Shazam!
03-19-2010, 09:52 PM
The Other Call of Duty
In praise of Treyarch's work in Infinity Ward's universe.
by Michael Thomsen
IGN
March 19, 2010 - There has been a lot of pessimism about the future of Call of Duty in light of the shocking dismissals of Jason West and Vince Zampella. With the series creator Infinity Ward beheaded and Activision planning to allow two other studios to tinker with the Call of Duty formula, it seemed like the lifeblood of the series was diluting itself. That future may yet come to pass, but before it does Treyarch will release the next game in the series rumored to be set in Vietnam. While living in the shadow of Infinity Ward over the last several years, Treyarch has made my two favorite entries in the series. They're not often given credit for their work, but Treyarch has done some great work building on Infinity Ward's template and, though this may sound like heresy to some, I've always preferred their Call of Duty installments.
The sense of solidarity among squad mates feels much stronger to me in Treyarch's games. There are natural tensions everywhere, which is just exactly what you'd expect when throwing together a few different draftees and putting them in mortal danger. I've been in yelling matches in an office over printer paper. I can well imagine those human conflicts would only be heightened in combat. I like the constant bickering in Call of Duty 3, my American squadmates undercutting one another and questioning each other's intentions at every step. In the early going someone threatens to shoot Private Guzzo for questioning an order. At the end of the level Guzzo complains, "A guy sticks a gun in my face, and that's not enough to get transferred?"
"Have you written your congressman?" Nichols responds.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/107/1078836/the-other-call-of-duty-20100319021931769.jpg
Called to duty in Call of Duty 3.
There's a resigned cynicism in Treyarch's world. Soldiers have a weary disappointment at the random crews they've wound up with, ironically recognizing they're each other's best hopes for survival and most unreliable partners. In a later level, you're forced to take point mid-way through a mission because your squad leader goes into shellshock and becomes nonresponsive. In an earlier level, after having taken out an anti-tank gun you watch a flood of new Allied troops flood across a field, but instead of joining with them your group collapses in exhaustion. "We've done our job, let them do theirs," you're told. There are acts of heroism in Treyarch's games, but the scale on which they're performed feels bigger.
There's something inherently cruel about trying to recreate a war experience for the sake of entertainment. This isn't a debate many engage in since we've already accepted the idea that games require conflict to be fun, and it follows that shooting things is the easiest way to have fun. Infinity Ward's games, especially the Modern Warfare duo, have addressed this tension by presenting their worlds as hyper-real. There is an emphasis on jargon, ballistics, and paraphernalia that gives the world an impersonal feeling.
In contrast, Treyarch's games emphasize characters and interpersonal conflict. "We're on a secret mission to get coffee and donuts," McMillan explains in the opening of Call of Duty 3. "The problem is the Germans ate all the donuts and drank all the coffee so now we gotta kick their asses." It's a startling line, both in its crude condensation of World War II and in its glibness in sanctioning violence. It also captures the need-to-know basis of soldierly motivation, while keeping the human conveyor belt of new recruits as well supplied as possible. I can imagine the disorientation of having been drafted and sent overseas to a place I'd never seen, in a company of randomly selected strangers, given a gun, and being ordered to fight.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/107/1078836/the-other-call-of-duty-20100319021930815.jpg
A soldier's job is never done.
Rather than framing their game as an action story in which the threat of nuclear attack is at stake in every possible encounter, Call of Duty 3 is a sort of worm's tale. I have only the vaguest idea about where I'm supposed to go and why I'm supposed to go there. This rough jingo is a wonderful match for the constricted levels, concealing the intestinal corridor with the illusion of open and natural terrain. Stumbling through the rainy fields and abandoned farms, there's an inherent tension. The environments invite exploration and idle roaming, but the player is never given room to tarry. It's a forced march of concussive trauma.
Both CoD 3 and Call of Duty: World at War have a more vivid sense of the effect of fighting on soldiers, and both have bitterly emotional conclusions. In CoD 3, players are trapped in an open square and assaulted by a tidal wave of enemy fire. Tanks, artillery, and infantry swarm towards the one point on the map where you're pinned down. There's no joy or fun in the scene. The sound design is overwhelming, filled with gunfire, explosions, cries of fellow soldiers; it's chaotic and deafening. It's impossible to think clearly or fully absorb what's happening around you. Instead you simply have to respond. The only directive is survival. Once the attack has been pushed back I feel an awful emptiness.
