Black Ops and Modern Warfare are mutually exclusive

I know I talk about games a lot, but this is going to be a big rant. I know I also tell anyone I can get my hands on that games are the pinnacle of human storytelling. This has nothing to do with that. I am just going to bitch and whine about how one game is better than the other. But for good reason. But, you know, you've been warned. If this kind of thing doesn't interest you, I suggest you check out http://www.notquitewrong.com/rosscottinc/. It's awesome and a lot more funny than what comes after the jump.

Very simple really.

Modern Warfare 2 came out over a year ago. Black Ops came out recently. While both Call of Duty games, they're made by two separate studio's: Infinity Ward and Treyarch. There was a huge fight between Infinity Ward and their boss, so they quit. Well, technically the CEO's were escorted to the exit by security and their entire time followed suit, because, well, Activisions CEO, the owner of both studios, Bobby Kotick, is a dweeb, a jerk, a douchebag and a bit of a cunt. And not in a good way.

A whole lot of legal trouble later, Infinity Ward still exists under a different name but does not hold the rights to the Modern Warfare franchise, and Activisions inferior studio is left to clean up the mess. They screwed up royally with World at War, whose sole redeeming feature was zombie mode, because back then, it was unique.

So here we are.

Black Ops is boring. It is not just boring, it is boring as Fuck. Where Modern Warfare (1&2) are an amalgam of bad war movies, just over the top enough to make it fun (you witness a nuke go off in your general direction, for one), Black Ops is like that 80's conspiracy movie that takes itself way too seriously. But it's not just that. The gameplay is horrible as well. I played Black Ops. Once. On a hard setting so that I could play it again on an easier one to go trophy hunting. I can. Not. Finish. Level. 2. Out of sheer boredom. Every level, I wait for the next one, but it never gets any better. The game feels wrong somehow. Like there's something missing. It's not just that every gun sounds like you're smashing rocks with bigger rocks and remixing it, or that, despite being played by Sam Worthington, Ed Harris and Gary Oldman (and some rapper guy who plays the token black guy. He's the only actor to get mentioned in the promo video. Maybe the demographic wouldn't have heard of, say, Harry Potter or Avatar), the characters are bland and uninteresting. But that's not the problem. There's something inherently boring about the game. I think it's because the level design is bland, as are the enemies, and they tried to fix that in two ways. First, they added a lot of smoke. Second, every once in a while, you get a level with a really strange design, through which no human could possibly navigate, so they take control away from you every other second to guide you in the right direction.

There was one (1) fun part in the entire game: flying a helicopter. That's it.

Modern Warfare 2 solved the above problems by having every other level have a different play-style or gimmick. Sometimes you're in the back of a hum-vee with a really big machine gun, sometimes your chasing someone through a favela or shooting a russian arm-dealer (wink wink) from a really long way off.

Black Ops has every level be the same, with different backdrops. Than there's the part where you're supposed to feel invigorated and pushed on by the story and adrenalin. Frankly, you're missing both. The story is straightforward, the big reveal was obvious from about 20 minutes in, and every "twist" is just stupid.

You have to go all the way to asia to get a contact, who is crazy prepared, only to have him get shot in the face as he's about to tell you what you want to know. This is not edgy storytelling this is annoying. I wished, more than once, that the character would say "fuck it" and go home. No such luck.

Here are some other reasons Modern Warfare 2 is superior:

- Spec Ops. I would buy MW2 just for spec ops, if it didn't have that ridiculous price tag. Seriously though. If you're playing with two, it's a ton of fun, and you can keep playing and re-playing and re-playing and re-playing and.... I know I did.

- Zombie mode. Used to be fun, back when everyone didn't get on the bandwagon. It's not very special. You can play it with friends, which basically means you're playing it with people who are expecting a multiplayer game but really should not. It's not multiplayer. There's just a bunch of you fighting off zombies. Teamwork will be of no help. The only reason not to play alone is so you have higher odds of respawning. Boring.

- Captain Price/McMillan/Soap Mctavish. 'nuff said.

- Reznov (HUGE SPOILER AHEAD. Skip until after my go-ahead:

Reznov is a figment of your imagination, which is apparent as soon as you see him interact with any character after your first level with him. As in, he doesn't, and people go "wtf is your problem, man?" whenever you talk to him. He's supposed to be treyarchs Price, but he really isn't. He's just someone who yells a lot and speaks in cryptic tongues.

SPOILER OVER!

- The guns. Oh the guns. It seems like they tried to make up for lack of a decent arsenal by adding a shotgun that fires fire-bullets (Pointless. It's a shotgun. If I blow a guy's legs off, I think I'm safe from him, whether he's on fire or not). Another addition is the flamethrower, another one of those weapons that is used only to spite others. It sets people on fire, which gives them just enough time to kill you and die themselves. This does not help anyone.

Add to that that most guns sound like shit. The multiplayer fixes this by adding several modern-era weapons, such as the famas (in use only exceeded by the ak-47).

- The AK-47. The only one not directly related to Black Ops. It's the most overused weapon in video games, and not for the right reasons. In real life, it's used a lot because it's so incredibly reliable. It doesn't jam. That's it. In most multiplayer games, it's one of the best weapons, having great accuracy and damage. It's not that good, especially in comparison to other weapons. But blegh...

Anyway, that was it.