Call of Duty Rep Bashes Brothers in Arms

An Activision producer has labeled Gearbox as "someone who just makes a crappy war game."

With developer Treyarch taking over the creation of Call of Duty 5: World at War and simultaneously returning the series to its roots in World War II, the FPS innovators will be competing with Gearbox's Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway.

When asked about competing with another popular World War II franchise, Activision senior producer Noah Heller had some choice shots to throw at his competitor.

"We don't even think about them. They're not even a game we even think about when we're playing," dismissed Heller. "We think about the best shooters. We play Modern Warfare... Gears of War, Halo, BioShock, that's our competition. We want to look at the games that do great storytelling. We don't want to look at someone who's just making a crappy war game."

Treyarch Creative Director Rich Farrelly chimed in with calmer commentary, "It takes so much effort and so much concentration to make a great game that most of our team, that's all they think about."

Even after seeing Brothers in Arms footage, Heller wasn't impressed. "I watched their trailer and I was like 'These guys aren't even in the same league,'" he said.

Yesterday, Treyarch Community Manager JD posted on the Xbox forums an apology from the entire company, distancing itself from the Activision representative's statements.

"Over the weekend, we learned that some disparaging comments were made by an Activision rep at a recent Call of Duty: World at War press event," apologized JD. "We want to let everyone know that we found those remarks offensive, and they do not in any way represent the feelings of any developer at this studio or at Activision. We hold all of our peers in the development community in the highest regard. We have nothing but respect for the guys and gals at Gearbox."

Source: Eurogamer TV via Joystiq

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Personally, I think COD: World At War will beat Brothers in Arms hands-down at the sales desk.

Are we forgetting half life BS, O4 and decay?

I think these people really need to calm down at Press Conferences. There's not a week goes by without "Your momma!"-type jokes splashed across the front page.

The_root_of_all_evil:
I think these people really need to calm down at Press Conferences. There's not a week goes by without "Your momma!"-type jokes splashed across the front page.

A few games reps (not naming names) use press conferences not as a method to tell people about their games, but just to insult the competition.

Johnn Johnston:
Personally, I think COD: World At War will beat Brothers in Arms hands-down at the sales desk.

Probably. Just because previous CoD games were huge hits, and BiA sold... decently) Doesn't mean BiA will be inferior, though.
They're indeed not in the same league, because the emphasis lies elsewhere in the comparison.

CoD is more about film-esque, scripted action, whereas BiA is more about strategy.
I suppose the rep likes sitting on a rollercoaster playing whack-a-mole with Germans appeals to him more than playing an RTS in first person perspective.

Johnn Johnston:

A few games reps (not naming names) use press conferences not as a method to tell people about their games, but just to insult the competition.

Sorry, can't help myself now, but...

It's Ridge Racer! Riiiiiiidge Racerrrrrrr!

Can I criticize both developers for returning to an overused genre?

Do PR majors take a course in how to incite flame wars or something now? I see this crap constantly and I know damn well their leashes are way too short for this to be an accident. It'd be nice if the game industry cut back on this nonsense and tried to encourage sales by being...I dunno, rational? Polite?

L.B. Jeffries:
It'd be nice if the game industry cut back on this nonsense and tried to encourage sales by being...I dunno, rational? Polite?

That will be difficult considering we are all deranged madmen who will snap and murder someone with a Hello Kitty Doll the moment someone takes away Doom from us.

Skrapt:

L.B. Jeffries:
It'd be nice if the game industry cut back on this nonsense and tried to encourage sales by being...I dunno, rational? Polite?

That will be difficult considering we are all deranged madmen who will snap and murder someone with a Hello Kitty Doll the moment someone takes away Doom from us.

From Japan with Love.

http://www.akihabaranews.com/jp/news_pics/14992/Hello_Kitty_AK47_1.jpg

Thats funny, i thought Treyarch's Call of Duty 3 was one of the worst FPS i've ever played.

Treyarch thinks it's the bees knees. We all know it's Grey Matter Interactive who made COD:UO a huge hit, and just because a few hangers on from GMI are still at Treyarch doesn't mean squat. I played COD2: Big Red One. It wasn't much of anything. I can't comment on COD3, because I didn't know it even existed until they announced COD4.

