Anyone who knows me well enough knows that for the past few years I have had a passionate hate for the Call of Duty franchise. The last one I bought was Modern Warfare 2 and I only own MW3 because a friend gave it to me for free. My opinion was that Call of Duty 4 was as good as it was ever going to get, that the 2007 wargasm achieved all the series could hope to because it was just so damn good and none of the subsequent releases from either Infinity Ward or Treyarch were up to the standard of the original Modern Warfare. That was until I played Call of Duty: Ghosts.
Ghosts sets itself in another new timeline for the franchise, meaning you do not have to have understanding of either the 'Modern Warfare' trilogy or the 'Black Ops' trilogy (starting with World at War).
The Middle East has suffered total nuclear destruction. South America becomes the richest oil deposit on the planet and organisation known as 'The Federation' forms there and begins to become a major global superpower.
The game opens in 2021 with the Federation hijacking the Orbital Defence Initiative (ODIN) satellite superweapon and fire it upon the U.S, where our main protagonists the Walker family narrowly escape death.
Skip forward to 2033 and the walker family are members of the U.S military which is caught in a stalemate against the Federation. When their home is attacked though they are taken aside by their father and are initiated into a small squad of soldiers, separate to the military called the Ghosts, in order to hunt down and kill the leader of the Federation, an ex-Ghost named Rorke.
The story, on pen and paper anyway, isn't anything special, it doesn't break new ground, it doesn't even sound that interesting. But I have not played a more engaging story mode in CoD game since Call of Duty 4. Due to the fact that you aren't bouncing around from character to character and that the three Walker's are the main characters in this story you can at least begin to form a bond with them, making a couple of the games more intimate moments relatively touching and its a nice thing to suddenly care for characters in a Call of Duty game.
The campaign is also surprisingly long, coming in at around 8-10 hours depending on difficulty and if you plan to try and find all the collectible documents in the game, which do more than net you a trophy/achievement this time round and actually provide you with some back story on some of the characters.
Ghosts plays very much like a CoD game believe it or not. Fast paced corridor shooter action with set piece after set piece being thrown at you. Though in most previous CoD games you begin to get desensitised to the chaos, in Ghosts there is something quite unusual with how its set pieces may actually catch you off guard occasionally. Whether it be having the ground tear up around you due to explosions, or perhaps have a building you are in collapse onto the building next to it; more than once Ghosts had me on the edge of my seat shouting in amazement at what had just happened.
In terms of the actual shooting, very little has changed as you can probably tell, the most notable 'new' thing is the ability to peer round walls by aiming down sights at the edge of cover, though this has been a mechanic in many FPS's for years, this is new to the CoD series.
Ghosts will throw you into some very strange situations at times too, whether you are sneaking your way past dozens of guards as Riley the dog, engaging in underwater combat, fighting on a moving train or perhaps even having a little shootout in space, Ghosts has you covered for unforgeable moments and some of its missions are among the best in the franchise, the final mission in particular.
As for visuals, on the current generation Ghosts is showing us just how desperate for a new generation we really are at times. Though the game looks visually impressive, some of the textures are horribly low-res and the game even manages to do what no CoD this gen has managed to do and drop the framerate at times. Though these are minor problems and don't occur too often, its worth taking note that if you want a game that's going to have sex with your eyes, you may want to opt for Battlefield 4 instead or wait until the PS4/Xbox One versions; that is unless your a PC player, then no need to worry as Ghosts is the most visually stunning CoD yet with some moments that will definitely push your rig to its limits if running on max settings.
The audio standard is also good, with guns sounding meatier than ever and a good soundtrack, voice acting is pretty mediocre at times though which can detract from the overall atmosphere.
Now normally I don't do a dedicated Multiplayer bit, but it is CoD after all so I suppose I ought to.
Ghosts provides the most robust & balanced matchmaking in a CoD game to date. With 9 gamemodes (available in both Standard & Hardcore variants) and 15 maps out of the box with more to come in the outrageously priced Season pass (£40, three DLC packs released periodically over the year) and a pre-order exclusive map.
The class system uses a style similar to the 'Pick 10' from Black Ops 2 however the system has been hugely reworked so that there is no 'class to rule them all' but instead one that will work for you and you alone.
The maps are all well made and interesting, most of them drawing inspiration from campaign missions, and all have a unique dynamic feature that alters the design of the map as you play. One map may just have gates that open and close different pathways whilst another map has a powerful river sweeping away parts of the map as the game goes on making it increasingly difficult to reach the other side. These map changers keep you on your toes at all times and provide an even more exciting multiplayer experience. Unfortunately a few of the maps have been designed with next gen consoles in mind (up to 32 players compared to current gen's 16) and therefore a couple of the maps feel a little too large at times, but this should be no problems for the next gen versions of the game.
As for the community...well unfortunately some things never change, luckily we still have the mute button.
So that's it, Call of Duty: Ghosts. An entire decade of CoD has come and gone, some good, most terrible but one thing is certain; that is that Ghosts is the best Call of Duty since 4. In some areas it surpasses the great classic, in others it doesn't. It takes risks that either pay off or don't and it provides one of the most entertaining FPS's on the market. The end of a generation, but also the beginning of a new one, I could not have asked for a better Call of Duty to usher in the new consoles and it will certainly give Battlefield a run for its money this year.
Call of Duty: Ghosts – 8/10
+Excellent Campaign
+Military, With Just Enough Sci-Fi
+Refined Multiplayer
-Some Graphical Issues On Current Gen
-Still A Bit Samey
