Call of Duty vs. Battlefield

The release of any Call of Duty game is a big deal. That is largely based on the fact that for the last several years the annual release of Call of Duty has been not only the top selling game of the year, not only the top selling video game of all time, but the biggest entertainment release in the history of the world. A bit hyped, sure, but true nonetheless. If there was ever a game that other companies would try and compete against it is the Call of Duty games, and in particular this year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Now, in walks Battlefield 3. The Battlefield series comes with quite a history of its own, albeit with dollar sums that don’t stretch quite so high, but still impressive. This latest iteration of the Battlefield series comes with a fresh new engine that has looked beautiful and since Battlefield has significant street cred to begin with, if there were ever to be a significant challenger to the Call of Duty throne, this is it.

So how exactly do things stack up? Having reviewed both games already I won’t bother with going item by item through them but will rather cut straight to the meat. The best way to describe how these two games compare would be to say that Modern Warfare 3 is like the old pro who is enjoyable but getting kind of long in the tooth while Battlefield 3 is the rising star who still lacks some polish.

When you look at core game mechanics, Battlefield 3 is just such a better game. As war simulators, Battlefield 3 is simply hands down superior. The battles are better laid out. The graphics and overall visual quality is much, much better. The single player campaign is much more engaging and interesting. Just the overall feel of how you can be strolling through with your unit, then all of a sudden a big firefight breaks out, and then how things go quiet again afterwards just make everything feel much more real. The multiplayer in Battlefield 3 is also much more dynamic and fun. The maps are beautiful and whether you’re using vehicles or not, everything just feels more fluid. The people at Activision can talk all they want about 60 fps, but it’s getting kind of old.  Sure, when your game looks like it was made 5 years ago of course it can run at 60 fps.

Modern Warfare 3 lags behind in all these areas. In addition to the dated visuals, the single player campaign is utterly forgettable. Skirmishes and firefights don’t really exist as each level just feels like huge waves of mindless drones being flung at you. The multiplayer is so terribly antiquated . . . mechanics, visuals, everything. I know I keep mentioning graphics and such and that’s partly because for a FPS, especially a military FPS, things should be looking pretty phenomenal. When making a military FPS you don’t need to worry about things like leveling up, skill trees, crazy abilities, lots of different types of enemies or lots of other things. The goal is to be the best simulator of military conflict and that includes how things look.  I know the mindset is that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.  People are happy gobbling up the Call of Duty games every year so give the people what they want.  This can’t be sustainable in the long run.

While Modern Warfare lacks in core quality, overall polish is where it shines. What do I mean by polish? Well for starters I’m talking about allowing splitscreen multiplayer on consoles. The notion that you can release a FPS in 2011 and expect it to compete with the top selling game of the year without any sort of split screen function is deplorable and I have no idea what the makers of Battlefield 3 were thinking. Obviously on a console you have to dial down graphical quality to make splitscreen happen, but it needs to happen. End of story.

The Call of Duty games have also learned over the years that life exists outside of multiplayer deathmatch. They have come up with other ways to enjoy the game. Whether its some type of survival mode, zombie mode, some type of co-op skirmish, or whatever else, there are other ways to play the game. Battlefield 3? Not so much.

So where should the games go from here? I think the future definitely looks brighter for the Battlefield series. It seems like they could add features like splitscreen and other fun little modes to keep people entertained without much difficulty. With the core game already solid, they could add these features and get by making incremental changes to the core game. On the other side, Call of Duty needs some drastic improvement to its core structure. Visually, things need to look much better. They need to get smarter with level and map design with more intelligent enemies and more intelligent battles. It’s a shame because when the first Call of Duty games came out, they were extremely impressive. At that time Medal of Honor was probably the biggest military FPS franchise and the Call of Duty games just blew them away from both a gameplay and graphical standpoint. Things have definitely stagnated since then.

The Call of Duty release will probably be Black Ops 2. The next Battlefield game will likely be some spin-off of Battlefield 3. It will be interesting to see how EA plays its hand though because Medal of Honor 2 is due out this year so maybe EA will pit Medal of Honor 2 against Black Ops 2. Its impossible to know for sure at the moment but there’s definitely room for improvement on all sides.