2014 Electronic and Video Game Reviews: Call of Duty: Ghost Review

I think it's safe to say that Call of Duty defined, and then refined, the console-based first-person shooter experience. It's so prolific that the series' popularity might even suffer from its own success. Today, it's fashionable to beat the franchise up, which often happens with anything that over-saturates pop culture. Regardless, Activision claimed over $1 billion in sales on launch day. Love it or hate it, but Call of Duty clearly has a devoted following.

Does anything change in its most recent installment? Not really; the formula remains the same. That's not to say it's a bad recipe. You get high production value, excellent voice acting, solid first-person shooter mechanics, and a Hollywood story. But if you were hoping that Infinity Ward would redefine its genre with Ghosts...well, that didn't happen.

The company does change and add a few features, though. Ghosts introduce a Squads mode that lets you create and customize a team of computer-controlled soldiers. It's not part of the single-player campaign, but can be played offline or against other players. As usual, there are new multiplayer modes, too, such as Search and Rescue, Kill Confirmed, Infected, and Blitz. A four-player co-op mode called Extinction has players defend a base from alien invaders. Make no mistake, there's a lot to keep you busy once you're done with Call of Duty: Ghosts' campaign.

The single-player story is the element that strays furthest from previous Call of Duty games. Infinity Ward must have guessed that gamers are tired of fighting Germans, Russians, Asians, and Middle Eastern countries. So, this time around, the bad guys are South American. Yes, our equatorial neighbors turned the U.S.' doomsday weapon against itself, crippling the country and forcing it into a 10-year-long defensive campaign against the evil (and technically superior) South American Federation. Oh, and the U.S. put up a 100-foot concrete wall along the border to protect what's left of the country, so illegal immigration is no longer an issue.

Yes, the premise is utterly ridiculous. On the plus side, it gives you an opportunity to defend decimated, destroyed, and decaying urban American environments from invading enemy forces, which is cool. True to Call of Duty's formulaic approach, standard first-person shooter fare is mixed with mini-game-like tasks, such as controlling drones for airstrikes or robotic turrets that you have to engage in. There's also Riley, the loyal German Shepherd that you can send skulking through the grass to help you. The dog mechanic isn't particularly compelling. But that doesn't matter because humans are predisposed to bonding with canines, right? I can't help but love the simulated dog. :)

What it looks like in the game.

Man and his best friend.

Call of Duty: Ghosts is built on the IW6 engine, a modified and updated version of the technology used in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Some of the improvements include Pixar's SubD surfaces, which increases the detail of models as you get closer, real-time HDR lighting, Iris Adjust technology (which mimics how eyes react to changing lighting conditions), new animation systems, fluid dynamics, interactive smoke, displacement mapping, and dynamic multiplayer maps.

Like most recent Call of Duty games, it looks quite good, but then breaks down under scrutiny. There are far too many objects and characters that lack shadows, even at the highest detail settings, and especially when you zoom in with a scope. Crysis and Battlefield are both a solid step above what Ghosts offers.

The game ending was really horrible. You turn evil at the end. Ok this is the first time in all of Call of Duty history that you turn evil at the end. I was happ y I beat the game, then it showed the credits. BUT AFTER THAT RORKE (FEDERATION LEADER, BY THE WAY FEDERATION IS BAD) STABS YOU AND TAKE YOU AWAY AND DRAGS YOU WHILE YOUR WOUNDED BROTHER HESH SCREAMS BUT CAN'T GET UP BECAUSE HE IS ALSO WOUNDED.