Each game comes at a different time in the developer's arc - Halo: Reach was produced by Bungie as their last title in this franchise. They are at the top of their game after making 5 Halo titles and ready to move onto other projects. Call of Duty is made by Treyarch, up until this year they have been the B-team of the Call of Duty franchise, always in the shadow of Infinity Ward. With IW's meltdown, this year was Treyarch's time to show they can be the lead developer in the franchise. Finally, Battlefield Bad Company 2 is Dice's 2nd full title on consoles and shows a developer with a lot of experience on PC looking to step into a leading role.
Each franchise is well established and have huge communities of players eager for the online component of their favourite games. For all the them, the single player game is really a secondary offering. The challenge is to offer something exciting and fresh for players, which showcases their game and gets people talking and hopefully draws them into the online component or sets them up to get invested in the franchise and hopefully buy more.
All shooters today live in the shadow of IW's Call of Duty 4, which set the standard on consoles this generation for getting people to sit up and take notice of a stunning single player campaign. For new console owners, its still the first game I recommend when they are looking for something action oriented. IW used a well crafted interface, a short, but exciting campaign punctuated by a series of unique and incredible scripted event or cut scene moments which kept the player engaged and excited throughout the game. All shooters from that point onward have sought to provide a similar mix.
First up, Halo: Reach. Bungie made several departures from the typical Halo story - changed the protagonist, introduced new characters, more emphasis on story and most interestingly, set it during an event that fans of the franchise know will end in a loss. To me, this provides some excellent opportunities for story-telling and characterization as Bungie first establishes a group of heroes that the player is interested and invested in, and then pays off the tragedy by having them slowly realizing that they are first - not going to win, and second, not going to survive. Reach also invites the player to become more invested by allowing them to customize their appearance throughout the game and leaving the character largely silent. In the end, the death of the player's character is an unexpected moment for a franchise which relies upon sequels and reoccurring characters.
In Call of Duty: Black Ops - Treyarch chose to also invest more in character and in story telling. Unlike most games of this franchise, it chose to focus largely on one character, giving him a name and voice and attempting to keep the story bound to his one set of experiences. Although an interesting change in the approach, the game also stays true to COD experience by offering the player an ever growing number of scripted events which attempt to create a series of 'wow' moments. To me, these two elements seemed to clash as it quickly became nonsensical how my one character could have been involved in so much outrageously over the top action - it made the story seem goofy and awkward. Also, in order to keep the player on track and to hit the scripted events - Black Ops extensively relies upon other 3rd party characters who constantly have the term 'Follow' floating above their heads. This reinforces the fact that you are very much locked on a given path through most of the game, and detracts from becoming drawn into your on screen character because the player is given little freedom.
Finally, Bad Company 2 splits the difference between both games - the player takes the role of one of the members of heroes squad, he has a voice and a name and participates in conversations with other characters. The story follows a progression of events and gives the player more freedom to explore. There's a less compelling overall story than in Reach and the more open gameplay isn't a well handled - sometimes characters jump to new locations, or dialogue doesn't trigger unless you wait a long time doing nothing. On the plus side, being more free and the inclusion the destructible environments made a huge difference for me. I found that 'wow' moments still occurred, but they were unique to my location and how I was playing. Also, when the dialogue works, its great. It can be funny and engaging and made me interested in the other characters of my squad. Dice took the super soldiers who typically appear in shooters and made them funny and likeable, that in itself is a feat.
Of the three games discussed, definitely Reach gets the nod for best single player campaign. There's a balance of story, character and action that shows that Bungie has learned a lot from its previous games and has really put it all into this title.
Personally though, I think I liked Battlefield the best - as Dice is still breaking into the console market, it showed the most innovations and changes over the other two established franchises. This is the one that I'm most interested in to see the sequel. With Bungie, it feels that the Halo franchise has probably peaked, and Treyarch has some good ideas but I'm not sure they can allow those to develop without risking the key elements that Call of Duty has become known for.
Overall, these three developers have all shown that there's room to grow in the shooter genre. Lots of action and huge 'wow' moments will still be the essential features, but the genre is continuing to advance by investing more in story and characterization. There's a lot of room to grow here, but it is exciting to see things developing in this direction and its interesting to think where things might go in the future.
J
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