Like most Call of Duty games, Black Ops 3‘s story campaign is a highly scripted, tightly controlled experience. Go here, stand next to that, shoot those guys. Sometimes, in fact, you don’t even have to pull the trigger.
As I made my way through Blops 3‘s opening levels, I reached the first Official Call Of Duty Turret Sequence. I was accompanying some… guys… to do… something, and I heard the call to arms that dutiful COD players know well:
“I got the wheel. Get on the turret.”
“OK,” I thought. “Time to get on that turret and kill some fuckin’ robots.”
Our armoured vehicle tore through a garage door, and I immediately opened fire on the robots in our path. My mounted gun exploded with a volley of ridiculously destructive, likely football-sized bullets. I kept shooting, quickly taking out a couple of enemy vehicles before blowing a massive VTOL out of the sky.
A couple of explosions later, however, something started to feel a little off. My gun felt too powerful, and the on-screen action felt weird and disconnected from my input. I remembered seeing a clip of a past Call of Duty turret sequence — from the first Black Ops, I believe — where the player simply stopped shooting and everything kept on exploding.
So, I stopped shooting. Here’s what happened (I stop at around 0:40):
Of course, it’s no great revelation that Call of Duty doesn’t always require the player’s input. These games set out to do something different from the more systemic, simulated Deus Exes and Far Crys of the world.
This is just another reminder of the kind of game Call of Duty is — and while these sorts of semi-interactive scripted sequences can be silly, they can also be damned effective.
Comments
13 responses to “It’s Always Fun To Stop Shooting And Let Call Of Duty Play Itself”
and yet plebs will continue to buy this tripe regardless.
Ah, lighten up, they are damn fun and at least have an interesting storyline with great single player campaigns.
I agree with the lightening up. I enjoy the COD games for their single player campaign. Yeah, its like an interactive movie, look at Kevin Spacey in the last one and yes it has to be heavily scripted in order to do so. While we’re complaining about COD’s story, lets take a look at Battlefield’s story. “Nobody buys Battlefield for the story” some say, why is that? Because its scripted and plays itself at certain parts? Or because its shit in general.
… and yes, I bought Bad Company, Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 for the single player campaign. They’re fun, but any of the Call of Duty games beat them hands down. I don’t have the time for massive team multiplayer games anymore.
but look at the video. it’s cruise control with NO player involvement at all O_o
i’m not sure why people like you think you’re right but you aren’t. It’s almost like you imagined what games are supposed to be and pretend that this ridiculous, arbitrary criteria should apply to everyone. Generally speaking, if you exclude experience based on assumption you will never have as considered a perspective as someone who can engage with it maturely and critique it fairly. You saw this video, so naturally you want to pretend it is wholly representative of the game. An education would tell you that it’s simply not enough material to construct an accurate opinion on, especially one as all-encompassing and prejudiced as yours.
You think games are based upon player involvement judging by your words, this excludes many games and many sections of games where player involvement may be scaled back for a reason. It could be narrative or pacing reasons but a perspective like yours would cause anyone to think that it’s all just rubbish and the work and consideration put into servicing the narrative would be lost along with the meaning. It’s why we get Transformers and superhero movies that all feel the same, because people who refuse to accept diversity and hold themselves to ridiculous, insane “rules” that all games must abide by because they aren’t aware enough to understand the value of what it does and why. For normal people, “player involvement” doesn’t just mean one thing, it means a range of things. It even means different things depending on the genre. For some people, they can’t see anything but challenge and choice as the reason for gaming, there are actually many different experiences available in the medium and not all are about measuring your e penis or existing solely for uneducated critique.
Really? Call of Duty is your paragon of diversity?
That asside, I’d much rather have seen a cutscene, than have the game dangle toys in front of me, going “Pew pew, good shot! Way to go, aren’t you great. Pew pew!”
i’m not sure why people like you think you’re right but you aren’t.
So ner!
haha!
Just want to say, we have movies (and games) that feel the same because they make money and execs don’t like taking risks, not because people don’t accept diversity.
…or maybe your team’s AI is really, really good…
And REALLY consistent.
I don’t get it? Your team is still shooting, so of course things continue to blow up. The game is playing through a story, do you expect it to completely altar the story because you decided to stop shooting or something? Not to mention this scene is more of a active cutscene then an actual part of a level
I dunno, this just seems like the article is stating the obvious. If you stopped shooting enemies anywhere in the game, they’d continue to die, as you have a team that is there shooting them too, and that is what the story is, the game doesn’t write the story based on your actions, its telling a story and you’re going through it.
So you’re saying CoD is a walking simulator?