Call of Duty 3...A game with potential

This is the holiday season. A time when game developers unleash their best games with all the shiny bells and whistles. This is done with the hope children of any age will develop obsessive compulsive disorder over their releases and either buy them for themselves if they are adults, or pester their parents until they cave and buy that special game in the guise of Santa. Call of Duty 3 has the ability to be that special game.

I say has the ability because CoD3 isn't the new halo. But, then again, neither is any other game so far. Gears of War, the new Rainbow 6, and CoD3 are all quality releases, but I fear none of them truly live up to the Halo standard. What they all really are, is a progression of quality games for the XBox 360.

Remember Perfect Dark? This was the game hyped by Microsoft last holiday season and was supposedly the game to have. Many people raved about the graphics, but in the end the game was too limited to keep anyone's interest for long. Instead, another game that wasn't as highly touted, Call of Duty 2, became a must have game for the early 360 owner. Sure, it had it's problems as well. But the developers heard the publics cries of anguish over the matchmaking system and promised a fix. Sure the fix came a couple of months later, but the game was much improved and lasted the test of other releases such as Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, another highly touted game that failed to hold onto all but the most diehard of fans.

I'm not saying Gears of War is another Perfect Dark. It is head and shoulders above the poorly thought out launch title. But I fear it's problems with matchmaking severely limit its long lasting enjoyability along with the limit of  only having a maximum of 8 players. I understand comparing a strategic shooter like GoW with something more forgiving like CoD3 is like comparing apples and oranges. But they are both video games. One of them will have more people playing it longer than the other, and I believe CoD3 will be the choice for many people.

Why? Call of Duty 3 is more forgiving. The casual gamer, which makes up the majority of gamers, can jump into any game and still have a shot at individual glory. GoW will eventually be a game where only the best can compete because in time teams will have gelled and complex stragems will be formed. The n00b factor is strong with that game. CoD3 will also have it's "teams" of wanna be pros, but they won't dominate play online. With so many online options like deathmatch, anyone can shoot some lead if they feel like it.

This doesn't mean CoD3 is not without it's problems. Like it's predecessor, it has online glitches. The developers have already said they are working on a patch, and I believe they will deliver like before. When these problems are addressed CoD3 could become the favorite of many people's collection until next November when the 3rd Master Chief arrives.