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How are the Call of Duty single player games?

While I can't really fairly judge them as a whole (as I only played Modern Warfare 1 Wii and Black Ops 1 PS3) but from both of them.....the former was good while the latter was a slog to play though :(.

Modern Warfare was very impressive to me considering it was my first COD game I ever played; the single player levels had lots of verity, the visuals (even on Wii) were very impressive and the story was okay too.

With Black Ops....I just didn't really like it from the start sadly :(. The visuals looking very....drab? (I think :l...) The gameplay being almost EXACTLY the same as MW1 (don't mind that....but the level structure was almost 1-to-1 with that game to me :l), and many of the missions were very boring to go through. The only missions I fondly remember from my experience from the game was the Prison Brake Mission and the Rooftop Mission (where you have dual hand-guns and are running from rooftop to rooftop killing waves and waves of foes at once; was fun to me :)). Granted, I didn't beat the game (as I just....didn't want to play it sadly :(), but I really didn't like it too much single player wise :(.

I'm sure other COD's had stronger single player modes but.....I guess the series just isn't for me :l.

Granted, I did enjoy the multiplayer for both games :); got to level 12 in Black Ops before I traded it in and got to level 35 in MW Wii before I stopped playing it :).
 
Guilty pleasures; very little depth to the combat, AI that's almost Doom level (except if 99% of the enemies were Zombiemen) and many of them become borderline broken if you turn up the difficulty, but they're so committed to offering the crazy summer blockbuster type experience, and have the budget and polish to do so, that they end up being quite compelling if you sit back and let them take you for a ride without trying to think about or push them too much.
 
Sothpaw said:
The stories though are totally ridiculous. Russia invading America? South America uniting and becoming a legitimate threat to North America? OK bros. At least get a radical Islam or North Korea story in there.
Click to expand...

Not to devolve into political shitposting but I don't find those elements too incredulous given what happened with Korea, Vietnam, Cuba or 9/11...

The 'entirety' of South America for one would presumably be quite intimidating to anywhere. So whilst these unions are far fetched in of themselves, the idea they could invade the US with said forces, I wouldn't say was.
 
Having played most of them until Black Ops II, I would say COD4, MW2, and COD2 are the best ones single player wise. MW3 felt like an expansion than a full on game (in other words, they could have released it as a piece of DLC to MW2 and it would have been fine). Black Ops starts out fine and has a mostly coherent story but the ending....oh man, the ending is just bad. BOII is probably the worst story I've ever played in a game and I'm not looking forward to Ghosts.
 
1, UO, and 2 are the best for single player. 3 wasn't even that bad. 4 and MW2 were too short imo. I stopped playing games in the series about a quarter of the way through Black Ops.
 
They are a lot better than they get credit for. The devs actually try to make them good and for the most part they are good. Only MW3 single player I thought was crap but everything from the original to the latest I thought was good to above average.
 
Be sure to play COD1 even if just for no health regen. I remember having some really dense moments on Veteran because of that. That being said, I liked it quite a bit overall.
 
I'd say MW1 and MW2 had the best single player campaigns. BO was good, BO2 I didn't care for, MW3 and Ghost are probably in a league of their own. I haven't had that MW2 feeling in a long time. I was hoping we'd get a SWAT game to tone down this whole futuristic bro stuff.

The genre has changed quite a bit. Two genrations ago this modern war genre sucked. It was plagued by arcade style shooters, strategic combat, or army shooters that were endorsed for the wrong reasons.

Play MW1, then MW2, then just wait until the new one comes out. lol MW3 was a bit of a let down. It was still good, but it was a let down over the previous two titles.
 
I'm also not so hot on multiplayer (other than couch, I have always had a blast playing split scree COD and hope it doesn't go away) when it comes to COD, and enjoyed the shit out of COD4, I also liked WAW's campaign.
 
I don't remember much from MW2's campaign besides
No Russian, taking back the White House, and hunting down the traitorous general at the end.

MW1 is definitely the best.
Dying to the nuke
is one of my most memorable gaming moments.

MW3 was forgettable.

Black Ops 1 had a nice twist. Black Ops 2 tried to change it up with alternate endings but they didn't really work that well.
There's a part near the end when you have to choose between shooting an ally or the main bad guy. It's pretty obvious you won't be able to kill the bad guy so the decision loses its impact.
 
