolen hours of our valuable time—and we love ’em for it! Others, not so much. Here forth is our frank assessment of 2008’s most noteworthy games.

Game of the Year: Left 4 Dead

Few things get our blood pumping quicker than blasting the brain pans of a few thousand zombies. But the ritualistic massacre of hordes of infected isn’t enough on its own to win our coveted Game of the Year award. Left 4 Dead pushes gaming forward with the one-two punch of visceral co-op gameplay empowered by the AI Director, which dynamically alters the action.

On the surface, popularizing and perfecting cooperative multiplayer might seem to be the biggest contribution to gaming in 2008. Valve made Left 4 Dead co-op both accessible, by building a matchmaking system that makes it easy to play with your pals, and fun, by designing a game that forces people to play together or face certain death.

The AI Director monitors your foursome’s health, ammo level, and forward progress and then uses that info to spawn baddies, bosses, weapons, ammo, and health to build an intense ebb and flow that’s different in every game and perfectly suited for the skill level of your team. Left 4 Dead is an achievement to be lauded.

www.l4d.com, ESRB: M

Best Single-Player: Fallout 3

Who needs zombies? Or more accurately, who needs to round up three friends for some multiplayer zombie killing? Or friends at all? Or family? Or human contact of any sort. If you have given yourself over to Fallout 3, you know that every phone call, every knock on the door, every unexpected guest only takes away from what is the most immersive game world man has ever set foot in. Within Fallout 3’s postapocalyptic wasteland you’ll make decisions that will determine whether people—even whole civilizations—survive or perish. And while the story drew us in, the game’s combination of fast-twitch action and the more traditional RPG-style VATS targeting system kept us trekking through the seemingly borderless environment, taking on everything a nuke-ravaged Earth could throw at us.

fallout.bethsoft.com, ESRB: M

Best Game Inspired By A Miniseries Based On A Book That Was, In Fact, Based on Actual Events: Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway

While Call of Duty faithfully re-created the gritty details of the battles brought to life in the epic Band of Brothers HBO miniseries (notably, the Brecourt Manor Assault and the Battle of Carentan), it is rival franchise Brothers in Arms that best captures the camaraderie and gut-wrenching emotion of Stephen Ambrose’s oral histories. Hell’s Highway’s moving story and script deftly intertwine action and drama to a point where we actually cared about the fates of the computer-controlled characters fighting beside us.

www.brothersinarmsgame.com, ESRB: M

Best Do-Over: Witcher: Extended Edition

PC gamers have long had to deal with publishers’ “launch now, fix later” mentality, but rarely is it taken to an extent that it was with The Witcher. Developer CD Projekt’s dark RPG was released in October 2007, burdened with bugs, shoddy dialogue, and glacial loading times. A year later, the Polish dev house released The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, which addressed nearly all of those problems, and offered it for free to owners of the original game. We don’t want to encourage companies to ship slapdash games, but we appreciate CD Projekt’s commitment to giving its customers what they paid for.

www.thewitcher.com, ESRB: M

The Balki Bartokomous Award for the Verisimilitudinous Depiction of Familial Relationships: GTA IV

While GTA IV’s debt to Scarface is easy to discern, the game owes even more to another ’80s-era morality tale. GTA IV is, in fact, a reimagining of the TV docudrama Perfect Strangers, a psychosocial investigation into the familial bonds of two cousins who have to learn how to bridge the chasm that developed from being raised in different cultures. In both the game and the show, the cousins travel down a sometimes bumpy road as they learn to accept that while they may have different dreams, when times are tough, blood is, indeed, thicker than water. GTA IV’s moral qualms are of a more existentialist nature—should I let this man live or die?; Perfect Strangers’ less so—what should Balki do after he accidently sets up Lydia with a gigolo… Wait, maybe their ethical dilemmas aren’t so different. Well, of course not—don’t be ridiculous!

www.rockstargames.com/IV, ESRB: M

Worst Crysis Sequel: Crysis Warhead

We loved Crysis for its nonlinear level design and unforgiving intelligent enemies, so it’s too bad these qualities weren’t passed down to its follow-up, Crysis: Warhead. Instead, this nonsequel was hampered by linear missions, dumbed-down AI resistance, and simplistic vehicle chases. Sure, the visual detail was notably improved—especially the explosions—but it also seemed as if the Koreans had crammed TNT into all the jeeps and doused each vehicle with several coats of kerosene since a few shots from an assault rifle would initiate a spectacular fireworks display. Even a pyromaniac would get bored with the overreliance on explosions, à la the new Bruckheimer-esque direction. We can finally stop asking ourselves, “Will it run Crysis?” because who even cares?

http://crysiswarhead.ea.com, ESRB: M

Best Crysis Sequel: Far Cry 2

Admit it, you, too, were skeptical when Ubisoft announced it would develop Far Cry 2 in-house after Crytek left the franchise to work on Crysis. But all doubts were assuaged once we ventured through the final product, our brow sweating and sunburned from the African sun and our limbs charred from untamed wildfire. Far Cry 2 fulfilled the promise of nonlinear gameplay introduced in the original by giving us unprecedented freedom in a first-person shooter. Exploration was a necessary part of the experience and our efforts were rewarded with awe-inspiring views of the digital savanna and riveting firefights. And, yes, we could also play lumberjack and shoot down trees, although here, the trees actually eventually grew back. Now that’s what we call progress!

www.farcry2.com, ESRB: M

Risk in Spaaaaaace: Sins of a Solar Empire

Sure, it’s a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) space-exploration RTS and plays a lot like a real-time version of the board game Risk, but it’s one of the most fun and engrossing multiplayer RTSes we’ve ever played. The real risk (in space) that developer Stardock Entertainment took was releasing its precious baby with absolutely no DRM. Did it get pirated? Sure. But it also sold more than 500,000 copies. Not shabby for a game with a budget of less than a million bucks.

