You can almost sense the turning of the tides. Call of Duty has always had its detractors, but this time round reviewers and fans seem to be a little more critical of a series that has struggled to push forward for the last couple of years.
Call of Duty: Ghosts was supposed to be the next gen Call of Duty, but it seems as though it’s more similar to previous iterations than ever, with one section in particular appearing to lift entire animations from a previous Call of Duty.
It’s not a good look. At one point Call of Duty was a genuinely brilliant series, but now I’m wondering how it will handle the transition to the next generation? I think its unarguable that the Call of Duty series was a genuine phenomenon this generation, obliterating rivals like Halo in the end, but when you look at games like Titanfall and Destiny there may be a passing of the torch. If Call of Duty wants to stay relevant it has a real uphill battle ahead of it.
What are your thoughts?
Comments
46 responses to “Community Review: Call Of Duty: Ghosts”
As someone who’s glad he skipped out on buying it and haven’t played the game at all, I have to say that I’m fairly disappointed.
…wait.
Yes. I bought it last week Friday for $52. I’m loving how easy it is to hide (like cod4 days), the customization of weapons/perks/self look/etc. The way you earn guns as well is impressive. It’s not all about who’s higher lvl because you buy guns with coins that you earn for lvling, and challenges. this makes it more fair as all weapons are available and not locked until certain lvl.
I feel the weapons are pretty balanced.
I stopped since BLOPS 1 and have regretted it ever since,
wait….
I didn’t even know it was released to be honest, which tells me I’m not missing much besides I played it last year when it was called black ops 2.
Dude, don’t be so mean to Black Ops 2. At least Treyarch tried to improve the franchise.
I didn’t go much on the campaign but it’s cod who does right.
I put decent hours into MP prestige 8 (I think) I had fun, but the sound effects were shitty compared to the battlefield series and dat peer2peer lag really off putting.
What P2P lag? Treyarch has always included a local only search option.
Always seem to have died when I unloaded a half clip into someone only to have em 90-180 insta kill me or rubber band back a meter or 2 resulting in my death or maybe I’m just sore loser and blamed lag for my sometimes shit game play 😉
This one isn’t from Treyarch, though. At least I don’t think it is.
We’re not talking about Ghosts, we’re talking about Black Ops 2.
When i’ve tried to play MP it’s been putting me in matches in Europe ect.
No local search option.
From Infinity Ward I expect that.
Rented it for $6, finished the campaign on veteran in 1 night (about 8 hours) not a bad story, it made more sense than previous entries…. to me anyway.
Tried playing online but just wasnt feeling it after playing BF4, felt like the maps were a bit bigger but there was even less people playing them? Lots of quick scoping snipers and spawn killing, I use to love COD but the last one I truely enjoyed was Black Ops I.
As a non-cod player – last time I played was WaW on Xbox original white console. I almost feel sorry for these studios, the pressure to innovate and improve game design and player involvement/action is much greater today than ever.
Yearly releases for any game have got to be tough to find some sweetspots for polish and innovation – let alone a game where the scope of play is run, jump, skip, point, shoot.
Maybe gamers just expect too much these days… I have powered on my PS One recently and dug out some of my classics like Need For Speed, MGS, Crash Bandicoot, Tekken, Syphon Filter – although I have found myself becoming a little bored with new releases, These games are classics because they were innovative and fresh and can be enjoyed again and again -partly nostalgia of a youth well spent, partly becaus these games remained inside their niche, devs didn’t have the ability to make the shooter also a racing mini game and controlling dogs and skydiving, shooting from helicopters… Some games are becoming rather schizophrenic and trying to include too much that they don’t offer a solid CORE experience anymore…
Perhaps they just need to go off the radar long enough for people to actually anticipate a release, who knows this might actually provide time enough for the dev team to think up something which could be considered genuinely creative.
Maybe I’m just the exception…
Just finished the campaign last night on Veteran, there were a few frustrating bits, but it was my first CoD on that difficulty.
Probably the most frustrating part of the game is at the start of the “Sin City” mission
A button prompt comes up on the screen, and it took me ages to work out that you have to look at Rorke’s gun while spamming the appropriate button like hell.I would say, if you’re going to play on a lower difficulty or if you’re a CoD er, veteran then it’s probably not worth your time.
On the other hand, if you’re a hardcore CoD fan and play a lot of online (which I haven’t tried yet) then it probably doesn’t matter to you what I think.
been playing every map pack since MW2 (MW2, MW3, BO, BO2) and to be fair, it feels very different to the past iterations. its not a next gen leap, but it feels very different. Cant speak for the single player campaign as i rarely touch them, but the MP portion at least certainly seems to have improved.
