The 7th installment in the Call of Duty series looks promising. Selling over 14 million copies, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 quickly became the best selling video game of all-time. But the new addition to the family will face many of the same challenges that Call of Duty: World at War faced. Following the ultra successful original Modern Warfare, WaW had little chance of living up to the hype. You think we would have learned by now. With follow up games to smash hits like Halo 2, GTA IV, and CoD: MW failing to live up to expectations, you would think that the hype surrounding the release of this new chapter in the CoD line would finally be realistic; that is, anticipated, but not over-hyped. It's still WAY to early to tell how the game will initially be received, this is the only trailer released so far, but judging on past trends, optimism and expectations for Black OPS should be tamed down a bit.
To better understand the impact of the Call of Duty series on pop culture over the last 5 years, let's exam some statistics.
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare had over 10 million people log an online game. IGN reports that roughly half of the people who purchase Xbox 360 games never actually connect to XBL. So it's safe to say that more people have played Call of Duty Modern Warfare than live in New York City.
- That number nearly doubled for November 2009's Modern Warfare 2 release
More copies of the Modern Warfare games have been sold since 2007 than the top 3 NY Times best sellers since then combined. So what challenges does Black OPS face? And what can it learn from World at War being sandwiched in between the Modern Warfare 1 and 2 games?
First off, lower the expectations. Let's treat it like a checkpoint in between the 2nd and 3rd MW games. Second, don't compare it to them. Compare it to World at War. Compare it to CoD 4. But don't compare it to the Modern Warfare installments. Don't do that to it.
And finally, remember, it's just a game. If your XBL gets cancelled, or your disc breaks, take refuge in one of these alternatives:
- Bored games
- Reading an encyclopedia
- Working out
- Playing sports
Just dont react like this:
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