Six years ago Call Of Duty 4:
Modern Warfare conquered the world and turned Activision's flagship shooter
into an institution. Now the CoD series is in the crosshairs of every
discerning gamer and everyone knows what to expect.
One expects a brief
six-hour campaign filled with enough action set-pieces to send Michael Bay into
orbit. One expects a deep and robust multiplayer that rewards those with
lightning reflexes and the ability to take advantage of kinks within the aiming
mechanics (quick-scoping, anyone?). And one expects a co-op mode of sorts and
perhaps a bone thrown to those who feel the whole enterprise is getting a
little stale at this point.
With Call Of Duty:
Ghosts, one gets what one expects.
While this may sound like
a damning appraisal of the game, bear this in mind; if your lip is curling into
a contempt-filled sneer, this game is no longer aimed at you. It's aimed at the
people who buy CoD every single year and, for all it faults, enjoy the heck out
of it. It's aimed at trash-talking eSports crews, potty-mouthed online warriors
and connoisseurs of Big Dumb Entertainment that blows your hair back until the
roots snap.
Infinity Ward's core audience is bigger than the population of
the greaterLondon metropolitan area. To that end, the developer deserves a couple of nods
for creating a campaign that takes risks with a template that, while eminently
recognisable, contains a new narrative and attempts to make the player's
progression more varied than before. They also deserve a bow for serving up a
stonkingly great co-op mode, but we'll get to that in a minute.
First, let's deal with
the online multiplayer – the mode that most players are here for. For the most
part, Infinity Ward has built an online fragfest that fans of Modern Warfare
will sink snugly into – both in terms of load-outs and gameplay – while
borrowing a bit from Treyarch's open-ended approach to the online mode of Call
Of Duty: Black Ops 2.
Players earn both in-game
currency and XP for everything they do in any online mode – and that includes
the new entry level Squads mode. The currency is a way for players to take a
tad more control over their customisation options; anything that can be used on
the battlefield – weapons, tech, armour, perks and so forth – can be bought.
Anything that's purely cosmetic needs to be earned. This means that the less
talented among the pack need not grind their way into the best weapons and
equipment, but only the elite can deck themselves out in pretty, pretty skins.
Maps are mostly hot-box affairs and favour the
close-quarters, knee-jerk pace this series has been know for since … well,
forever. The match types compliment this setup beautifully and there's a ton of
variety on offer. You have age-old stalwarts like Free-For-All and Domination,
matches that feel like mods such as Search & Rescue (which is essentially
Kill Confirmed crossed with Demolition) and brand new modes that will appeal to
the core and no one else – we present Cranked, in which players have 30 seconds
to string kills together or their head explodes.
If you've ever found the
prospect of heading into the online mode intimidating – and let's face it, who
hasn't – Squads Mode is available as a primer. It's essentially an expanded
version of the Combat Training mode from Call Of Duty: Black Ops, except
instead of competing against bots, players get to pit themselves against bots …
and other players. There's also a re-jigged version of Survival called
Safeguard, in which players have to survive against waves of foes using random
weapons drops.
The customisation options
are pretty exhaustive. Rather than limit players by class or perk-banks,
players can now arm their soldiers with pretty much whatever they want and
their perks are based on a points system. Kill Streak rewards are still the
most un-malleable aspect of the load-out equation – and with good reason – and
players now have the option of adopting female avatars.
If you fancy playing with
mates, then Extinction is perhaps the best idea Infinity Ward has come up with
in ages. Imagine a pared-down version of Left 4 Dead played in brief 10-minute
bursts, except instead of zombies, you're fighting alien dogs. It borrows
Treyarch's Zombie-Mode mechanic, in which players buy weapons and equipment
with cash they earn through kills, but it's a far more coordinated affair than
its predecessor.
Oh yes – there's a
campaign. And it's sillier than anything produced in this series up until now.
But, crucially, for the most part it's equally enjoyable.
CoD: Ghosts tells the
story of Logan and Hesh, two jarheads who find themselves part of the last
stand of the USA against invaders from the South American Federation after the
SAF nukes the US from orbit. After a couple of missions – that also constitute
the weakest part of the single-player campaign – Logan and Hesh find themselves
inducted into the Ghosts, an elite squad of soldiers who may be the USA's best
weapon against the Federation.
Leaving aside the
jingoism that's been a staple in the CoD franchise for ages, the campaign flags
for the first few missions. Once Logan and Hesh – and their dog Riley – join
the Ghosts, things begin to move into high gear. The narrative also jumps back
in time briefly, in order to establish the credentials of a villain who, quite
frankly, would be unbelievable otherwise.
I mean … he's pretty unbelievable anyway. But without
those early scenes establishing his motives I suppose he'd be an anomaly within
reality.
But who cares about that
when you're running across the top of a train while blasting enemies? When
you're floating through zero-gravity outside a space station engaged in a gun
battle? When you're running through a skyscraper that's splitting in half?
It's those moments of
pure spectacle, which Infinity Ward does so well, that pull the player right
out of their seat and into a high-concept nonsense isolation ward, and that
sells CoD: Ghosts's campaign. There's a certain sense of familiarity to it all,
but there are enough new notes to keep the faithful glued.
And that's really what
it's all about at this stage. Between console generations, Infinity Ward seems
to be in a holding pattern. It's not sacrificing innovation altogether, but
it's not exactly pushing the boat out. And then there's the small issue of the
discrepancy between the visual gap in the next-generation consoles.
Ever heard the maxim
"no news is good news"? In the video game industry, it's usually the
other way around. If a game looks like a solid hit, publishers, developers
and,k yes, interested parties like writers on this blog, will sing its praises
from the rooftops. If a game is rubbish, you can rely on it being released to
little or no fanfare with the review embargo date falling on the day it hits
retail racks.
So what were we to make of a staggered embargo for CalloD:
Ghosts? If you've been tracking the reviews and news cycle about the game
you'll probably have picked up the fact that reviews of the game on the Xbox Onehaven't
been published yet, while reviews of it on any other platform went live last
week. In light of the fact that publishers like to keep a lid on bad news until
the last possible minute, what can we surmise about the aforementioned embargo
dates?
The fact is, this news was going to get out anyway. Once
Infinity Ward producer Mark Rubin tweeted that CoD: Ghosts was 720p native on
the XboxOne
while the PS4 version ran at 1080p on a PS4, pundits and players started making
up their own minds on the spot. Actually, CoD: Ghosts looks a lot better on the
PS4 than it does on the Xbox One – at the time of this writing.
That's not to say a patch
can't fix this – hell, a download allowed the PS3 to move from a 2D to 3D
display case – but early adopters need this info. Until yesterday, we couldn't
tell you about it.
But whatever platform you
choose to buy it on, Call Of Duty: Ghosts will do exactly what you think it
will – and that's as true if you're a fan or a hater. I realise there's
supposed to be some sort of objective ruling on this from yours truly, but
since I disagree vehemently with the reviewer of the last iteration, the score
above is what you have to guide you if you need it. And you shouldn't, really.
You already know where you stand, surely?
get your Call of Duty: Ghosts for Xbox one HERE
get your Call of Duty: Ghosts for PS4 HERE
Source: TheGuardian
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