Call of Duty: Ghosts Review

 

Campaign review:

Jeezo there’s been a lot of negative reviews of Infinity Ward’s latest incarnation of the world biggest first person shooter. I’ve heard/read that the game is not innovative, nothing new, boring and well wait a minute, you swim with sharks, fight in space not once but twice, drive tanks (which was brilliant fun), shoot, stab and bomb your way through some wonderfully crafted levels. So get a grip people.

Ghosts is new a take on Call on Duty; you play primarily as two brothers who join the legendary Ghosts – a unit of uber special forces chaps trying to rescue America from the tyranny of the combined might of South America. Okay so it’s hardly plausible but it’s a GAME it’s not trying to be some channel 4 documentary on the horrors of war and if you want realism go and play ARMA.

The game ticks all the boxes for a decent Call of Duty campaign, great guns, some nice stealth sections and you get to utilise the team dog for some creeping about and dog attacks which is a lot of fun, it’s tense too and some of the gun battles are fierce enough to leave your heart racing, I really don’t see what all the moaning is about. I understand that it’s on the rails but it’s a first person shooter, there’s nothing wrong with on the rails if it’s done right and this gets it right, I mean you get to blow stuff up with tanks, space cannons and Osprays, what’s not to love?

Guns wise the game has got it spot on, they “feel” right, sniper rifles and light machine guns are heavy and make you cumbersome whilst equipping smaller lighter guns allows you to run about like a mad man, the muzzle flash and sounds are superb, this feels exactly like the original Modern Warfare which can only be a good thing.

The levels are decent if not bordering on the surreal at times; can you even fire a bullet in space? I’m not sure, I don’t know if it’s ever been tried but Ghosts certainly gives it a go, I’m not sure machine guns work all that great under water either but again a little bit of artistic licence is fine but I would have liked, if I’m honest, to be using a harpoon gun or maybe even a little bit more stealth during the underwater mission. I know I’m being a bit pedantic but it would have been something a little different which at times the game could have done with at times.

The game also looks lovely too, it’s clean and crisp and I imagine will only look even sharper on the next gen consoles, some of the background detail is stunning and a real credit to Infinity Ward.

The game itself is between six and seven hours on normal or hardened, I never play Veteran not because I can’t but because I simply don’t have the time anymore, I think seven hours is pretty good value for money for your forty notes even if you don’t touch the multiplayer although I’m assuming most of you are considering it that’s why most people get the game these days.

So on the campaign front I’m going to say well done Infinity Ward, you’ve given us a well laid out powerful shooter which ticks all the right boxes and lets us swim with sharks so well done them.

Multiplayer:

It’s what has made Call of Duty the billion dollar licence that it is, people don’t buy this for the campaign, not really, they buy it mainly for multiplayer and here we see some fundamental changes, some for the better some not so much.

First off you can customise your character, skin colour and sex as well as outfits and helmets/ facemasks etc are all unlocked during the ranking up system, this is overdue and a pretty enough although hardly ground breaking.

There are two main differences from past multiplayers, one is the absence of Headquarters; I’m not sure why this has been rejected as it was a brilliant teamwork game but such is life and the other main difference is that it is now much harder to rank up.

On previous games you could have ranked up enough to have your set up pretty much how you want it, not anymore and forget your three of four helicopter gunships up supporting you per game, I’ve now played thirty online games and I think I’ve seen all of four Helicopters, the game is just too stingy and frankly I’m all for that. It’s much more back to basics it’s harder and the only real tragedy is that once again they’ve allowed quick scopers to rule supreme, I’m sorry but it can’t be that hard to make it that if you aim a sniper rifle you have a second or so delay in lifting the rifle or why not give them a snipers only lobby so they can quick scope away to their hearts content? I hate them and I wish they would all have their Xboxes taken away from them and thrown out the window.

The maps are excellent, they’re obviously leaving the space map for future DLC but otherwise you have a good mix of maps with nothing too big and nothing to “shipment” which is nice and the guns all work well within their range meaning that you actually have to choose a gun carefully rather than in previous versions where you could just stick a big scope on a tiny gun and away you went, this is good move forward.

This game does it for me, can you tell? I don’t like giving scores and I’m not going to start here but what I will say is that if Price and Soap (R.I.P.) were having a boys night in they’d be all over this.