After so many minutes of that loud clattering and antagonism the stillness felt totally alien. Cutting to an image of American soldiers walking into the Arch de Triumphe at sunrise, I felt the terrible connection of all of those thousands of grunts on the ground who had to be brutalized in order to accomplish such a grand strategic victory. It felt terrible. It reminded me of my friend's grandfather who'd fought at Normandy and refused to ever talk about his experiences there. I still can't even really guess what terrible memories of gore and death he must have trapped in his head. But a portrait of war from the soldier's point of view that says it was both too high a price to pay and completely unavoidable seems to point towards that dark blankness.
World at War takes that concept and inverts it. Trauma is the starting point in World at War. Players are entreated not just to survive those warlike horrors, but to commit them in the name of vengeance. The game opens with players forced to watch a fellow soldier's throat slit, blood spattering onto the wall as his body drops limply to the floor. Just as the Japanese commander turns the knife on you, Kiefer Sutherland comes to the rescue with his thick and smoky voice. You've suffered enough; it's time to inflict some suffering of your own. The Russian campaign is, likewise, alive with this theme of vengeance. You wake up in a pile of dead bodies in Stalingrad, Nazi soldiers brazenly shooting more bullets into the empty husks while crows peck at the runoff. Out of this human shamble you find another sign of life, a hardened old-timer with a sniper rifle and an unstoppable vendetta. This is the moment the Germans are turned backwards and chased all the way to Berlin by a tide of Soviet fury.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/107/1078836/the-other-call-of-duty-20100319021929097.jpg
In World at War, death is personal.
There's a brutality in World at War that pushes past anything that's been done in the franchise since the beginning, including the infamous No Russian level from Modern Warfare 2. After calling in an airstrike on a beachhead in Peleliu, you discover the still living remains of the Japanese. A legless man tries to drag his body across the sand like some nightmarish snail. Men with bodies burned open to the muscle tissue beneath stumble in shock through the last few seconds of their lives. I couldn't help myself from feeling empathy with those sad creatures. I wanted to try and help them.
And then I remembered that these would have been the same indefatigable fighters who'd silently materialize from hovels in the tall grass, or tie themselves to palm trees for days, waiting to ambush me. These conflicts abound in war. It's easy to hate a uniform, a flag, or any other symbol, but it's much harder to apply that same sense of hatred to a human being or the home they've built for their family. There's no easy way to rationalize that, and Treyarch games let players dangle in the moral abyss. You can see it in the faces of the German soldiers you grapple with in CoD 3, their faces turning from angry sneers to panicked fear as you overpower them. It's an insidious approach to violent game design, rewarding successes with bestial reminders of just how savage your actions are.
World at War also had some of the most remarkable cutscenes I've ever seen. They're part graphic novel, part power point presentation, and part propaganda film, reducing global complexities into a relatable series of expanding arrows on a map. In turn, those morph into the faces of the wounded, then turn into factory workers building bombers, before finally zeroing in on the geography of the next level being introduced. It takes a few general textbook points about each conflict and arranges them like a Tolkien-esque conflict between good and evil. They're jingoistic briefings with lots of statistics and charts that flow by almost before you've had time to absorb them in full. It's a perfectly modern send-up of the propaganda films of the 40's and a great match for the heated gore of each mission.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/107/1078836/the-other-call-of-duty-20100319021932675.jpg
Treyarch's World War II scenarios shine a light on heroism and savagery.
Treyarch's not often given credit for their work with Call of Duty. Even when reviews of their work are positive, there's always some mention of not quite being able to live up to the standards of Infinity Ward. Call of Duty will always be remembered as Infinity Ward's creation, just as Star Wars will always be George Lucas's creation.
