Developer: Infinity Ward
Publisher: Activision-Blizzard
Platform: PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Call of Duty: Ghosts – Review
I reckon it’s though to be Call of Duty. The series fell under heavy scrutiny in recent years because every iteration is just more of the same with only minor tweaks presenting themselves with each game. This year it was up to Infinity Ward to release Call of Duty: Ghosts, the series’ new subtitle that officially marks the end of the Modern Warfare-franchise.
Story
Ghosts is a more personal story. I’d even go as far as to call it a coming-of-age tale, as Kesh and Logan Walker, our two protagonists, grew up, listening to their father’s tall tales about the Ghosts, a group of soldiers who lived through the worst war has to offer. When The Federation – a collaboration between several South American countries – attacks the U.S.A., destroying entire cities, the two young men pick up their guns to fight, eventually ending up in the footsteps of their heroes.
You play most of the game as Logan Walker, starting off when The Federation hijacks the ODIN (Orbital Defensive Initiative) space station, turning it on Logan’s home-town. Logan starts off os a soldier, but eventually makes it as a member of the Ghosts, which turns out to be led by his own father. They end up hunting down an ex-Ghost, Rorke, who turned coat and started a ghost-hunt – ahem – of his own.
Call of Duty: Ghosts’ story is as clichéd as it gets, even more so than the previous games’. If you ever want to see a medley of the past decade of action movies, just play this campaign instead, it’s shorter and you’ll see exactly the same major plot points you’d expect. A good guy who turned to the wrong side of the law because of a team-mate failed to rescue him and America’s tendency to portray itself as the underdog are just two of them.
In the end, Ghosts’ campaign is nothing but an excuse to blow things up on screen. It’s serviceable, but with that everything has been said.
Graphics
Not much has changed when it comes to Call of Duty’s graphics, things – on current generation, at least- still look largely the same as they did in the past. While Ghosts shouldn’t be called an ugly game, there still remain some serious graphical flaws to be found. Shadows, for instance, are at times poorly rendered and some levels, mainly those taking place at night, or are employing a lot of neon-lights, fall victim to low-resolution textures. It’s a problem that’s most obvious during Logan and Hesh’s night-time raid on an office building.
Other than that there are a few pop-in issues and I experienced quite a few cases o enemies flailing around, minutes after having been killed.
Sound
Call of Duty never had many quite moments. Ghosts upholds that tradition, only muting the seemingly endless stream of explosions and sounds of bullets flying past during stealth missions.
The sound is decent as always, relying on much of tricks used in action-movies to set the mood and get your adrenaline pumping. Guns then, all sound different and vehicles can be recognised my the spinning of their respective engines.
The feeling pervades, though, that it’s something you’ve all heard before, as the audio, just as the visuals, have been remained very much the same as in previous titles.
Gameplay
I won’t bore you all to death by explaining how a modern shooter works, by now it should be rather obvious, even more so when it comes to a franchise that helped define the way we currently play an FPS.
All you really need to know is that Ghosts still lets you handle its guns as if you were a hardened veteran on steroids. The different weapons act varied enough to have you looking for your favourite gun – mine being the AK-12 Holographic – and aptly placed cover will present you with plenty of flanking opportunities to take down enemy combatants.
New this time around is your trusted canine friend, Riley. I case you’ve missed all the hype, trailers and commercials: yes, Call of Duty now lets you control a dog. Not often though, as missions where Riley is controlled by the A.I., greatly outnumber the few scenes where you’re actually controlling him directly. It’s a pity and a missed chance, as Riley’s missions, often rely on stealth and luring enemies out in the open, which is a great breath of air in between all the violence and loud explosions.
Until now, I’ve mainly been talking about the single player experience. I think we all know, though, that what made Call of Duty so popular, is its highly praised online multi player. Here, a few changes have been made.
First of all, Ghosts‘ reliance on shorter and faster online matches has led to the removal of the Capture the Flag and Headquarters modes. Instead, Blitz, Cranked and Search & Rescue enter the fray.
Blitz tasks you with reaching certain enemy points in order to gain points; Cranked takes a classic Team Deathmatch scenario, but only gives you thirty seconds to land the next kill; and Search & Rescue is virtually the same as Search & Destroy, only now you can re-spawn when a team-mate picks up your dog tag.
Maps, this time around, are build around height, with most arena’s counting multiple floors. What this means is that it’s a bit more difficult to acquire a kill-streak, as dozens of connecting paths and doorways, mean that bullets can come flying from any direction.
So far, the included maps, all seam to lack the creativity that’s generally present in Call of Duty‘s online fights. Cover seems more like clutter than cleverly designed and placed set-pieces, evidently reducing the amount of proper strategies you can think of.
Lastly; Ghosts got rid of the series’ zombies, replacing them with aliens. That’s all that should be said about this mode though, as everything else remains the same. You’re and three others are still pitted against hordes of enemies, only now they come from outer space instead of from beyond the grave.
Conclusion
Call of Duty: Ghosts offers just what you’d expect by now. Everything it does, has been done before, most notably by its own predecessors. You might like that, especially if you’re still hooked on last year’s Black Ops 2’s multi-player. And make no mistake, by now it’s been made crystal clear that although this franchise is being milked dry as best as possible, it still sells extremely well.
The problem I have with Ghosts, is that it is a bland game, that suffers from being part of a series that’s relying on yearly releases. Even with two studios taking turns and relying on their own little twists, it’s getting far too repetitive for today’s industry. With the advent of a new generation of consoles, of which this game is also a part, it’s a pity that Ghosts wasn’t able to bring back Call of Duty to its former glory.
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