The obvious problem with releasing a next gen game, is the current gen. We wont really get a truly next gen game for at least another 2-3 years, when people stop giving a damn about the 360 and PS3.
it really does feel as though the current gen is holding back nextgen as its easier to cater quality to current gen, and then run the same game at a slightly higher resolution, with a couple of fancy shaders throw in, less fog, and a higher/more stable FPS count….
i know ill be scrutinized for the following comment by those who cant bare to part with their current gen investment, but…
it will be a godsend once game devs abandon the current gen and engine development becomes solely focused on next gen and pc.
Agree wholeheartedly with that comment, for sure
This is how PC gamers have felt for years.
Borrowed 4 copies on release to play at a Massive Lan/Console day and guess what, System link is limited to 1 per screen.. 1????? what a waste. Thanks Ghosts, what a waste of time
Oh wow, that hurts even more today considering many people don’t see the point in LANs and to matchup schedules for a LAN is hard enough.
I loved Black ops 2 but COD Ghosts has left me uninspired. It’s pretty much Call of Camping on multiplayer.
I’ve considered renting it for a bit of a sesh. But i have had very little interest in COD since BLOPS I. Played some MW3 multiplayer, but didn’t get into it much. I’m way more tempted to get BF4 for PC and waste my time in that.. Might wait until it’s properly patched though.
Lackluster story, crappy game play, waste of 30gb download, game beat in 5 hours 45mins 53 Seconds wont be playing it again,would play ghost 2 though to find… not gonna spoil and spoiler tag wont work
Works for me.I bought MW3 for its story campaign, because I quite enjoyed the story from MW1 & MW2 and wanted to know what happened. BlOps story didn’t grab me and its mechanics were shitty, so I abandoned that without even finishing it.
MW3 will have been the last one for me, I think.
Especially after that comment from one of the devs upon hearing that there is something around half the people who buy the game never touch the multiplayer, and that ‘bugs the shit out of them’.
How about looking back to your roots, fuckwad, at the original series. Some of us actually remember a game that was just called ‘Call of Duty’ which showed us some more interesting takes on the war than the Normandy landing and airborne excursions that we got from Medal of Honor, which was their number one competitor at the time.
(I never really understood why the multiplayer thing blew up, anyway. I mean, it lacks the art and mindgames of counter-strike 1.6, or the protracted skirmishes of Battlefield, as a twitch-shooter everyone plays it like deathmatch anyway, which basically makes it a less-spectacular shooter than Quake3 and Unreal Tournament.)
Nope. They’re just annoyed that half the people playing it are playing it wrong by wanting the story. Yes. That half is wrong, the multiplayer half is right. Bullshit. But apparently – going by reviews – that absolute disdain for the single-players pretty much underscores everything in the campaign now… Except the dog, for some reason.
I feel the same way and stopped at halfway through MW3.
Sure, the comment from that particular dev came across as a little dickish, but if I developed a game, only to have 50% of the people who played it ignore half of it, I’d be a bit miffed. Sure, Call of Duty is different things to different people, but 50% of people ignoring what is arguably their major development focus (despite the feelings from a lot of people that not much changes between iterations) is a big number.
Then again, it’s hard to feel too sorry with the Scrooge McDuck levels of money Activision makes each year. And it really falls on Treyarch and Infinity Ward to find ways to ease new players into the multiplayer component.
Is that a new shade of grey they’re using?
Haters gunna hate,
It’s a different game every cod suffers from one of two review type
1. It’s the same thing
2. OMG they changed things
I pretty much only enjoy multiplayer and here’s my thoughts.
– The maps are a little too big, rumor is that the next gen versions will run 9v9, and they feel too big for 6v6. Similar when in a map that moves, frames start to get choppy during an earthquake.
– The health is a little low, there’s no real option to return fire, if you get grazed defending yourself is tough.
– No connection bars, if you are lagging, not knowing that until you’ve seen a replay of yourself dieing in a battle you thought you’d won, and finding you never fired a shot.
-The spawning, having an opponent spawn behind you with the their cross hairs all ready on your back gets old quickly, but is something they will patch I’m sure.
-Fresh weapons, attachments, perks and kill streaks seem good time and patches will sort anything currently over powered.
-New games modes, I like them all, good to see a fresh take on some things.
-Extinction is MP with a purpose. Loving this.
