Call of Duty: Ghosts Multiplayer Review
Call of Duty: Ghosts was released earlier this week, becoming the 10th Call of Duty game to be released since the game’s inception in 2003. Call of Duty: Ghosts delivers a ‘new engine, new world, new story, characters, and more.’ I’ve been playing MP now, since launch on Xbox 360, and as a hardcore Call of Duty fan, the game is what a Call of Duty should be. Ghosts delivers fresh feeling for a Call of Duty game. It’s not similar to any game before it, which is good.
Create a Solider
Call of Duty: Ghosts shines with the new Create A Solider feature. This new feature is one of the best additions to a Call of Duty game ever. Being able to fully customize your character is fun, and it allows you to be an individual in the game. There’s tons of options available to customize – over 20,000 combinations. The load out selection is also great. It’s a big improvement over MW3’s, and personally, I prefer it over Black Ops 2’s Pick 1o system. The Pick 10 is integrated in a new way into the Perks. Ghosts puts a strong emphasis on the perks. You get up to 8 points to use, unless you remove your secondary, then you get 11. Each perk has a value based upon it’s usefulness. The perks I’ve come to use a lot is Marathon (yes, unlimited sprint from MW2 is back!), and Scavenger. I change the rest up with every class.
Strike Packages return from MW3 to Ghosts, and that’s a good thing. Strike Packages is the one of the best implementations for a kill streak system. It allows for different selections within each class, and different variety based upon your play style. Yes, Assault, Support, and Specialist return; but this time around, Support streaks are kinda of useless. MW3’s were really overpowered, and in Ghosts those are really underpowered. Assault’s are little better, although some streaks don’t do much to help your team out. Infinity Ward has taken fan feedback and reduced the amount of air support available. It’s nice to have limited objects in the air – makes focus on gun action. But, if someone does get a Helicopter, those are insane. It shoots missiles, follows the enemies around the map, and targets everything it sees.
Game Modes
Call of Duty: Ghosts is sort of lacking in game mode variety. Every Call of Duty to date has had more modes than Ghosts. Some really good modes, like Headquarters and Demolition, are gone. Those modes were very popular in MW3 and MW2, so it’s very interesting as to why they would remove them. Search & Destroy was also removed, but after fan feedback, IW’s adding it to the game again on Nov. 15th.
The new modes are more of the same. Blitz replaces Capture The Flag. I thought CTF would stay, as it’s a popular competitive mode, but no, it’s gone. Blitz isn’t the same as CTF at all. You just keep going through the enemy portal. First team to 16 wins. One thing Infinity Ward really needs to add is a spawn timer. That would change the mode, and possibly make it more appealing to competitive players. Cranked is a take on TDM, luckily TDM stayed in Ghosts. Cranked is made for people who hate campers. It’s the solution to people sitting in corners, and it forces you to move around and find the enemy. You get 30 seconds after every kill to get another, or you’ll explode.
HUD
Infinity Ward completely redesigned the HUD in Call of Duty: Ghosts. This is the first Call of Duty to get a completely redesigned HUD. The new mini maps is a great new addition; it takes up less space on the screen and shows more than before. You can see more “3D style” objects. The new leaderboards is very confusing. Although it does implement a requested feature – ability to show objective counts – it’s hard to understand. The leaderboard only appears in the top right – it doesn’t cover the screen. But, the font makes it hard to read. Sometimes you can’t even read it depending upon where in the map you are. The 6 and 8 look very similar, so it gets mixed up. IW also moved the kill feed up to the top right, which is really confusing. I keep looking to the old position, and think that the kill feed doesn’t exist.
But, out of every single thing, the most annoying thing about the HUD is the fact that, if you get hit by a tactical grenade, or a grenade explodes near you, the entire HUD shakes. I mean literally the whole thing. If you’re hit with a 9-bang, it makes it impossible to know if there’s enemies around you. The mini map shakes, and you can’t see much at all. It’d be okay if the bottom – gun ammo, etc – rumbled, but the whole thing isn’t okay.
