Call of Duty: Ghosts (PC)
Well it
looks like it’s time for me to look at the king of arcade shooters, but is it
good or another reminder that Call of Duty’s reign is coming to an end? Only one
way to find out I suppose as I once again take on the fierce flames of the FPS
genre…
Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen. I’m the
Guardian and this is the No Holds
Barred review of Infinity Wards newest addition to the Call of Duty franchise –
Call of Duty: Ghosts.
Now for as
long as I can remember; Call of Duty’s strength has always been its single
player campaign, or at least to me it has, and this rendition in the franchise
is no exception and though I personally found the campaign in Ghosts to be quite
enjoyable, in that goofily enjoyable/so bad it’s fun sort of way, it also
suffers from the usual nonsense that we have all come to expect from the
franchise in the form of it’s insane storyline.
Braking the story down. All the South
American countries have joined forces and become the “Federation” after the
worlds energy producing deserts are destroyed in a mass nuclear attack, (though
it’s never actually stated in-game why
the deserts where destroyed) which is then followed by them using an orbiting American
super-weapon above the Earth to severely cripple America, paving the way for a
full force invasion. It’s by this point
of the story that I was shaking my head at the sheer madness of it all, and
questioning what Deep South fallout shelter they had pulled this xenophobic and
clearly insane writing team from. Seriously, out of all the enemy’s they could
have picked from, they picked South America. WHY! No seriously, why? I want to know what basis they had for it. Or
maybe they just ran out of other countries to set up as the bad guys - it
really wouldn’t surprise me if they did. And as for how well they integrated this
insane bit of American xenophobia into the gameplay, they didn’t. Actually if
it wasn’t for the heavily expositive cut scenes that played in-between chapters
I wouldn’t have had a clue of what was happening throughout the game.
While we’re on the matter of things
not making sense by the way, I also have to wonder why the Ghosts are called
Ghosts. From the into cut scene (which I have to admit, I enjoyed an awful lot
and it was really rather good) we see that the Ghosts are a legendary gorilla
fighting unit who use stealth and cunning to take out their enemy’s without
ever being seen. Too bad nobody told this to Infinity Ward though, as for the
vast majority of this game the Ghosts spend their time running through open
warzones while shooting everything that moves or driving flaming trucks
straight through the front doors of the enemy base. Heck; in that respect the
dog is more of a Ghost than the actual Ghosts themselves. The dog levels are
the only time where you have to play
it stealthy and even then you just
spend your time pretending to be a Pokémon, waiting for an unsuspecting solider
to walk into the tall grass before you leap at them and rip their throat out.
Sadly, for
all the stupidity of its premise though, the story was actually a lot of fun to
play through. This is more than likely helped by the fact that unlike Battlefield
4 the story didn’t shift up its own backside over how “deep” or “meaningful” it
was but rather it just takes you on a high octane run through explosions and killing
people in a variety of ways. And what would be the complete Call of Duty
experience without character death, scripted moments and un-surprising surprise
twists galore, with next to all of these so called “surprise twists” being so predictable that even a goldfish would have
been able seen them coming. To be fair though; there was one surprise twist
that threw me, but that was only because it was so ludicrously stupid and came so far out of nowhere
that I half expected Optimus Prime and Mario to suddenly prance across the
screen doing the Can-Can! We also see ourselves, once again, in the shoes of a
silent protagonist with interchanging silent protagonists throughout the story
at random intervals. And yes, once again we find ourselves as a glorified
cameraman who’s there to do nothing but watch people talk and shoot at random biddies,
though thankfully the game doesn’t try to make you think that you’re the leader
of anything (unlike another FPS I recently reviewed) but rather just sticks to
the age old trait of barking orders at you and waiting for you to carry them
out – and in a few cases, even getting bored of you taking your time and
carrying them out for you. It should also be mentioned that if you wish to play
a game that allows you to explore, then look elsewhere as Ghosts really is a
corridor shooter in every sense of the word, as it seems deviation from the
scripted gameplay, room to explore and the choice of optional paths for
different avenues of play style are all but the fevered dreams of a lunatic
high on a sugar rush – or so it would seem in the mind of Infinity Ward. All in
all very much like every other Call of Duty.
Also, on an interesting side note,
not all the elements of the Ghosts story line are from the drug ravaged mind of
a xenophobic maniac. The big orbital weapon of mass death and destruction, is
actually quite plausible and indeed a real thing. Also it’s not a new idea as
it was in Black Ops 2 and has been around in the real world for longer than
that. To be honest, this really dose point towards the whole, ‘Infinity Ward is
running out of ideas’ theory. Now, as much as I want to explain how all this
works, it would take me all day to explain it, and this review is going to be
long enough as it is. As such I shall leave you in the hands of MatPat of Game Theory to do the explaining for me.
