Call of Duty vs. Battlefield

Since it’s a Friday, I thought I’d write something special since I’m just always in a good mood on this lovely day when you know you’d got a whole weekend ahead of you. This time however, it’s even better because people in the United States have a Monday of- President’s Day! So, I decided to post something out of the ordinary. Not a game review, but a game debate. Probably the most popular one amongst gamers. You know what it is. Call of Duty vs. Battlefield. I’ll list pure facts and only share opinions at the end. Let’s begin!

Call of Duty Logo

Let’s start with Call of Duty. As most gamers will know, Call of Duty was founded in 2003 and first started of small simply on the PC. Later on, it began getting more and more popular for its considerably good graphics at the time and ‘realism’ that set the player into a realistic battlefield. Over the years, more and more people got hooked into the game and so, it began expanding it’s platforms. Soon enough, it got into Xbox, PS3, Nintendo DS, and all the other gaming platforms that were available at the moment. Thought it once was a jewel of a video game, it soon began to degrade down according to the majority of gamers. Most gamers across the internet that are experienced will say that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the best one, and then just began repeating itself. Why? Because ever since Modern Warfare came out, they’ve just been adding a new campaign and ‘new’ multiplayer which in reality actually had the same guns, same location, and just about everything else. Sure it had new maps or killstreaks, but a sixty dollar game doesn’t need new spices. It needs new fresh meat, which all of the Modern Warfares lack. They’re all extremely identical with just new graphics or maybe new guns and a little bit of new killstreaks. Many gamers are complaining because of this, but Treyarch or Activision seems to think that they’re so popular they don’t need to improve at all since everyone will buy their game anyway. Which sadly, is true.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer. Same setting and look from the previous Modern Warfares.

Call of Duty kept getting developer enemies. And each time, they slipped out of it no matter how good their enemy was or how hard they tried. CoD has earned its reputation and will always be bought because 90% of the gaming people don’t even know the other games that they could be playing for a new change. Call of Duty never has improved its engine, or anything in that kind. It’s just as noted earlier been adding new tweaks to it. It has never included updates such as driveable vehicles or destruction. It’s just the same. Upgraded guns. New looks and maps. Attachments. But never is there any new main things like gameplay major destruction, vehicles, or any signs of teamwork. Because of this, Call of Duty has a reputation for having a free-for-all Team Deathmatch. Every person is only thinking about himself/herself, and how they want to get killstreaks to look like a better gamer over all the other ‘noobs’ in the lobby.

The pilot of this multiplayer match chopper is probably thinking how awesome he/she is for owning the 'noobs'.

But, Call of Duty did add some fresh new meat in its third game, World at War when it included something that it never had before- zombies. Unlimited Nazi zombies in a gloomy setting of overtaken locations. This time, Treyarch actually planned it all out. Not only did they add unlockable perks, doors and guns which can be bought with money you get from killing zombies, they added more eery effects to the whole game mode. In all of the maps, the plot is that a Nazi scientist accidentally created a teleporter that made zombies come, and eventually they took over. They also included ‘easter eggs’, things that are secret but once discovered will result in something unsual. As an example, in Black Op’s Ascension DLC zombie map (a Russian rocket base), there is a scientist that asks for you to help him because the mysterious zombie girl. At first, it seemed like just words, but then some people found out you CAN help him, and it unlocks you the death machine for a few minutes. Zombies was a great add-on that is the main reason why a lot of gamers bought Black Ops, the second Call of Duty game that had zombies.

Zombies in Call of Duty was a great and fun addon.

Battlefield logo

Every fighter needs his turn, let’s switch the table to Battlefield now. Battlefield has just began to hit popularity. It was popular enough for a game, but no where near to Call of Duty on places like YouTube, where Call of Duty gameplay is everywhere but Battlefield is rarely seen anywhere. But why is this? Because it’s not as good as a First person shooter  as Call of Duty? No, absolutely not. Just like Call of Duty, Battlefield first launched at around the same time as Call of Duty. In fact, it came earlier in 2002 as Battlefield 1942, developed by EA (Electronic Arts). It had a humble beginning as well, started of on PC- but despite that, Call of Duty still zoomed past the game since some people considered that it had better graphics or gameplay. Sure Call of Duty may have had slightly better graphics, but still it had drive-able vehicles. It wasn’t action based completely on killing though. A massive part of the game was to capture enemy points which enabled players to spawn there and then continue on the battle, much like advancing/taking over a base in a real life battle. Destruction wasn’t really included in the game though, but still it had that teamwork on the battlefield feeling.

