Next-Gen Reviews

Rorke is your typical sore-throat-bearing nut job that has a serious problem with letting go of the past. Rorke has started the nuclear destruction of the Middle East, causing major economic decline which has also brought  together the big American Hating oil producing nations to form ‘the Federation’ … I’ll leave it there in order to stay away from spoilers.

 

Elias, Logan and  David make are a great team but then you have Riley, a German shepherd dog (yes, that famous dog from the launch event that every laughed at) trained to be a part of operations.  Riley will distract and attack enemies at your command and that’s pretty much it. Riley, in my eyes, is pointless because he fails to make enough of an impact in the story. I think Infinity Ward were trying to pull on heart strings and get people engrossed but sadly they have failed, miserably.

 

You travel a lot completing missions but you never really know why you’re at that particular location. You’re here then there, then here then there and by the end of the campaign you’re dizzy and have no idea what just happened. Having said that, the locations look good and at times great but the campaign runs in the exact same way that it has for years. The best thing about the single player campaign is that it focuses on stealth for the most part but still, Ghosts is so linear (like every other Call of Duty game).  So, as much as it’s great, it’s also not so great.

 

Graphically, Ghosts looks very rich and at 60 frames per second, you wouldn’t expect anything less, but at the same time, it’s that lovely rich look that it’s had for about 6 years. Infinity Ward is closer to being experts of creating over-the-top hype than it is a decent game studio that can move with the times and ooze ambition. Infinity Ward spoke of a new engine but by the looks of it they were referring to the engines in their cars from all the money they get from selling the same game every year to the same fan base. I say this because apart from the menu looking slightly different, nothing has changed apart from the front cover. Anyway, as I was saying, Ghosts looks very nice and at times impressive. There is a mission where you’re scuba diving and the scenery is mouth dropping, with the lighting being perfectly balanced and the flow of life slowing down to an almost euphoric state as you’re gliding through the water taking in what seems to be a different world and then BAM!!! The enemies come into the picture and ruin it.

 

 

Multiplayer

 

Where do I start?  I want to say “If you liked last year’s Call of Duty game you’ll like this because nothing has changed” but that would be naughty of me. So, you have your usual standard and hardcore modes with the addition of a few new game modes and point streaks. This time round Infinity War have taken on a similar style to Black Ops 2 and buy that I mean the point system. You now spend points on whatever you want in order to build what you believe to be a great class. Points are unlocked when you rank up but that seems to be a lot slower than it used to be don’t expect to be a beast too quickly.

 

People asked for bigger maps and they got them! Infinity Ward have created some of the biggest maps I’ve seen in a Call of Duty game but for some reason taken away the maximum players per game therefore leaving the big maps feeling empty.  Surely they knew that this was going to be problem so why did they do it? The camel is a horse designed by committee and all that…. I feel that because Ghosts will be on the next-gen consoles Infinity Ward took out ground war because they want the consumer to think that they’re getting something more than just nicer visuals.

 

The most talked about addition to Ghosts is probably ‘squads’. Squads allows you to take part in AI filled modes for your, yep, squad.  It’s not the greatest but it’s something else to do to try and justify buying the game.

 

Extinction is another new mode to Call of Duty and it’s actually pretty good.  Extinction is very similar to Zombies in that it puts you up against aliens in a fast-paced wave-based environment. You will have objectives to complete in order to progress and you will earn money that can be spent on weapons, ammo and equipment.  It’s certainly better than the previous Infinity Ward co-op mode ‘Spec Ops and I think this will be loved by the masses.

 

 

The thing about Call of Duty is that it’s good but not good enough.  We’ve heard the same over-the-top hype year after year and nothing ever changes for the better, in fact, I personally think it gets worse.  Call of Duty Ghosts is the same game that you’ve played since 2007 with a couple of changes and a few new additions. I think that a lot of people are finally starting to catch on to this constant release of mediocre DLC year after year and hopefully it will force the franchise to get a total revamp for the better. Sadly, I’m not sure that any of the big studios have the guts to change Call of Duty in a similar way to how it went from COD 3 to COD Modern Warfare 4. Is this the last year that we’ll see the same regurgitated Call of Duty that we have for too long? I hope so, but I doubt it… Back to Battlefield it is for me.

 

 

6/10