CoD 2 Hits 1 Million Sold

Gamasutra reports that the first 360 to hit a million copies sold is, unsurprisingly, Call of Duty 2. From the article: "The World War II themed first person shoot 'em-up was already the best selling title available at launch in the U.S. and is now officially the best selling title of all time on the format, as well as being the most popular Xbox 360 game on Xbox Live. Although console launches have traditionally been dominated by first party releases this convention has proven less true in recent years with LucasArts' Star Wars: Rogue Leader - Rogue Squadron II (also published by Activision in Europe) proving to be the best selling title at the launch of the GameCube. Sony meanwhile, has rarely relied heavily on first party titles for any of its console launches."

Comments

Re:How does it compare to COD 1?

[PaganRitual]

COD2 does give you a fair bit more freedom, but all it really does is alternate between two scenarios.

Firstly, you find yourself in a standoff where you are trying to advance, and have infinite allied forces that constantly respawn, and they have infinite bad guys that constantly respawn, and it's a matter of just culling them down before a spawn so that you can charge in and trigger the level flag that turns off that spawn, thus 'capturing that position' and allowing you to move onto the next such setup.

Or, there will be a structure of some sort occupied by the defending germans which you'll have to liberate, again effectively with the same infinite spawning flag that needs to be tripped before you then begin the other way around, which involves you being the defenders against the incoming german attack.

COD1 had a lot of both but also IIRC some 'go here and do this' objectives where you weren't supported by a infinite number of allies. I hear COD2 has the same bloody annoying style of on-rails sections that the first did, but I've been too bored with the game to continue.

Oh, and it's done a Deus Ex 2 with regards to health and grenades, i.e. dumbed down. There are no health packs now, if you take some damage the screen gets red at the edges and you need to find cover before you get hit too much more, and just naturally heal in a few seconds. Works for sci-fi games (even if Halo is shit) but harder to work with in a WW2 setting. Sure, medkits that you walk over to activate aren't exactly logical but at least there was a visible level to your health instead of a arbitrary red coloring and the ability to auto-heal. And the grenade indicator is obviously meant for people using the xbox360 version that can't quickly swing their aim around to see where that grenade they heard landed. It actually points in the direction of the grenade, obviously requiring you to bolt in the opposite direction. It's actually really lame and takes away a lot of the confusion and panic involved when you hear the dreaded metallic bounce of the grenade.

Although I have to admit that the 360 demo I played was actually quite playable for a console shooter. It's been done quite well. But then I guess that's the point/problem. PC gamers and fans of the first COD would probably not miss COD2 much if they didn't play it, it's obviously more for the console crowd. If any more proof was required just check out the formats that COD3 is going to be released on.

There are better games... (my 2 cents)

[popo]

I finally succumbed and bought a 360.

CoD2 is a decent game, but certainly not a great game. I'd give it a solid B.
So far the only games that have true visual 'wow' factor and great gameplay are
Ghost Recon and Test Drive Unlimited. PGR 3 is a big letdown IMHO.

Ghost Recon is a huge surprise in terms of gameplay and a graphics engine that
is surprisingly awesome. And the co-op Splitscreen multiplayer rules.

TDU is a little odd, but its a grower. I'm usually not big on driving games,
but the MMO/persistent world aspect of it is a nice feature.
I find myself playing that game all the time.
A great little surprise.