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. :)
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| What it looks like in the game. |
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| 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.
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| Your enemy, Rorke. |
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| This is Logan. |
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| This is Hesh. |
