Game Review: Call of Duty Advanced Warfare

Here we are, another year, another Call of Duty. I'm sure you have heard all the great reviews like IGN's "exo-llent" and others proclaiming this to be the best entry in the series, which is just plain uncalled for over hype. The honest truth is that Advanced Warfare is not bad, but it's not good either. I'm going to start with the campaign since it was the game's finer point. If I'm truthful here, this game had a impressive and immersive campaign that had a cinematic effect when playing. There is nothing like seeing hundreds of soldiers running around, giant spider mechs, aircraft flying overhead and gunfire everywhere. This is the first Call of Duty where I actually felt like I was in a real war and not just some repetitive boring urban scrap. The game finds a balance between open warfare and special ops missions, these stealth based special ops missions are fun and strategic and are one of the highlights of the campaign. But with all this interesting futuristic tech and immersive battles the story comes up a bit short. The reason being is they used, what I call the three plot rules for Call of Duty, which are, insane leader causing global problems, a traitor within the good guys, and you coming in to save the day.

Not only does the story follow the basic route for past COD's it also has large time jumps in the story, this can leave you a bit scrambled and is a bad story telling mechanic. The game tries to cover up these time jumps with the fact that you work for a corporation/nation for higher that has the best tech in the world, and for the right price will come in and fight your war or mission. The only reason the campaign is worthy of your attention besides the the ops missions and the great battles, is the fact that Kevin Spacey, Troy Baker and Gideon Emery absolutely dominate their roles. Every line they say is delivered perfectly and gets you involved in the characters. One of the main characters and partners of the protagonist, Jack Mitchell, is Gideon who is ironically voiced by Gideon Emery. This is Call of Duty's best character ever, I actually got involved in my partners decisions and cared about whether he was going to die or not. Jack and Gideon become good friends because of all the missions they do together, and the game does a good job of portraying this.

Ah, now we get to talk about graphics. Now I usually don't bring up graphics unless they are absolutely amazing or absolutely dreadful, because graphics don't make a game, gameplay does. In this case the graphics are five times better then previous titles in the series, but the game's graphics waver compared to the current games out and games coming out. I do have to admit the cinematic clips were impressive, but when it transitioned to gameplay it was quite noticeable.

Now we get into the multiplayer. The biggest question everyone wants to know is, how much the new Exo-Suits effect online gameplay? Well, it is a fresh mechanic to a very repetitive franchise. Now lets not make this a comparison game to other titles with jet pack mechanics like Titanfall and Halo. It isn't Call of Duty ripping off this idea/mechanic as much as it is Call of Duty catching up to the industry that it has fallen so far behind in. The Exo-Suit gameplay is more of a dodging bullets and speeding through doors maybe jumping up to escape an attacker. I find the suits to match Call of Duty's gameplay style, and fits into the world they have created well.

The game has some very unique and fresh kill streaks like System hack which disables radar, HUD, and enemy equipment including exo suits. My favorite kill streak is XS1 Goliath which is a mech suit that kicks ass. The game is sort of  lacking in weapons, which is definitely odd coming from a series so well known for its large selection of weaponry. The reason being is that the games weapons are actually well balanced, its better to have a balanced selection of guns then have a arsenal of over powered weapons for players to use, that just ruins every players experience. They aren't just balanced, they have a lot of unique new guns that match the current era that the game takes place in. These weapons are a breath of fresh air from the guns that are repetitively put in the game such as the M16 and a host of other generic modern weapons are not present like they usually are. All in all the multiplayer experience can get a bit dull and repetitive after awhile, it is indeed fun but nothing next gen. It is a step in the right direction and it will be interesting to see how this new three year development cycle improves the game. We have already seen some effort given to improve the game in this entry but their is lots of room for changes and advancements.