My soapbox

I want something new, not old hash.

That’s right. I want something new. I want something fresh. I want something that I haven’t played before. That’s what I want to sink my teeth into. I’ve essentially been playing the same game for 4 generations now and quite frankly its becoming horribly stale.

In a video commentary posted over the summer, I discussed how I feared that the Call of Duty franchise was becoming maddenized, and it turns out that I have been proven right. While Call of Duty Black Ops, all things considered, is a pretty good game, its still essentially the *same* game that I’ve been playing. Part of me thinks that Activision was startled by the success of Call of Duty 4 and have tried to ride the success of that 4 year old game.

Sure, each title has subsequently been a little different, but not by much mind you. It’s becoming more like a roster update and a few animation changes like you get in Madden each year for the same $60 price tag, and frankly I’m sick of it. Its as though they just change the cast for the single player, but still give you the same type of general experience, tweak a couple of perk names, insert some new gun models with essentially the same boring stats across the board, and bam, another release to continue to milk the Franchise dry.So what do they do? They begin planning to release TWO titles into the franchise this year. Seriously? You want to tell us how fantastic Black Ops is, only to turn around in about 8 months to start hyping up how these other two games are going to be? The action adventure Uncharted 2 style Call of Duty game, plus the core game as we already know it? Come on now, give us something fresh.

So with that said, I’m spending my time eagerly waiting for something to come along that will pull me into a new direction. Something that will grab my attention and break free of the hold that this sick madden-ification of my beloved Call of Duty franchise. I want to do something new, I want to do something different. Would it be so terrible to see some innovation in the first person shooter franchise? Is it too much to ask for a bit of ground breaking, rule bending twists to push the genre into a new direction?

Now I know what some of you might be saying. You’re going to mention Battlefield 3, and you’re right. I’m highly excited for Battlefield 3. The reveal for that game is tentatively slated for March 1st 2011 in case you didn’t know. But with that said, I’m not expecting anything new or fresh or game changing when it comes to Battlefield 3. I suspect they know exactly what makes their franchise work, and it will essentially be quite similar to Battlefield 2, but updated to a new era of gaming & all of the perks that brings with it.

Now don’t get me wrong. While I think Battlefield 3 will be a lot like Battlefield 2, I find that to be acceptable. Why? Because Battlefield 2 was released in 2005 if I remember correctly. That’s some longevity people. That game still has thousands of people playing it to this very day. THAT speaks about value for your dollar if you purchased that game. Its not just a yearly rehash to a proven franchise, its a proven franchise being updated and adapted to the current technology now available to it. (I’m hoping destructible environments will exist in BF3.)

With all of this said, there is one game on the horizon that I think will be taking a shot at altering the genre, pushing the boundaries of the FPS community. That game is Brink.(http://www.brinkthegame.com) For those of you not familiar, you should go browse their web page & start watching their video content. The way they seem to be trying to either merge multiple genre’s or perhaps create their own, is definitely inspiring.

I can’t say for sure whether or not Brink will be a huge step forward in the FPS community. I do know that I like what I see this far, and it certainly seems to be deviating from the same standard status quo so to speak. CoD4 went in their own direction, and that worked out fairly well. For a little while anyway. We’ll see what happens in the future.

I’ll leave you with a parting question. Are you looking for something new? Are you tired of the same old stuff given to us in current FPS’s and find yourself ready to move on?