-Operations is a little odd at the moment, but hopefully they’ll clarify/change how that works in time.
Nothing devastating, just something new to adapt to, it’s fresh yet familiar enough for me.
So you’re still trying to defend a 7 year old game in the vain hope that Activision will change things? Why should they when they have saps to continuously feed them money with no conscious thought for the fact there are better alternatives out there. By all means keep up with the “haters gunna hate” slogan, delusion is delusion at the end of the day 😉 You’ll see the light one day though, and you’ll be wondering why you didn’t jump ship after COD MW/MW2, there’s still time!
“Trying” to defend? He “did” defend it. He, or she, and a shitload of other people still dig it. The breadth of your superiority complex is astounding.
Sorry buddy, won’t find a superiority complex here, just a realist. Look at the numbers for sales, they have dropped significantly, indicating people are sick and tired of being fed the same rubbish EVERY year. I’d happily pay for and play COD if they actually decided to put some money into a new gaming engine instead of trying to rehash a 7 year old engine as “new technology”. I never game the OP any hassle about his opinion, I merely suggested it was misguided, as it is, as are your assumptions. But that’s ok, you’re entitled to your opinion, however wrong you may be.
What? That’s complete bullshit. Your justification for calling him “deluded” holds no water. In a thread full of anti-COD sentiment, this guy (or girl) articulately expressed why they still like the franchise, for which you derided them.
Don’t bother explaining to me WHY you think CoD is for “saps”. They’ll be the exact same reasons as why I don’t play them. But that’s not the point – the point is that you came off as a wanker when all someone was doing was stating why it’s a franchise which still engages them. “Superiority complex” is accurate, because your reply to his comment comes across as arrogant, condescending, and derisive. And on the Kotaku boards, when someone is pointlessly rude to someone else, someone else usually jumps in to tell them so.
I guess it may have come across as condescending in your eyes however it was not my intent. The only person who appears to be aggrieved by this is yourself and that’s your problem, not mine. Superiority complex would appear to suit you more so however what with your moral superiority. Tell me, how is the view from your ivory tower whereby you can berate and insult people?
I’m not the one who called someone else deluded because they like a series that you don’t. You think I’m acting superior? Great. I’m not the only one who thought your post was out of line.
And putting crap on someone for liking something you don’t like is super classy.
I’m happy to see incremental change, I certainly didn’t denounce change, Mark’s post was asking for thoughts, I gave mine having played the game. As far as change goes, sports like soccer, rugby, baseball and cricket, all largely international competitive empires, evolve very slowly over time and you don’t see the start of each soccer season people complaining that there’s still only 1 goalie for each team. That said not all fans of one sport are fans of the others, Activision has found a formula that appeals to a lot of people, I am one of them, you clearly are not. The difference, I don’t go into the battlefield/halo/rainbow 6 articles and tell people what they are deluded.
Which brings me back to the starting point, I don’t hate on Halo/Battlefield/Rainbow 6 players, what do I to gain by attacking someone for what gives them joy. A person enjoying Battlefield while I play CoD does no more harm to me than two fans of different sports in different stadiums across world.
EDIT: To be clear this isn’t even really a direct response to you more so the culture in gaming that peoples opinions wrong if they are different from yours.
Haven’t played it and probably never will.
That said, I’d be down for a CoD where the single player is the main focus and they put in a 20+ hour campaign and not quite so on-rails. Doubt I’ll ever see it happen.
Have to say, I’m quite enjoying playing Ghosts multiplayer (on PC, after re-jigging the gfx settings etc). But then perhaps it just suits a different style of play – that is, not running around like a maniac. It’s a suitable game for playing after a hard day at work.
I loved Cod 1, 2 and 4. They were proper PC games that were also great on console. I don’t understand why they can’t make a campaign that is good anymore.
Not everyone wants to play MP all there life. Plus with CS Go, BF, TF2 etc etc who cares about CoD MP when you can get the better small or large scale MP experience elsewhere for cheaper.
I have the exact same opinion, except I also included the console exclusive CoD3 as that was quite possibly the most fun game I ever played on the Wii (I had the Link Target Shooter Crossbow and that worked really well with the game)
Every game past that just felt badly made. CoD 1 and CoD UO are still the best WW2 shooters I’ve ever played, that story with Jason Statham shouting at me to “TAKE THIS PANZAFAUST!” was amazing.
Alas, we shant see so much as a hint of CoD 1 through 4’s beauty.
I’m not even going to try, I’m just going to copy and paste (as COD have done with their recent games) my comment about COD from Gizmodo thread.
