Call of Occupy

My mind. Officially. Blown.

For years, the Call of Duty franchise was stagnating in a horrible, endless loop of ludicrous neo-national villains, Terror War boosterism, and US neo-imperialism. So when I took a peek at the latest CoD, my expectations were zero.

But they finally got it right.

Just three short years after Occupy tore a continent-sized hole in the heart of neoliberalism's matrix, the single most neoconservative franchise of our time has joined the anti-neoliberal barricades.

I kid you not.

The short version: Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the CoD remix of Metal Gear Solid 4, only without Ocelot. Rogue PMC plutocrat bent on world domination: check. Underlying theme of biowarfare: check. Feisty female soldiers: check. New game mechanics: check (no spoilers, but be prepared to think and move... in three dimensions.) Yeah, they could've done a little more with the stealth elements, but the core pleasure of CoD has always been about delivering paintball at lightspeed, so no worries there. And I won't spoil the ending, but the denunciation of the Terror War comes through loud and clear.

Kudos to Sledgehammer, the Activision studio, for finally getting rid of the last rusty scrap metal of neocon revanchism, and letting us players run amok with the sleek exoskeleton of a true 21st century shooter. (Also, I suspect the game benefited enormously from its 3-year development cycle, rather than the 2-year cycle typical of past titles).

The only piece of the puzzle still missing is lead character diversity. The incidental characters and the environments are finally as transnational as they need to be (the kickass Nigerian level was an especial high point), but the main characters still need more postcolonial pizzazz. The folks at Ubisoft Montreal seem to have gotten this memo, and are finally introducing a postcolonial lead character in Far Cry 4. While many franchises have the problem that they're restricted to some level of historical veracity, CoD has basically been a science fiction franchise for some time, so there's really no barrier to creating stories featuring, say, some badass commando from Quang Tre or Lviv in 2060.