Editorial: Call of Duty kills competitive gaming

I like Call of Duty, in a sense, it's a fun and fast paced game. Sadly, it isn't competitive at all. If it isn't the ridiculous perks system that rewards people for sucking (see "Deathstreaks") or the heinous magnetism that you experience when firing your gun this game offers no challenge to the player. Of course this is all well and fine when you are just going out there to have fun but the fact that gaming leagues like Gamebattles/MLG actually like and promote Call of Duty 4 (and World at War) as a "competitive" game makes me throw up in my mouth.

Of course no one will agree with my opinion because they are too blind to see that the game offers nothing original to the genre and if anything takes leaps backwards in areas that games like Goldeneye, Counter Strike, and even Halo have strive to innovate in. As you can tell I am a huge fan of competitive gaming and I wish to see the "scene" grow but to see Call of Duty be the reason for it makes me wish this wasn't the case.

The reason I wrote this article is due to a little forum thread on the Official PS Forums where a poster stated:

yea I already have a team set up there although once MW2 hits shelves don't
expect the UC2 ladder to be around too much longer - CHAOTIC-

This thread was pertaining to Uncharted 2 players signing up for Gamebattles ladder for the game. It kind of brought to light everything that I see wrong with competitive gaming right now and I hope that a game like Uncharted 2 can prove to developers that if you do make a game that is actually good (and competitive out of the box) people will buy it.

Like I stated before I enjoy playing the Call of Duty games but to see this game being considered "competitive" makes me question what does competition really mean anymore.