Take it away Matt…
As far as
the graphics for the game are concerned, they’re pretty mediocre. Even pushing
the graphical settings up as far as they would go didn’t make too much of a
difference in my opinion as they still looked more than a couple of years out
of date. The textures and environmental effects are of the same ilk as well I’m
afraid. They’re not bad, but not particular breath taking ether. If anything,
I’d say they are simply there to do a default job, and that’s all. That’s not
to say the graphics shouldn’t go without a bit of praise though, as the maps
are of a nice design and the environments are quite nice to look at - if you
slow down a bit to observer them for that is. Two great examples of this are
the space and underwater levels of the campaign, as these really did make me
pause and give a slight nod to the art team for the work they did. As for the textures,
they look a bit more defined on PC over the Xbox 360 and Xbox One versions, and
animations play a touch smoother - not sure about PS3 and PS4 though but I can
assume much of the same. Even with that said however, I still maintain that the
graphics look older than they should. Also, before I move off from the
graphics, I just wanted to mention the cutscenes which, for some odd reason,
where make in a style more a kin to wax dummies melting with occasional
satellite images thrown in rather than a briefing for a mission. Lastly,
specifically for the PC copies of the game, Infinity Ward are still adamantly
against fitting a proper Field of View setting into their games. You can only
set the FoV to a maximum of 80FoV without the use of third party software,
though good luck using said software now; as Infinity Ward have set up an
anti-cheating system which means you can no longer use said software without
risk of getting your account suspended or banned permanently.
Sound wise, we
see a continuation of Infinity Wards tradition of releasing epic soundtracks,
and though none of them compare to the amazing ‘Extraction Point’ from MW2 (or
any of the amazing soundtrack from MW2 now that I think about it), it is still
enjoyable and reflects well on the few truly epic moments of the campaign. In
terms of the rest of the game sounds, the sound assets are well done, and sound
as they should but the ambient sounds however seem to be a bit lacking at times
in the multiplayer which leaves the world feeling a bit dead. Other than that
though, the sound work on the game is fine.
As for the gameplay for Ghosts, that
can be summed up very easily. Have you played a Call of Duty game within the
last 7 years? If yes, then you know exactly how Ghosts plays. If no, then you
just made my job harder so thanks. The gameplay of Ghosts is good for the most
part, it is still king of the arcade shooters, and the gunplay is still as
strong as ever, with a fair choice of weapons. As for the gadgets, you only get
to use then once in the campaign before they get shoved back into the toy box
until the next play through. There is also a variety of kill streak perks in
the multiplayer, which a player may unlock depending on the amount of kills
they have got in a row. As for bugs and glitches, short of some balancing
issues and the continual problem of spawn killing (though by this point I think
CoD will never get rid of its spawn killing ways) I haven’t come across any
bugs or glitches which is good, and quite surprising, though I am reviewing
Ghosts quite late on so for all I know all the bugs have been patched (or I’m
just really lucky) which would be a nice change of pace considering its EA
counterpart is still being patched, even to this very day. Lastly, I also want
take note that the vehicle mechanics for this game came straights out of
wonderland itself, as the tanks feel like they’re on magic carpets and helicopters
like they’re on puppet strings. On the other hand however; who plays Call of
Duty for realism.
Lastly, it’s
time to look at the multiplayer aspect of Ghosts, or at least focus on it as
I’ve already mentioned it multiply times throughout this review already. With
15 maps plus the 4 DLC maps that have already been released at the time of this
review, and 3 more DLC map packs on the way, there’s no shortage of maps to
play, learn and explore. Ghosts also hosts 14 multiplayer game modes plus
normal play and hardcore multiplayer matches available, as well as a new
4-player Co-Op mode called Extinction, which is basically Zombies and consists
of 3 original maps and uses aliens rather than zombies. From what I’ve played
of it, it’s an okay mode but not as fun as Zombies in my opinion. As for the
main multiplayer, there isn’t much more for me to say that I haven’t already
said earlier on in this review. The gameplay is that of the games that came
before it, there is a fair choice of class customization with a fair selection
of weapons and perks, the graphics are mediocre at best and sound is lacking at
times with sound assets that do their job well. As for map design, some of the
maps are fun to play but more than a few can be blatantly exploited with spawn
killing, and across map sniping which leads me to believe that the weapons
aren’t the only parts of the game that are in need of some balancing. Lastly, Infinity
Ward have also changed the HUD slightly as it now give out the players Kill/Death
count in the top right corner of the screen, in an almost League of Legends
style, which I really do like.
Well there
you have it Ladies and Gentlemen. For all my complaints about this game, I
really did have fun playing through the story. Insane it may be, but to me it
was just a fun run around and a nice change of pace, plus it kept me
entertained which is always a good thing in my books. Sadly that experience was
tarnished by the games ending though. As for the main ending itself, it was
brilliant all the way to the credits. And then the Epilogue played, and I nearly put my foot though the screen.
Sad to say but it really is a case of a fun thing ending really badly, not to mention the blatant sequel baiting in the worst possible way. The really, really, stupid way.
Now, when
all things are considered and all is said and done, I must take pause and
consider all I have said here before I hand down my final verdict upon this
game. For all its stupidity and xenophobic attitude, as well as constrained
gameplay and its heavily scripted nature, I had a lot of fun playing though this
games single player. I also enjoyed my time in the multiplayer, and though
Extinction was nothing more than a lacklustre attempt as Zombies, it was some innovation and as such should
be taken into account. With all this and more in mind I can finally conclude
this, Call of Duty: Ghosts is a mediocre game that continues to beat a tired
trend for the chance to get a quick buck, but at the same time it was fun and surprisingly
enjoyable to play, though it in no way is it deserving of its AAA price tag when
we consider what we got. As such I give Call of Duty: Ghosts a solid…
5/10 – Average
And with
that Ladies and Gentlemen, I am the Guardian and I thank you dearly for
reading. Goodbye and be safe.
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