In the same way that Irvin Kershner found something darkly romantic in Lucas's world with Empire Strikes Back, Treyarch's variations on Infinity Ward's themes have added an empathetic aspect that hadn't really been there before. They may not have originated the series but they've added something brutal and personal to it and whatever lies ahead, there should always be hope for something disarmingly emotional when Treyarch's given the reins.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/107/1078876p1.html
In praise of Treyarch's work in Infinity Ward's universe.
by Michael Thomsen
IGN
March 19, 2010 - There has been a lot of pessimism about the future of Call of Duty in light of the shocking dismissals of Jason West and Vince Zampella. With the series creator Infinity Ward beheaded and Activision planning to allow two other studios to tinker with the Call of Duty formula, it seemed like the lifeblood of the series was diluting itself. That future may yet come to pass, but before it does Treyarch will release the next game in the series rumored to be set in Vietnam. While living in the shadow of Infinity Ward over the last several years, Treyarch has made my two favorite entries in the series. They're not often given credit for their work, but Treyarch has done some great work building on Infinity Ward's template and, though this may sound like heresy to some, I've always preferred their Call of Duty installments.
The sense of solidarity among squad mates feels much stronger to me in Treyarch's games. There are natural tensions everywhere, which is just exactly what you'd expect when throwing together a few different draftees and putting them in mortal danger. I've been in yelling matches in an office over printer paper. I can well imagine those human conflicts would only be heightened in combat. I like the constant bickering in Call of Duty 3, my American squadmates undercutting one another and questioning each other's intentions at every step. In the early going someone threatens to shoot Private Guzzo for questioning an order. At the end of the level Guzzo complains, "A guy sticks a gun in my face, and that's not enough to get transferred?"
"Have you written your congressman?" Nichols responds.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/107/1078836/the-other-call-of-duty-20100319021931769.jpg
Called to duty in Call of Duty 3.
There's a resigned cynicism in Treyarch's world. Soldiers have a weary disappointment at the random crews they've wound up with, ironically recognizing they're each other's best hopes for survival and most unreliable partners. In a later level, you're forced to take point mid-way through a mission because your squad leader goes into shellshock and becomes nonresponsive. In an earlier level, after having taken out an anti-tank gun you watch a flood of new Allied troops flood across a field, but instead of joining with them your group collapses in exhaustion. "We've done our job, let them do theirs," you're told. There are acts of heroism in Treyarch's games, but the scale on which they're performed feels bigger.
There's something inherently cruel about trying to recreate a war experience for the sake of entertainment. This isn't a debate many engage in since we've already accepted the idea that games require conflict to be fun, and it follows that shooting things is the easiest way to have fun. Infinity Ward's games, especially the Modern Warfare duo, have addressed this tension by presenting their worlds as hyper-real. There is an emphasis on jargon, ballistics, and paraphernalia that gives the world an impersonal feeling.
In contrast, Treyarch's games emphasize characters and interpersonal conflict. "We're on a secret mission to get coffee and donuts," McMillan explains in the opening of Call of Duty 3. "The problem is the Germans ate all the donuts and drank all the coffee so now we gotta kick their asses." It's a startling line, both in its crude condensation of World War II and in its glibness in sanctioning violence. It also captures the need-to-know basis of soldierly motivation, while keeping the human conveyor belt of new recruits as well supplied as possible. I can imagine the disorientation of having been drafted and sent overseas to a place I'd never seen, in a company of randomly selected strangers, given a gun, and being ordered to fight.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/107/1078836/the-other-call-of-duty-20100319021930815.jpg
A soldier's job is never done.
Rather than framing their game as an action story in which the threat of nuclear attack is at stake in every possible encounter, Call of Duty 3 is a sort of worm's tale. I have only the vaguest idea about where I'm supposed to go and why I'm supposed to go there. This rough jingo is a wonderful match for the constricted levels, concealing the intestinal corridor with the illusion of open and natural terrain. Stumbling through the rainy fields and abandoned farms, there's an inherent tension. The environments invite exploration and idle roaming, but the player is never given room to tarry. It's a forced march of concussive trauma.
Both CoD 3 and Call of Duty: World at War have a more vivid sense of the effect of fighting on soldiers, and both have bitterly emotional conclusions. In CoD 3, players are trapped in an open square and assaulted by a tidal wave of enemy fire. Tanks, artillery, and infantry swarm towards the one point on the map where you're pinned down. There's no joy or fun in the scene. The sound design is overwhelming, filled with gunfire, explosions, cries of fellow soldiers; it's chaotic and deafening. It's impossible to think clearly or fully absorb what's happening around you. Instead you simply have to respond. The only directive is survival. Once the attack has been pushed back I feel an awful emptiness.
