The battle lines have been drawn and the guns are all loaded for the first few days of the console war between the Xbox ONE, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Wii U and Call of Duty: Ghosts is right in the thick of it. With a multi platform release for existing consoles, the new big beasts and the ever demanding rigours of the PC gaming community there was a lot to do to get each version pitched just right and it’s a job that seems to have pushed the franchise a little beyond its comfort zone.
Following up on a massively successful annually released series was never going to be easy and while the latest release is a good first person shooter with amazing online gameplay options, the cracks have begun to show a little for the COD franchise in Ghosts. Whether it’s the very high bar that has been set by previous entries, the tight deadlines for delivery or the extra effort of developing the game for six different platforms at once, it just isn’t the faultless game that fans of the series might have been hoping for. It’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of positives for the game, but for each one there’s a minor niggle to bring it back down to earth.
Storyline
The story for the game is a lot of fun, but it’s also very far-fetched in all reality. The campaign storyline is set in the not too distant future when the United States has been crushed by the forces of the Federation, a South American political alliance that used the USA’s advanced Orbital Defence Initiative (ODIN) satellite weaponry to become the dominant superpower throughout the world. This leads the US to turn to it’s invisible military contingent, the Ghosts, to redress the balance back in their favour and bring peace back to the Americas.
While it’s pretty preposterous it does give the game a lot of cool location settings to play with, including Southern California, the Amazonian rainforest and a military base in Antarctica, which make for a lot of fun. As soon as you accept the ludicrous nature of the plot setup and just go with the flow of the campaign, you’ll find yourself in a roller coaster ride that feels more like a James Bond film than a Call of Duty game.
The main character you play is a young US military officer called Logan, who works alongside his brother Hesh and his father Elias Walker in a military team around the San Diego area to fight against the invading Federation troops. However, it doesn’t take long for the Ghosts to show up and for them all to get embroiled in a bid to crush the Federation.
Gameplay
Starting out with the Campaign mode, it’s a short sharp blast. We’ve covered the storyline, but in terms of the gameplay it’s smooth, responsive and frenetic, whether you play the game on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Xbox ONE, PlayStation 4 or Windows PC. The big differentiator between the platforms is inevitably graphics, which we’ll go into more detail later, but in terms of gameplay there’s not much to split the releases. The only real consideration in terms of the campaign is that you get the off-tv play option with the Nintendo Wii U version of the game.
Whatever option you go for, getting to shoot it out in space, underwater, at a plane crash site in the jungle and on James Bond-like Antarctic military bases is a lot of fun. There’s also the added variety of levels that see you driving trucks, taking control of gun turrets on armoured vehicles, fighting it out in helicopters, running down buildings and taking control of the game’s resident K9, Riley, with his brilliant crunching jaws of death and stealth stalking in long-grass.
It’s not all positives though as little things undermine the possibilities of the game to go beyond its predecessors. First there’s the annoying way that Logan runs in the campaign when he isn’t carrying a weapon. His clunky fists fly up and down on the screen in front of his eyes with every stride, making the whole process feel a little bit on the silly side. It might not take that much away from the overall gameplay, but it is one of the little annoyances that make you question the finishing touches.
The second issue with the campaign is that it’s got a very linear flow and while this keeps things moving forward at a high octane pace it leaves you feeling more like you’re on a beast of a roller coaster ride instead of having the keys to the park. It’s added to by the shortness of the campaign, which you’ll find yourself completing disappointingly quickly. However, there is the option to easily replay your favourite levels, so when you’ve finished you’ll be able to jump back into the space battle or the awesome subterfuge of the attack on the ice station, so you’re not 100% left with just the multiplayer options once you complete the story.
The reality is that most gamers will be looking to the game for its online multiplayer capabilities more than its campaign mode and in this respect Call of Duty: Ghosts delivers in abundance on each of the platforms. The only real difference in terms on online gameplay is that it comes for free on the Nintendo Wii U, while you need to pay for membership on the other consoles.
Ghosts doesn’t necessarily reinvent the wheel when it comes to online gaming and it’s far from a big step up from its predecessor, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, but it does bring with it a whole host of new levels, maps and game modes for hardened gamers looking for something new when it comes to their COD experience.
The big new addition to help newbies get into the brutal kill-fest that has become Call of Duty online gaming is the Squads mode that lets you choose a team, comprising of computer controlled troops or your friends, to hone your skills in a sandbox environment in preparation for the big leagues.
However, if you’re a hardened, crack-shot blood-bath machine there’s a huge range of modes and new environments to get to grips with, although we’re not 100% convinced by the alien invasion co-op mode, Extinction, as a replacement for the gore fest of Black Ops II‘s Zombie mode.
Stonehaven is one of our favourite new maps with its old fortified castle style, while the best new online mode is the return of the Infected gameplay option from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 where everyone starts on the same team with one person randomly selected as the infected that needs to kill to add players to their team.
Graphics
Obviously there’s a bit of difference between the graphics on the different systems, but if we’re honest they’re not really all that pronounced on Call of Duty: Ghosts and they take nothing away from the smooth running of the game. The long and short of it is that the PS3 and Xbox 360 games look good, the Wii U version a little better and the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC versions even better still with varying degrees of separation in terms of granular detail, frame rate, draw distance and style.
However, no matter which format you play the game, there will be little things that make you think that things should look better with clunky graphics going hand-in-hand with genuine coding beauty. When you’re running through houses in a destructive earthquake with all of the amazing scenary around you, you’ve got your meaty paws jumping up and down on the screen to take the awesome out of the equation. Our take is that it’s a product of the tight time-frames the developers had in getting the game out in time, but for such an epic franchise there’s no real excuse.
COD: Ghosts is still an impressive looking game overall, in particular on PS4, Xbox ONE and PC, you’ve only got to play the ODIN or underwater level for a second or two to see how stunning it can get, but perhaps with a few more months to round things off it could have been perfect.
Call of Duty: Ghosts review: 3.9/5
