Developers:
Infinity Ward
Raven Software(for the Multiplayer)
Neversoft (Extinction)
Publisher: Activision
Price: $59.99
Release Date: Nov 5, 2013
This years Call of Duty is in, and it is called Ghosts. While this review might be a short bit to the race, lets hope it finishes in with your impressions to perhaps buy it, or have a better assessment. You bought this game most likely for the multiplayer. Overhauled, and brought in a ton of new improvements. However the game feels more like a improved Modern Warfare 3. I will get into the online a bit into the review, but for now I will go over the story, and give my thoughts.
Triple A presentation is usually the goal of these on rail military shooters. The goal for them is to keep it simple, and attract most experienced and casual players with something pretty to glance at, throw in the shock-factor, then tap our butts towards the multiplayer. I found some enjoyment in the aftermath of this installment. It circles around a character named Logan Walker. With swaps between characters along the way to present another perspective. The voice acting was great, music, was just there for me, not fantastic.
The game brings you into a scene with you in a walk through the woods, then into a what looked like a richman’s hood. You know where the gangsters drink there Grey earl tea in 40 ounce tea cups. Then into what was a pretty creative rail moment of you sheathing through a satellite. Via the eyes of Baker. The games major strength was its atmosphere. Its weakness is I felt like I have done this thing too often with the other games. The meme that was popular online was also a strong and well after you get the joke, made the game a bit better to go through. However, if you only buy Call of Duty games for the single player you are missing half of the race my friend. The few moments where you do get to play with the dog is pretty fun, sadly not as common as the hype provided.
They have listened to some suggestions the community mentioned during slurring forum posts, and well out of all that, they given a very minded experience. They added a big list, its biggest yet, of perks to add to your characters. By characters I am talking about your squad, or unit. Whichever name you prefer. You can customize, design and build them how you like. To what you are granted at limitation, of course. As you progress, and win a match, you are given tokens, those tokens are used to unlock various things. Perks in this game are a mile long, with a limit of you spending eight points total, each perk, having a point limit of one though four.
This was a interesting idea on paper, but overall its more daunting, and unneeded to be honest. Sadly, there are also elements to this game that take a lot of the run and gun out of this game, making it feel a bit not fun. Example, About ninety percent of every match I joined PC side, everyone and there grandmother just sat, camped, and was jolly. Now for a game that is prided for running, gunning and tea-bagging, you are pretty much a massive target, being the lamb for slaughter. Your own team, also camping in a corner. You may assume this is me just whining, because I supposedly suck at said game. When factually to suck, you have to have one of the following issues: Tunnel-vision, slow moment, Camp, lack of understanding to the games goals and objective. Which I do not have any of those issues. So what is the problem here? Is it that the mechanics need a massive tweak. I think you would be correct.
Twitching in the game also makes it pretty much game over for any sort of close encounter gun battle as well. So now if you look back to all of the issues I have mentioned, you see why people have to resort to playing like Counter Strike players. Or as if there playing Search and Destroy on Hardcore. On normal difficulty. The overhaul of modes we are given one major popular for most gamers got ripped out of the Xbox360, PS3, and Wii ports. Which is Ground War. Which honestly this mode would be perfect for the massive scale of the maps. Which is another problem to the game, the maps, which I will go into in a moment. On PC, PS4, and Xbox One all are exclusive to this mode sadly. Most of the starter weapons are pretty interesting. The Honey Badger being of one of my favorites out of the lot. Attachments, and other older elements are still within the game, unlockable with said tokens mentioned above.
Aliens! I mean xenomorph are this games Co-op mode. Fun, challenging, and addicting to play. Sharing the same idea for the Nazi zombie modes, back in Blackops two, and in Blackops one. Character classes such as a Weapon Specialist, Tank, Engineer, and Medic are apart of this clever mode. (I have provided links to the wikia so you may learn a bit more about each class better then I will ever explain.) You are set up much like Left 4 Dead, or games such as Killing floor, where you protect a objective at most points, and survive the whole pathed map.
I personally enjoyed this mode quite a bit. It was refreshing against all of the zombie game modes we had in the past. For this mode also has a money system,which is used for various upgrades and weapons. At the moment one map was open for me to play, which was Point of contact. It was a country style location, with debris, smoke, fire, and aliens everywhere was in clear view for me. In this game mode to boot, you are given thirty ranks to grind through. If you enjoyed games such as Left 4 Dead, or Smash TV, this felt much like those titles.
In Closing:
This is not Activisons, or IW, or Ravensoft greatest installment, however a tough lesson. Stop producing Call of duty every year. Its not the spread of the new console platforms over all that is just more customers, its the output of fans, telling other friends about this game that is making it not sell as strongly. Word of mouth. Its story overall was pretty fun.
The story of two brothers, and a dad getting his boys into a secret OP named the Ghosts had its great points. Its multiplayer, which is the big seller, is held back by many issues, such as massive maps, when they are not needed if the game modes are cut off in still popular platforms, such as the Xbox360, and PS3.
The level design is good however, just if they were scale it all down for the last generation consoles, adjusted the damage output, and gave the players a fair recovery, and hitpoints base all would be good. Otherwise Is this game worth purchasing? It had two strong and run points, Extinction, and its Campaign. Its one of those wait for a big sale and you might land yourself a enjoyable game on a more affordable budget, otherwise the marketing might have to hold off and make the game every three years with fresh engines, and crisp ideas.
7.0 out of 10