www.sinsofasolarempire.com, ESRB: T

The MacGyver Award for Excellence in Impromptu Weapon Design: Fallout 3

Although we favor games with a high weapon density, firing the same ARMs, MAC 10s, and combat shotguns we’ve seen in a dozen games before soon grows tiresome. Fallout 3 saves the day by letting you get in touch with your inner weapons designer and create homegrown killing devices. Everyday objects you’d pass up in other games—lunch boxes, soda bottles, crutches—become the components for surprisingly effective homebrew weapons. Once you’ve seen the devastating firepower a bottle-cap mine can dole out, you’ll never want to return to more conventional arms.

fallout.bethsoft.com, ESRB: M

The Thinking Man’s Lemmings: World of Goo

What is it with adorable little simpletons and addictive puzzle games? Is it an appeal to nerds’ latent nurturing instinct or to our desire to play God over a mass of shivering, gooey critters? In either case, World of Goo is a refreshingly original game in another year dominated by sequels and spin-offs. With beautifully bright graphics and an underexplored gameplay mechanism, World of Goo proved that even a tiny team like two-man 2D Boy can create a fantastic game, and that “indie” doesn’t have to mean “unpolished.”

www.2dboy.com/games.php, ESRB: E

Best Use of B-Actors with D-Cups: Red Alert 3

We’re not sure what this bevy of vaguely recognizable, undeniably attractive B-list babes has to do with the latest Red Alert game—part of the Command & Conquer real-time strategy series—but we know we’re fans. We think the Red Alert series can stand on its own without this type of puerile titillation… but we still appreciate the effort. And the eye candy. Even if we only recognize Jenny McCarthy.

www.commandandconquer.com, ESRB: T

Best Evolution Simulation Game That Actually Promotes Intelligent Design: Spore

For years, we heard about a game that would teach kids about science—things like environmental pressures, survival of the fittest, and evolution. That game was Will Wright’s Spore. Taking your fledgling species from a single-cell critter all the way to a galaxy-spanning empire has an undeniable appeal. However, in no way, shape, or form does this game educate about evolution. In fact, Spore is an intelligent design sim. Neither the environment nor your play sessions shape your creature’s development, no siree. Instead, the loving hand of the player/deity determines the course of each of the millions of creatures that populates the game’s nigh-infinite universe. Oops.

www.spore.com, ESRB: E

There can be only One!: World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

How do you keep 11.5 million players happy with a four-year-old game? Release your second expansion pack! With Lich King, Blizzard bumped the level cap from 70 (where it had remained since the launch of the first expansion, The Burning Crusade) to 80, opened up the frozen continent of Northrend, and introduced a new class, the Death Knight. In other words, it pumped the goose that lays golden eggs full of Lupron and Zoladex.

www.worldofwarcraft.com, ESRB: T

The True Friendship Test: Left 4 Dead

You and your best friend are almost to the safe room, each with a sliver of health remaining and a raging tank hot on your heels. You’re limping along, trying to protect each other from grasping infected fingers, when you have an epiphany. If you “accidentally” cripple your pal with a “stray bullet,” the tank will have to slow down long enough to finish him off. That should buy you just enough time to make a clean escape. And that, friends, is what Left 4 Dead is really all about.

www.l4d.com, ESRB: M

Best Game Featuring the Character Formerly Known as Prince: Prince of Persia

In this latest reboot (the third, by our count), the Prince of Persia finally strays from the ridiculous plot lines of The Sands of Time trilogy (i.e., The Dark Prince) and begins a new canon—one in which the protagonist isn’t even a true prince! But uncertainties in royal lineage aside, the scrappy hero here is equipped with all the amazing gravity-defying abilities that would be the envy of any parkour enthusiast. The cliff-hanging platforming puzzles and kinetically infused combat are augmented by the inclusion of the Elika NPC character, a welcome
innovation to this third-person action staple.

www.princeofpersiagame.com, ESRB: T

Best Case for WWIII: Call of Duty: World at War

World War II games are so passé that even griping about them is getting old. The Call of Duty franchise rose to new heights with last year’s sensational Modern Warfare, but this year’s return to the familiar tune of Allies vs. Axis was a letdown—liberating virtual Europe has lost much of its luster. And not to be pessimistic doomsayers, but we’re beginning to think that the only way for game developers to stop making World War II shooters is if the world suffers through another global catastrophe. Fallout 3 has the right idea!

www.callofduty.com, ESRB: M

Nothing to See Here...

World of Warcraft is the ne plus ultra of MMOs, claiming an unprecedented 11.5 million players—more than the rest of the market combined. But every year, big-budget titles from major studios pop up, trying to wrest away its crown. For your edification: 2008’s three biggest WoW-killers that weren’t.

Tabula Rasa

Richard Garriott’s sci-fi adventure was a welcome break from the swords-and-sorcery norm. But shooter-esque combat and an innovative cloning system couldn’t save the game from lower-than-expected subscription numbers—the game will close on February 28, 2009.

www.rgtr.com, ESRB: T

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

The first 20 levels of the much vaunted, massively budgeted title were magnificent, polished, and immersive. But bugs and sparse content after level 20 sent players fleeing back to WoW. The game has been steadily improving, but can it attract new players?

www.ageofconan.com, ESRB: M

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

The most promising of the WoW-killers lured gamers with its vast lore, realm-vs.-realm combat, public quests, and best-in-class in-game progress and knowledge compendium. It’s more stable than it was at launch, but it’s also much quieter. Warhammer Online seems to be in it for the long haul, though, and continues to add content, but it shows no signs of overtaking WoW.