Let me guess, story matters a lot for you (because of that thread you made)? Lately, with Black Ops, it's obvious that I personally prefer gameplay over story any day.

Also I agree, the story in MW2 was kind of all over the place with lots of plots holes everywhere and such (I just figured out it's really a story about conspiration, especially referring to what happened in 2001...). They should have hired a better writer, haha. You can't say that the pacing was bad though. One of the best cinematic experiences on the gaming market. I'm also a bit biased about the game because of the music mostly (can't say anything bad about Zimmer!).

Also, good question. I believe it depends on the type of game you're making. If it's a cinematic experience, I say it's better à la Medal of Honor style. You'd obviously want the player to follow a certain way of doing things though while not letting the game play itself. It doesn't mean you can't have more complex levels. In MW2, the first big open mission in Washington where you have to defend Burger Town and stuff, they at least tried to make it obvious where to go next by adding navpoints or writing objectives on screen or even add quotes said by certain allies during the game. Compare this to the part with the barrels in the Khe Sahn mission in Black Ops. I think that's one of the worst "puzzle" designs I've ever seen. I literally stayed there, shooting at people, for more than 10 minutes before saying "OK WTF am I doing wrong here?" I had to put the difficulty level to Recruit so I could move up and try to figure out what to do. I saw those weird grey/yellow barrels, tried to shoot at them before, nothing... and then I walked up to one of them and finally a prompt appeared on screen! At least I wasn't getting shot at on Recruit so I could move up, but man, figuring this out on Veteran on my first playthrough... I would have never thought about it!

Also, in Halo, AIs work great and yet they never get in your way. Their damage are reduced to a minimum too, so that means you can do most of the kills and they won't advance before you do something. Marines can die as well. Obviously, in Halo 3 the Arbiter could die, but he would resurrect after a while. In Reach, you're mostly alone or in pair with another Spartan (but the other Spartans can't die). And also, most of the levels are very open, with multiple branching paths and ways you can do the missions. I think Bungie nailed the AIs for their type of game.

Because they are popular.

Personally I don't like these games because they're simply not good imo. I dislike all bad games so its hardly unique.

Maybe this also?

The real thing I find fault with is his reasoning that the consoles are the reason for games being this way.  How does a console change how a developer creates a game?  Well, besides graphics.  But even then they usually, if not always, have a slightly better version optimised for the PC.  Plus, when I think of all the great games that were made exclusively for consoles (SMB, SOTC and Uncharted to name a few), it doesn't make sense.  And really, if it wasn't for consoles (the NES more specifically) then home gaming may have just continued to be in the dismal shape it was in after the gaming crash of '83.  No, the reason the game is like this is because the developer was going to make it like that regardless of what platform it was on.

Don't get me wrong.  I know the advantages of PC gaming, and really have no problem with PC gamers in general.  I just can't stand these elitists who feel their shit don't stink cause they game on a PC.  Can't wait to see what they do next gen when there probably will be no difference in graphics between the consoles and PC.  Or if consoles start using something like Unlimited Detail.

Well, to be fair, the linearity and heavy action is comething that's always been present in the franchise. However, this (in the vid) is pretty bad.

I've always felt that Infinity Ward were much better at masking the linearity through good level design, polish and AI. The story in MW2 was utter trash, but the level design meant I still enjoyed the campaign (even if I winced at the story). At the moment it looks like I may give this a miss as I've generally been disappointed at all the Treyarch CoD games, and absolutely hated CoD3.

Thanks for posting the link. I love reading about devs viewpoints. I like the edit he adds at the end:

"I just realized that it could be clearer how the scripting and AI became so shitty. When I worked on WaW, I dealt with a lot of bugs. Moments like in the video, when the AI allies just sit there for 20 seconds... that happens ALL THE TIME. Here's how that looks: "Bug: AI Character Bob is supposed to move up the stairs. Problem: He sits gets hung up on a corner and runs back and forth." The "right way" to fix this bug is to go deep, look at the code for character scripting and waypoints, and make it more robust. The "quick fix" was to add a coffee table halfway down the hallway, to make Bob run a little wider. This seems to prevent him from getting hung up on the corner. We don't know why it works, but whatever, fuckit I have 30 other showstopper bugs to deal with.

As the game progressed and neared release, there was so much on Treyarch's plate that they would always do the quick fix."

It's obviously a facetious diagram...but there's way more truth to it than there should be.

Not just graphics, but physics, scale, modability, absence of dedicated servers (in MW2, not Black Ops) and interface. Essentially, most games are simple ports of console games meaning they have no optimisation for the PC and therefore do not take advantage of the benefits of the PC as a platform. Not saying I blame the devs for doing it as they need to make money in a competitive environment.

I'll give a few examples.

1. Oblivion: Now I love this game and it's one of my faves of all time, but the interface was obviously designed for consoles, and the experience was "streamlined". Now I liked this to an extent, but many Elder scrolls fans were disappointed at the seemingly "casual" nature. Instead, we now have many many mods that change and improve the interface and features so they're more in-line with PC games. The Obscuro Oblivion Overhaul mod was so popular that they actually hired the guy who made it to work as a consultant on Fallout New Vegas.

2. Mass Effect 2: Again, great game, but was obviously a direct port of the 360 version. The graphics and textures were the same as the 360 version with no extra optimisation for the PC version. Even basic PC graphical options were taken out such as anti-aliasing which you needed to "force" via the hardware. Another small yet easy to implement problem was the lack of shortcuts on the PC version. The PC has the advantage of having an input device with multiple buttons so why did they not implements simple hotkeys? (e.g. 'J' for Journal).

3. Deus Ex Invisible War: From last gen, all the design decisions were made based on the orginal X-box then ported to PC. It meant areas were smaller (the last level is a recreation of the first from Deus Ex but split the level in half with an extra loading screen). The graphics were poor (A fan made high def texture pack was released after 6 months), yet the system requirements were higher than Half-Life 2 (which released after). Finally, they made some really shoddy design decisions based on "appealing to console gamers" such as unified ammo.

Btw, what's unlimited detail mode?! :P

I gave up on the game after the Soviet prison level.  I really hate regenerating health and companies taking the easy way out with scripted games.