COD4 is not Halo3..?

 So I picked up COD4 last night and played it a fair amount. Enough to get the gist of it and it is a great game, but I am sad to report it is just not Halo3. For starters Halo3 is set in space. It is an epic battle between a cyborg space marine dude with armour, and shields and futuristic weapons. COD4 you are a spec ops dude fighting in a somewhat realistic conflict right out of next years headlines. You have basic guns and some Kevlar body armour, but that’s it. Halo3 is a game that uses a bright colourful palate; COD4 uses a darker muddier one with lots of greens and browns. Halo3 you fight funky space aliens called the Covenant. In COD4 you are fighting the boogiemen du jour; Arabs and Russians. Hey Ivan long time, no see. Ok so they are both FPS’s and they both have fun, albeit short single player modes. But they make up for that with deep multiplayer modes. I guess you could say that COD4 is striving for realism and Halo3 isn’t.  I guess you could say that they are different games with different styles of stories to tell and different features to set themselves apart.

You know actually, COD4 is a great game, but it is not Halo3. Halo3 is a different game. Its funny but I see so many people comparing Halo3 and COD4. I thought somehow they were related beyond being FPS’s, video games, and that they came out this year. But wow, so different.

What am I trying to say here, who the hell knows? I suppose I wish there was some sort of magical criteria upon which all discussion about games could be based on, without having to sit through the inevitable comparisons between this weeks and last weeks in thing. Is it possible to judge a game on its own merits? Do we do a game justice by judging it against another game? Is that other game qualified to be the barometer upon which we judge other games? Is there a game out there that is the quintessential single player or multiplayer experience? I am speaking here outside of personal opinion. Of course we have our own personal likes and dislikes. But is it possible to judge or critique a game solely on its own merits.