Call of Duty: Ghosts Review

Earlier this month Infinity Ward released the newest edition to the Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: Ghosts.  For those of you who may get confused there are two different companies that continue to make Call of Duty games, Infinity Ward is the maker of the modern warfare games, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.  The counterpart companies are Activision and Treyarch which created the Black ops games and World at War.

The new Call of Duty: Ghosts is part of the Modern Warfare series from Infinity Ward, but what is most interesting about this game is the fresh start they have made.  The campaign no longer interacts with the characters known as Cpt. Soap and Cpt. Price, characters that the followers of Call of Duty have become familiar with through the years.  Infinity Ward has created a brand new story, following new characters.  It follows a family of three including their German shepherd.  Army Cpt. Elias Walker, the father of his two sons Logan and David “Hesh” Walker and their dog, Riley go to war after the Federation starts a war with the United States. Most of the game you play as the younger brother Logan who teams up with his brother Hesh for most of the missions.   The end of the game has also left it open to continue this same story of this family.

Although it is a story that is new to the series, it is exciting and entertaining for any Call of Duty player.  Two scenes in particular come to mind, there is a mission that has you and your brother underwater scuba diving and the graphics were amazing.  The coral reefs and the sea creatures were incredibly detailed that made it look realistic which was quite shocking.  The other mission had you as the player, controlling the dog Riley and completing certain tasks which were fun and amusing.  These are just two examples of how Infinity Ward has implemented new ideas to their game to allow the player to partake in something that has never been done before within Call of Duty.  Although the downfall of the campaign has and still is the length of the gameplay, it only takes about 5-6 hours to complete, and that is if you watch all the cut scenes.  Also they do not allow the player to make decisions that would alter certain situations; you have to do everything the game tells you to do, with no alternate scenarios.  Regardless of the length of the campaign, it was still awesome for any gamer who enjoys first person shooters. The campaign gets 4 out of 5 stars. 

As for the multiplayer, much of the same has returned.  Most of the favorite game modes have returned, Team Deathmatch, Domination, Kill Confirmed, Search & Destroy and Free-for-all.  It was disappointing to see that Capture the Flag did not return, after being included in many of the most recent Call of Duty games.  However they did add new game modes.  The new modes included are Cranked, Blitz, Search and Rescue, Infected and Hunted.  Two of the most interesting ones are Cranked and Search and Rescue.  In Cranked upon getting a kill of an enemy player a timer pops up on your screen giving you thirty seconds to get another kill or you will yourself explode.  Also upon getting a kill or multiple kills, your soldier becomes faster and can move swiftly around the map, hence the name of the game, Cranked.  This game mode is most intriguing because many Call of Duty players complain about “campers” and in a sense this particular game has almost eliminated the ability for a player to camp, but instead encourage players to run around and partake in fast paced action.

The other game mode that stood out was Search and Rescue.  For years Search and Destroy has been a highly played game type.  Infinity Ward has created Search and Rescue by combining Search and Destroy and Kill Confirmed.  Upon dying in Search and Rescue your tags are dropped and you teammates have the opportunity of reviving you if they recover your tags, the enemy has the opportunity to remove you from the round by recovering your tags.  This was a creative way to eliminate the spawn deaths that haunted the Search and Destroy game mode. 

The other new game modes Blitz, Hunted and Infected were not all that impressive or thought out.  Blitz will remind any Call of Duty player of the old Headquarters game type which seems to be filled with explosives and too much confusion.  Infected and Hunted are too slow paced and do not consist of enough action as the other game types. 

Multiplayer allows you to customize the look of the soldier you play as in game kind of like how Halo did back in the day.  Unlocking these custom outfits is a hassle which requires the player to put way too much time into the game.  Some of the maps seem to be oversized, as though you are playing a game like Battlefield.  Some of the maps could legit be cut in half and they would be more enjoyable to play.  Also the killstreaks are not as fun as they have been with Modern Warfare 2 and 3.  Overall the multiplayer has taken steps backwards.  The multiplayer gets 2.5 stars out of 5.