After so many minutes of that loud clattering and antagonism the stillness felt totally alien. Cutting to an image of American soldiers walking into the Arch de Triumphe at sunrise, I felt the terrible connection of all of those thousands of grunts on the ground who had to be brutalized in order to accomplish such a grand strategic victory. It felt terrible. It reminded me of my friend's grandfather who'd fought at Normandy and refused to ever talk about his experiences there. I still can't even really guess what terrible memories of gore and death he must have trapped in his head. But a portrait of war from the soldier's point of view that says it was both too high a price to pay and completely unavoidable seems to point towards that dark blankness.
World at War takes that concept and inverts it. Trauma is the starting point in World at War. Players are entreated not just to survive those warlike horrors, but to commit them in the name of vengeance. The game opens with players forced to watch a fellow soldier's throat slit, blood spattering onto the wall as his body drops limply to the floor. Just as the Japanese commander turns the knife on you, Kiefer Sutherland comes to the rescue with his thick and smoky voice. You've suffered enough; it's time to inflict some suffering of your own. The Russian campaign is, likewise, alive with this theme of vengeance. You wake up in a pile of dead bodies in Stalingrad, Nazi soldiers brazenly shooting more bullets into the empty husks while crows peck at the runoff. Out of this human shamble you find another sign of life, a hardened old-timer with a sniper rifle and an unstoppable vendetta. This is the moment the Germans are turned backwards and chased all the way to Berlin by a tide of Soviet fury.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/107/1078836/the-other-call-of-duty-20100319021929097.jpg
In World at War, death is personal.
There's a brutality in World at War that pushes past anything that's been done in the franchise since the beginning, including the infamous No Russian level from Modern Warfare 2. After calling in an airstrike on a beachhead in Peleliu, you discover the still living remains of the Japanese. A legless man tries to drag his body across the sand like some nightmarish snail. Men with bodies burned open to the muscle tissue beneath stumble in shock through the last few seconds of their lives. I couldn't help myself from feeling empathy with those sad creatures. I wanted to try and help them.
And then I remembered that these would have been the same indefatigable fighters who'd silently materialize from hovels in the tall grass, or tie themselves to palm trees for days, waiting to ambush me. These conflicts abound in war. It's easy to hate a uniform, a flag, or any other symbol, but it's much harder to apply that same sense of hatred to a human being or the home they've built for their family. There's no easy way to rationalize that, and Treyarch games let players dangle in the moral abyss. You can see it in the faces of the German soldiers you grapple with in CoD 3, their faces turning from angry sneers to panicked fear as you overpower them. It's an insidious approach to violent game design, rewarding successes with bestial reminders of just how savage your actions are.
World at War also had some of the most remarkable cutscenes I've ever seen. They're part graphic novel, part power point presentation, and part propaganda film, reducing global complexities into a relatable series of expanding arrows on a map. In turn, those morph into the faces of the wounded, then turn into factory workers building bombers, before finally zeroing in on the geography of the next level being introduced. It takes a few general textbook points about each conflict and arranges them like a Tolkien-esque conflict between good and evil. They're jingoistic briefings with lots of statistics and charts that flow by almost before you've had time to absorb them in full. It's a perfectly modern send-up of the propaganda films of the 40's and a great match for the heated gore of each mission.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/107/1078836/the-other-call-of-duty-20100319021932675.jpg
Treyarch's World War II scenarios shine a light on heroism and savagery.
Treyarch's not often given credit for their work with Call of Duty. Even when reviews of their work are positive, there's always some mention of not quite being able to live up to the standards of Infinity Ward. Call of Duty will always be remembered as Infinity Ward's creation, just as Star Wars will always be George Lucas's creation.
In the same way that Irvin Kershner found something darkly romantic in Lucas's world with Empire Strikes Back, Treyarch's variations on Infinity Ward's themes have added an empathetic aspect that hadn't really been there before. They may not have originated the series but they've added something brutal and personal to it and whatever lies ahead, there should always be hope for something disarmingly emotional when Treyarch's given the reins.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/107/1078876p1.html