GotG Round 1: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare vs. Dead Space

This is a pretty good one. I supposed if you're basing it on the most influential game then it would have to go to Modern Warfare. But if we're going with what game I liked the most... umm...

Dead Space I guess?

I really love Dead Space but the importance (and not to mention just how goddamn good it was) of Call of Duty 4 can't be denied. I sunk a TON of hours into the multiplayer which is something I never do.

Clearly Call of Duty 4 is incomprehensibly huge to this generation of games and I know it will, and probably should, win but hey I liked Dead Space a lot so I'll vote for it.

I may not like Call of Duty or the effect it has on the industry but COD4 was crazy good at the time.

Call of Duty 4 basically is this generation of games.

Short, but tightly paced and action packed campaign along with a multi-player mode built around leveling up to unlock stuff.

That is modern games.

(I voted for Dead Space.)

Mw/mw2 were a blast of fun

I like Dead Space just fine (I'm more of a Dead Space 2 guy), but Call of Duty 4 is one of the most influential games of this generation.

I devoted probably a year to playing Call of Duty 4, it was one of my first multiplayer experiences. A lot of fun times were had.

Dear Dead Space,

I love you, even though you squandered your potential.

Sincerely, BeachThunder

Call of Duty 4. Great game with news twists to a lot of conventions and an amazing multiplayer. COD4 was very influential, fun and innovative in some ways. It's a shame that a lot of shooters would try to copy it and make a lot of shooters feel the same, but that can't be blamed on COD4. Easily wins this bracket.

I prefer Dead Space but both are excellent games

For better or (mostly) worse, MW is the most influential game of this gen. It was also amazing at the time. Top 10 game of the gen for me.

Call of Duty 4 is my game of the generation and it wasn't even a little bit difficult to choose so every polls with it in will be pretty easy.

This isn't even a debate as far as I'm concerned. It's gotta go to MW.

I don't think I can choose.

While I think Dead Space is certainly one of the generations best, Call of Duty consumed my life for almost a year. Easy choice.

COD 4. Still one of the best multiplayer games of all time even though 1/4 of the players are hackers. The campaign is also pretty damn good, especially the "All Ghillied Up" mission.

Dead Space was a neat third-person survival shooter, with some interesting dismemberment and zero-g mechanics.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare became the online multiplayer console game. For years and years and interations and iterations.

Alright, so Call of Duty 4 is infinitely more influential in that like every damn shooter to come after it has copied it, and Dead Space is kind of just Resident Evil 4 in space, but I wonder how many spite votes Dead Space will get.

I really can't see any justification for voting for Dead Space. I really like that game, but horror action games A) didn't define this generation and are relatively few and far between, and B) aren't as insanely influential as Call of Duty became.

Call of Duty 4 may be my favorite game ever made. Loved the campaign enough to beat it 3-4 times (including once a couple months back), and put roughly 30 days of time into the multiplayer.

Cod 4 is right up there with Socom 2 of games that were just a part of my life.

Dead Space 1 and 2 are probably among my very top games of this gen. I'm sad to see it lose, but MW is this generation for true.

Man you crazy motherf'ers voting for Dead Space what's wrong with you? So many hours spent with CoD4. So many good times. Created the blueprint for most multiplayer shooters to come (to the point of exhaustion).

Dead Space was a solid third person RE4 type shooter. It was cool but CoD4 gives me a boner all day.

Edit: also I forgot to mention the single player was no joke. Super cinematic. Remember that nuke oh baby. Now that so many CoD games and games like it have come out it might seem boring, but remember CoD4 was the first of the bunch. Never forget your first time.

I know it's easy to hate on CoD, but when I first played Modern Warfare it blew my damn mind. Still one of the strongest campaigns, I think. And it's the only one I played multiplayer on (2 was all Spec Ops).

I'm voting for Dead Space just because I personally prefer the game and love the series (even 3, which I prefer to 2), but Call of Duty 4 deserves to win this poll considering the gigantic impact it had on the industry.

lol

No kidding.

The boat, the nuke, the AC-130, the ghillie suits, the final shot. Oh, and Air Force One. Unforgettable.

Yes. Also forgot to say one of the few games (or series) to run at a silky smooth 60 fps. OK I'm done now.

Dead Space is really fucking good, you guys.

I love dead space, but CoD4 should probably win this entire thing.

Dead Space was incred .

Chose Dead Space because I got way into the fiction after completing it. And then played it again like 5 10 more times over the course of 2 or so years. The sound design in that game is incredible. Modern Warfare was pretty great too (All Ghillied Up was nuuuuuuuts), I just missed out on the multiplayer.

Call of Duty 4 was both incredibly influential, AND one of the most fun experiences I had on this generation of consoles.

Even if it doesn't the top award, if deserves to be up there a lot more than some other games. I liked Dead Space a whole lot, but if it's one or the other, it seems I have but one choice.

