The author could have delved at least a bit deeper into the "No Russian" controversy. It was huge at the time and deserved more than a footnote in a comprehensive Call of Duty article. Other than that, pretty nice article.
I still remember the main line from one magazine ad I saw for the original Call of Duty back in 2003:
"In war, no one fights alone".
This concept felt like a huge innovation for fps titles of the time (there were hardcore tactical shooters where you controlled a squad like Ghost Recon and Operation Flashpoint, but in more action oriented shooters we always played as a one-man army).
The CoD campaigns had its highs and lows over the years:
- United Offensive is one of my favorites to this day.
- Call of Duty 2 is universally acclaimed but I'm the oddball. I never liked it much and could never get into it, either PC or console versions.
- Call of Duty 3 campaign was great and I feel sorry it was never ported to PC.
- I didn't care about MW1 much (campaign was decent but felt too much like a Michael Bay movie, sadly a trend that would continue), however technically the game was jaw-droppingly impressive at the time, especially how they managed to get it running at 60 fps on the Xbox 360 with such great graphics.
- Hated WaW campaign, too fast and frenetic, especially for a WW2 game. Some segments seemed made for people high on meth or dope. Sadly this sort of action would become more common in subsequent CoD campaigns.
- MW2 was pretty good, probably best campaign since United Offensive and CoD 3.
- Hated Black Ops 1 campaign, never finished it. Never played Black Ops 2.
- MW3 was alright but meh.
- CoD Ghosts campaign was just awful. What were they thinking?
- Advanced Warfare and Black Ops 3 were tolerable but pretty mediocre.
- Infinite Warfare's campaign is surprisingly good, totally agree with Aamir here. I went into IW expecting an even bigger letdown than previous entries and was positively surprised. I'd say it's even better than MW2 and one of the best campaigns in the entire franchise. I even liked all the segments and missions where we pilot a combat spaceship and I'd dare to say they could make an entire Wing Commander style game using the space combat engine of this CoD. My only criticism is that later missions take a sharp drop in quality, mainly for the same reason I don't like CoD: WaW - many segments made for players high on meth, dope or energy drinks.
- CoD: WW2 is a fairly decent if uninspired entry, until you get to THAT mission. Those who played it know what I'm talking about. The one that's considered among many fans the most badly designed, difficult and frustrating mission in all CoD campaigns. I could never beat it and gave up after failing more than 20 times. Not even an invincibility cheat can help if it's simply impossible to hit the target.
