I’ll say it: Call of Duty Black Ops III looks uninspired

Has the Call of Duty franchise jumped the shark? Have they jumped the couch? Have there been too many games, too much spent, too many innovations, so that now the wow factor is lost completely?

Yes. Today’s release of the Black Ops III launch trailer seemed like more of the same without being actually more of anything. Drones, cybernetics, cool weapons, future warfare… blah blah blah. Where’s the new frontier? Where’s the homage to the old while being grounded in the new that made games like Black Ops, Modern Warfare II, and Call of Duty 3 so epic? The characters are getting too powerful. The game play looks contrived.

The question that they ask is a compelling one: “What happens when the soldier becomes the weapon?” It’s certain to make some people think I’m crazy for asking these questions, but it’s in the fact that the answer seemed like a combination of Titanfall and old Halo games rather than something that we’ve never seen before. We know there’s nothing new under the sun, but they could have at least tried harder.

Sorry for the rant. The game will probably be pretty good, but the trailer didn’t do it for me.