COD3 was pretty fun, the story was quite nice and so was the gameplay. Music was amaizing on the last chapter I must add. I think COD5 will pretty much take COD3, slap it into a diff environment, through the usual ideas, and rid all the problems of COD3. NO doubt COD5 will be a good game, and i think better than brother in arms, but at the same time I dont believe that it will be as good as these guys are saying.

Really? They're making a FOURTH World War 2 game? And he's talking about quality? Pah!

And here I stand remembering CoD as a fragfest where I mow down so many enemys that if I multiplay that number by the number of allies I have to wonder why I still can see so many Germans when I walk through the City.
Brothers in Arms looked a bit more realistic on the scale of enemys I encounter.
By the way I would really like to see a proper made WW2 game from an axis viewpoint.

Anyways bashing someone for being lame while making the fourth WW2 game? This guy deserves some happy slappy.

UnterHund

Xwii360:
Well even though CoD 5 is bringing back WW2 i think its going for a more Scary realish sense. As in most games you shoot the bad guys and move on, hopefully CoD5 will show more of the emotion and nasty side of things, so we all can stop feeling glorious after slaughtering living people.

It's a WW2 game... being made by Treyarch... who are an American developer. I'm simply saying, Americans looking at the emotion and nasty side of things in WW2? The last war in which they arguably did any obvious good? I'm 95% sure they wouldn't dare show the 'nasty side of things' to an American audience.

That's kind of an a-hole thing to say, especially in the realm of business.

And how could Treyarch make fun of Brothers in Arms' storytelling? BiA 1 and 2 had some of the best writing and characters I've ever seen in a game period. When Allen and Garnett died in the first one, I actually gave a damn, and it was cool to see how the characters react to it. It's also interesting to watch how Hartsock's character develops from hating Baker for losing soldiers in the squad, then to see him experience Baker's role, and start empathizing with him.

Meanwhile, in Treyarch's games, they read out like stereotypical war movies from the 50's. You have the cowardly city boy, the gruff sergeant, and the death sequences where people crowd around a wounded man, who says something cliche and quasi-heroic right before he dies.

While it's semi-on-topic, can we please stop starting all reviews/previews of games in this setting with "With the glut of WWII games on the market, it's hard to distiguish..." There is a thing called a sub-genre. It's like complaining about medieval fantasy RTS's. Some people are actually interested in a specific setting. Hell, there are also maybe about seven good WWII games on top of that.

OOOOOOHHHH SNAP! LOL let the drama comence. 3 bucks says you'll find an npc named Noah Heller who is brutally killed in Hells Highway

I was ready to be as offensive as possible to the Activision Reps, but what I wanted to say was already said by Pastey Old Greg (in more level-headed language too I might add).

As for how they say BiA isn't in the same league as COD, I'd like to point out that of course they aren't; they're in different ballparks. BiA focuses more on tactical/squad FPS gameplay. They strive for realism, and I'm pretty impressed at what they've done. COD on the other hand follows the gameplay of "Shoot the clowns outta the clown cars, and advance when you can." They fulfil different roles for customers, something the Activision Rep seems to fail (epic fail) to understand.

Edit:

DamienHell:
3 bucks says you'll find an npc named Noah Heller who is brutally killed in Hells Highway

Let Baker kill him Gearbox. Don't worry, I've got ideas on how it could work...

remember people.. Activision Publishing is not the same as producers from Treyarch or Infinity Ward

but if anybody wants to get more random crazy quotes keep asking questions from mid-level producers at the publishing offices of major game companies.

My personal opinion:
Hells Highway is looking sweet like a lollipop at the moment. I personaly can't wait until it comes out. Bashing a good game only hurt COD's rep I think. Unless there's something I'm missing about BIA?

While they're both set in WWII, they can't really be considered "competitors," yes they are both shooters. . . but COD is simple run-and-gun, while brothers and arms is tactical squad-based combat, VERY different feel. (Think COD4 vs. GRAW)

For reference: Call of Duty 3 and Brothers in Arms RTH30 received an 82 and an 87 on metacritic, respectively.