I've only played Ghosts and I found it to be a mixed bag.

On one hand, there were some really impressive set-pieces, especially nearer the end and a real 'blockbuster' feel to it.

On the other, as soon as I'd finished the campaign I had absolutely no desire to go back to it ever again.

My experience of it was that it was a fun ride while it lasted but felt really insubstantial. I'm aware that it's the equivalent of yer-standard-Hollywood-blockbuster but the writing and characters were irritating too.

I know it's not that relevant (so sorry) but if you are looking for a recent SP FPS, I'd strongly, strongly recommend Wolfenstein - it's leagues ahead. Obviously with Ghosts you get all the different MP modes though.
 
sploatee said:
I know it's not that relevant (so sorry) but if you are looking for a recent SP FPS, I'd strongly, strongly recommend Wolfenstein - it's leagues ahead. Obviously with Ghosts you get all the different MP modes though.
Click to expand...

Wolfenstein is always relevant. The first level is basically CoD.
 
I have played every one of them, and I quite enjoy them. MW1 in particular is amazing, so good that every shooter since has copied it to death. My order would be:

CoD4: MW1
MW2
CoD2
MW3
World at War
Blops 2
Ghosts
Blops
CoD1
CoD3
 
I am probably in the minority where my opinion is that they are all pretty great.

I only played through the campaigns on Veteran (and Mile High Club!) and have beat all them started at Modern Warfare. I enjoy the type of game play where one wrong movement can make you start again and you have to figure out a strategy that makes it work.

About the only time my patience was tested was during World At War where all of a sudden you would have a dozen grenades on your HUD.

Length wise there isn't much, the longest you are probably looking at around 10 hours and the shortest being around 5.
 
The branching campaign stuff in Black Ops 2 was really interesting. It was cool and dynamic without obvious "YOU ARE MAKING A CHOICE" moments that actually affected how things turned out. Though it did feel a little arbitrary and it ended up with me getting the insanely horrific ending due to things that didn't really feel like my fault.
 
They're fun roller coaster rides that also serve the function of being glorified tutorials. The only one that's worth playing for the entertainment of the campaign alone is the first MW.
 
They're as fun/dull as any summer action flick. I have enjoyed them all, but I wouldn't say they're great. I like having a stupid FPS here and there, just like I like dumb summer blockbuster flicks here and there.
 
CoD 2 on Veteran was one of my favorite early last-gen experiences. After that I played all of the games on Veteran and thoroughly enjoyed the Modern Warfare series. Got really bored with Black Ops though, and haven't touched the games since.

This is all single player of course. Multi is fun, but not why I play these games.
 
The World War II ones are better than the modern ones for single player.

I have not played the Black Ops games.
 
YMMV. I had a lot of fun with Black Ops 1 because of the famous actors and the characters had personality. And there was a story, a fun yet silly, story.

The MW games didn't feel as interesting because there was no personality with the characters. It was just a set of missions with a uninteresting backstory.

I think for a strictly military SP shooter, the first Medal of Honor reboot did it better than the MW series, in my opinion.
 
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare single-player game was genuinely good, in my opinion, though at this point nearly everything in it is a trope.

The other games in the series run from "meh" to "just ridiculous".
 
Call of Duty 1 and 2 had great lengthy WW2 single-player campaigns. Call of Duty 4's campaign was great at the time it released and still holds well now, but it was a bit short compared to the earlier titles.

The problem with the latter releases and the current crop of COD games is that they all follow the pattern set by COD4 which means short linear and highly scripted campaigns that have not changed much year after year. Black Ops II tried to shake things up but the series is back at the same formula again. Once you've played COD4 you've pretty much played them all with it comes to the campaigns now imo.
 
COD1/2 are tiiiiiight

cod1 cribbed all of it's sets from 1980s/1990s/early 2000s ww2 movies so it is just a blast to play through because a bunch of cool shit happens all the time

cod2 has more interesting settings because it focuses on the russia and africa campaigns more. the american parts are the low point for sure

cod4 is the best of the modern cods, but it's the starter for the formula so it's also very 'formluaic' and kinda unfortunately has all the stereotypes about it be true because it's the originator
 
They're fine blockbuster style linear campaigns. I really enjoyed Black Ops and its sequel.

it's the only reason I even pay attention to CoD since multiplayer isnt my thing.
 
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