Maps
There’s 14 maps on disc for Ghosts (15 if you got Free Fall). These maps are overly colorful, way too big, and not as fun as I’d thought they would be. Some of these maps are way too big for current-gen. Playing games on map like Stonehaven takes forever. You feel as if you’d play three games in the time it takes to finish one game on this map. With every Call of Duty, there’s always one map that I’ve quickly connected to, and liked a lot. With Ghosts, one of the maps that brings fun action is Free Fall. These maps deviate way to much from the fast paced action gameplay that should be in Call of Duty.
Dynamic Map Events
When Infinity Ward announced dynamic maps, I was really excited. I thought this would change Call of Duty completely, and the maps would have dramatic differences from start to finish within a game. But, that didn’t happen. The events are subtle, some I don’t even notice, that this isn’t a big feature. Tremor has tremors every now and then. Octane, the gas station keeps falling in the same way every single time. I can’t seem to lockdown what exactly the events are on certain maps.
The two maps that really show off what dynamic events could really be are Strikezone and Free Fall. These maps deserve the name of ‘Dynamic Maps.’ Free Fall, as the name suggests, is a falling map. Free Fall pits you on a skyscraper that’s about to fall apart, and you are playing in between. The map itself keeps shaking, toppling over, sliding down. If every map was similar to this, then that would’ve been cool.
The new Call of Duty App
The new app that Beachhead Studio released is a big step forward for second screen and Call of Duty. You have the ability to change your load outs, and for the first time, you don’t have to back out of the lobby to receive the changes. As soon as you send the load out to the game, you get the option to accept it in-game (if you’re in the menus only, not in-game). Clans are back in Ghosts in a big way. The app lets you manage all the clan activity, roster, applications, clan tag, and more. You can design your emblem for the clan. If you’re on an iPad (iPhone support for this feature coming soon), you get a full second screen experience. You have the ability to pick which load out you spawn with after every death. The new app takes Call of Duty a step forward, but it’s nothing compared to Battlefield’s Commander Mode.
Overall, Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer isn’t exactly the best Call of Duty game. When Activision touted that Ghosts is by “the creators of the Modern Warfare series”, you take a step back and think that really isn’t true. The first thing you think about is “Call of Duty 4”, that’s how it all started. Call of Duty 4 was made by the original Infinity Ward. Today’s Infinity Ward can only be compared by name. So much has changed, and the gameplay in Ghosts shows that. There’s things Infinity Ward could and should have done differently in Ghosts. The new Create a Soldier feature is the only feature that really stands out as one of the best features in Call of Duty.
-Keshav
3.5/5
Second Opinion…
Ill admit, at first I had a ton of concerns when I started playing Ghosts, but after putting a few hours into the Xbox 360 and PC version I started to come around. This game has a lot of potential. DLC, title updates, and playlists changes could probably get it to the level that fans want it at. So without further ado, here is my pros and cons list:
Pros:
- Character customization is a nice addition.
- Every perk you can possibly think of.
- Brand new and fresh U.I. (User interface/menus)
- Dynamic maps (the maps that actually have them)
- New sliding feature is awesome
- Every single gun is available to purchase right away.
Cons:
- Ranking up is too slow.
- Squads mode is a cool addition that most people will never use.
- Extinctions mode doesn’t quite capture the terrifying co-op experience that Zombies had.
- Map variety (too many destroyed urban maps)
- Not all maps should be called “dynamic”.
- Lack of MANY fan favorite game modes.
You’re probably wondering why I left “maps are too big” from the cons list. Well it’s because Im one of the few people who are actually happy the maps are bigger. I dont enjoy getting in gun fights every time I spawn. I prefer the slower gameplay that CoD4 had when I could actually be a bit more tactical in the slower/larger maps.
-Victor