Backup has arrived! Teamwork is being used in this picture.

Over the years, graphics and gameplay began to improve in the Battlefield series. In Battlefield: Bad Company was released in June of 2008. This game introduced the new and improved Frostbite engine by EA, which introduced an enormous feature that hasn’t been seen in many FPS games at the time: Full destruction. Call of Duty never had this and probably never will, but Battlefield, which now runs on the Frostbite engine (improved every game) has destruction that greatly resembles real-life. Any building you see that is made of breakable/explosive materials such as bricks or wood will collapse if you throw explosives at it. Like a mortar strike (missles from above) or several tank shots will make it collapse. Completely. Every single brick and wall will break over and collapse according to what the laws of gravity would allow it to. That’s the destruction part of Battlefield. One huge thing that none of the games in multiplayer Call of Duty have had.

A small example of Battlefield destruction.

Another massive thing that Battlefield is praised for is the enormous maps and items that come along with it. While Bad Company 2 did only have eight maps in total, they were maps with hundreds of objects that could collapse, and also are enormous in size. Take one of the largest maps in a Call of Duty game, and multiply it by about two or three. That’s the size of a map on Battlefield. As its name suggests, it greatly resembles a real battlefield. The map locations or looks vary, as well. Some maps are dry wastelands, some are snowy, or some are autumn seasoned. Each map has many buildings, land, and even special locations such as water that you can swim in. They also include their own weapons or vehicles such as .50 cals on bases for defenders, machine guns, or even rocket launchers. Attackers are equipped with vehicles like four wheelers (two people can travel on one- one for the driver, one on the backseat), tanks, helicopters of all kind, and of course water speedboats for crossing lakes or rivers onto enemy territory. Many people say that that takes away the fun from the game since attackers get vehicles and they don’t, but still defenders get rocket launchers and turrets at their base. Also, they may have engineers or assault soldiers on their team, which enforces teamwork, that can shoot down the enemy vehicles by shooting rocket launchers, planting mines on unsuspecting enemy guests, or even shooting tracer dart gun bullets at a vehicle which tells the exact location and by using magnets tells rocket launchers where to target.

Battlefield has alot of war vehicles. Tanks, jets, four wheelers, you name it..

Finally, the teamwork. Call of Duty has also had a really similar no teamwork style, but Battlefield goes no where without teamwork. All of the kits, which have seperate unlocks like attachments, guns, and perks as well as level unlocks have at least one tool or something in that kind that can profit the team if the gamer is generous enough to use them. For example: a medic can unlock health kits which heal other players, or even defibrillators which can revive dead team players. The assault class has grenade launchers and ammo packs they can share with other players. Engineer has a drill which can fix their team’s vehicles. Not only do they help, they get experience points from it which profits both the person they are helping but themselves as well! This is probably the reason why it’s so painful to see a defeat and so awesome to see a victory. Unlike Call of Duty, Battlefield has no kill streaks, so you focus on winning or losing the game. This pulls you even deeper into the war field. I’ll be honest, I’m sure 95% of the people in CoD only care about getting kill streaks and getting first place. Battlefield doesn’t make you think that way. It makes you think how a soldier in real life would think- I need to win this intense warfare battle and cannot stand defeat!

No man left behind! That's how a real war goes.

Overall, in my opinion and with facts to prove my point, I think Battlefield is a better game. Not because I’ve never played Call of Duty, which I have (it was my first FPS), but because I know the facts, and have played both games for some time now. Still, my opinion stands- Battlefield is my favorite. You can have your opinions, but that’s mine. End of story, I’m out. By the way, this ‘short’ essay in total has about 1,800 words in total. How about a comment or sharing it with someone for that? If you do, you get a cookie on me!

   Source(s): Wikipedia.org, google search, Battlefield.com and personal experience