@canteu said:

Yeah, it set a standard that nearly any game with a gun tried to adopt, plus it more than anything led to XP systems being in damn near every game just for the fuck of it. It's crazy how much this entire generation was changed by CoD 4.

Come to think of it, what was last generation's "Game of the Generation"? I really can't think of something in the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox gen that everything so clearly revolved around the way it did with CoD 4. I can think of some great games that were ultimately sort of just interesting oddities that in no way influenced anything but their own series (MGS2, Wind Waker, Metroid Prime), and I guess Halo was a pretty big deal that resulted in...some clones and ushered in regenerating health as a standard, but I swear Half-Life 2 had almost as many clones. Final Fantasy X came out and was probably the last FF to really ride the wave of JRPG popularity that the Playstation created. Maybe GTA 3/San Andreas was game of the generation? God of War?

I'm going with either Half-Life 2, Halo, or GTA, but really no idea which.

I remembered being wowed by the COD4's singleplayer, got like half way through it, gave multiplayer a try, and didn't get back to the singleplayer for weeks because of how great that MP was.

Can't think of another game that caught me so off-guard with how great it was this gen, let alone twice.

Ok this is tough. COD4 multiplayer was huge for me. I even enjoyed the single player. "All Ghillied Up" is iconic. Dead space was a big surprise for me . I actually put off playing it until 2010, because it never looked appealing to me. I was wrong about that one. What a fantastic game. Cutting up necromorphs was so fucking satisfying. The mood was also superb.

I don't know which to pick here...

Both of these games did some damn great things. I voted for Dead Space because it made me change my mind on the horror genre, though it was a hard choice.

They have been making call of duty 4 for YEARS! I loved it when it first came out. I was part of the problem. We all were.... This was all our fault. We bought 4.... we bought the next and the next and the next. That is not 4 ' s fault though. That is ours. I still love 4 as much as I love CoD:UO.

CoD4 was so good they decided to remake it half a dozen times.

Dead space was a good game that they "actioned up" the sequels to draw in the "CoD crowd".

How is this a question? Love it or hate it. CoD4 is an amazing damn game and shouldn't be overlooked out of bias. If its not a finalist something is wrong. I'm not even a call of duty guy either.

Honestly CoD 4 should win the whole tournament, it is no doubt this gen's most influential game.

I love the shit out of Dead Space. That game is insanely good, and I enjoyed every second of it. On the other hand CoD is also very, very good, and is probably by far the most influential game of this generation. However, my vote goes with my heart and I choose Dead Space. Call of Duty 4 should probably win this though.

I REALLY love both of these games but I gotta give the edge to CoD4. It pretty much single-handedly made me interested in FPS multiplayer genre and it's still by far the best game in the series. Dead Space is a great atmospheric shooter but it did not have the impact on me and games this generation like CoD4 did.

#TEAMBRAD

It's weird because in some of these I'm choosing favorites and others are what I think is the "right" choice. CoD4 is the "right" choice because of how impactful it has been for shooters.

It’s such a shame that Dead Space has to come up against this. I loved my time on the Ishimura, but Call Of Duty 4 is so damn good I can’t not vote for it. Too many awesome matches online with my trusty MP5.

I can't comment on COD4, because I rented it and played maybe an hour of the campaign and zero multiplayer. But Dead Space deserves kudos for how incredible it was. A bold new IP with a unique atmosphere and incredibly solid mechanics, I thought it was one of the best designed games of the generation. Story wasn't much to write home about, but some of the battles were very memorable. It's a survivor horror without shitty controls; it's an action game that has suspense and (ironically) atmosphere; it's a space game that fully captures just how fucking terrifying space is.

Here's my justification: I had more fun playing Dead Space than I did CoD 4.

This is probably the only first round pairing I think is really shitty. Even if it wasn't super-influential in design, Dead Space is still a great series that really jumps out at me when I think about this generation. Putting it against a game it's clearly not going to beat in the first round don't seem right.

This is the toughest fight in the whole first bracket for me. But I think it has to go to CoD4. I played an entire prestige of that game a couple of years back (just prior to the MW3 launch) and it still held up. I poured hours of time into splitscreen multiplayer, and almost as much into the online. And that's without going into the single player - which I started playing through again on PC two days ago, and is still outstanding.

That said, Dead Space is a huge contender, and I hope there's some way for it to come back in a "loser's bracket" (I've forgotten exactly what system was going to be used) because I'd still rank it above almost every other game in this bracket. It may have been largely an amalgamation of other popular horror titles, but they combined to form so much more than the sum of their parts. Absolutely the definitive horror-action title of the generation if you ask me, and it only really loses out because that isn't a genre I take to very well. And yet I still adored this game, and it's sequels.

While I hate what Call of Duty has become Modern Warfare was the last CoD I remember actually fully liking and not just having so many beefs with. So I guess that's the choice. Dead Space is great, but Dead Space 2 was way better than the first.

CoD4 is maybe a better game, but it ultimately ruined most FPS games(for me) this generation with it's influence.