I gave up on COD after MW2, and as the OP has mentioned, COD4 (MW) was the best COD game to have been released, period. I watched a video recently by a British game review commentator who lampooned the absolute SHIT out of Ghosts. Noting that the graphics were utter rubbish (most definitely attributable to the fact it’s running on an almost 8 year old engine), the gameplay was stale and boring, and also tore apart the game for it’s recommendation of 6gb memory. Please, I was running COD4 with 2gb back in the day and never had an issue. I had played the more recent games out of curiosity (though I sure as hell didn’t pay for them) and they most definitely didn’t need anything more than 4gb max. Graphics wise, I’ve been able to run (and still have the same setup from a few years ago I keep for giggles) the new games on a 5 year old box with everything on maximum, with absolutely no issues.
Enter Battlefield.
Ever since the inception of the Frostbite engine in BC2, the game has completely re-defined epic first person multiplayer battles. No exceptions, no recourse for argument, just shut up and accept it. The pure scope of the game, the customizations, the thought put into level designs, the fact they have dedicated squad play to promote the multiplayer more thoroughly, the destructable environments, the fact they put PC gaming ahead of console which SHOULD be the standard practice as opposed to a port from a 7 year old obsolete gaming platform, are all indicative that DICE are listening to it’s consumers, and not treating them like a bloody ATM machine where they can release a rehashed piece of rubbish and expect the masses to lap it up.
TL;DR, COD has absolutely had its day, as of about 4 years ago. Done, dusted, Activision have just been flogging a dead horse, such is the progressing and innovation of other titles that Activision now have a very long way to go in order to catch up with everyone else.
Ahh this puts into context some of your comments. I play CoD on a console, having long been a PC gamer though for many years I can understand your frustration with the way almost all developers of games who’s roots came from the PC, have literally turned their backs on the platform. It’s frustrating when I buy a franchise on PC and find a terrible port, sometimes the only solution is to sync my controller to make it playable.
I will preface this by saying I haven’t finished the SP or played more than a few hours of the MP.
I will admit, I have played a lot of COD over the years. The franchise has been going down since MW2, which was mainly due to the shitty nature they treated PC with match making. Black Ops was a step back in the right direction, but the game was getting tired.
MW3 was pretty awful. I still did almost 200hours in BO. MW3 I managed 7 trying to like it. Was uninteresting and not fun. I think I enjoyed the story. Don’t remember it. BO2 was a step back in the right direction from that misstep. Ghosts is literally a step back to MW3 and everything that was wrong with that.
The PC port is also a mess, match making with out region settings, or ping indicators means you’re put in a match only to discover from how unplayable it is, that you’re in a match hosted in Ireland. Which is about as far from Melbourne as you can get.
Graphics look worse than BO2 in MP. After games like BF3/BF4, Crysis 1-3. The game looks old, dated and ugly. It’s distracting at times. You can’t get around this. The art direction in the Maps looks like there was non. They just cobbled together using old assets and textures. At least Blops2 had good design.
What I did of the single player, it was still corridors and like times in BF4’s campaign. It’s trying to create the illusion of bigger environments. However they just add more around the corridors but it’s still a corridor. You don’t use any of that extra space. Maybe if the AI was better you could but it’s all a cover shooting. Some of the environments that were expanded, made me wish I had the Crysis power suit and so could vary how I play, chose how I play, run around, flank and whatever. However it’s all, play the same way, down the same line.
I will finish the SP, i don’t mind these things but it didn’t grap me. Better than the BF4 SP though. Which I have almost finished and is just nothing. At least it looks nice. Strangely even runs better on my machine. Both maxed out, but that’s smooth, Ghosts stutters and stuff.
I know, shame on me for buying another COD. However I guess I didn’t pay enough to the fact it’s Infinity Ward and really these franchise is split in two. Treyarch or now the only CODs worth playing. Even then it’s getting tiring, but frankly they make better games at this stage.
I will give Ghosts MP another shot when they add dedicated servers and hopefully patched for PC to be better otimised. At this stage I feel like I did after MW3. Stupid for buying it. I guess not feeling stupid for buying BLOPS2 washed that away from my memory.
My computer has an intel 4770k CPU and a 660ti Graphics card, when I had the graphics turned all the way up fraps tells me I was getting 80fps but there was a terrible amount of frame skips, turned vsync on and it still happens, it is like the game cannot handle me turning a corner, as if it is needing to load in new content (I have enough RAM). Turning the settings down does not help. Horrible PC port from my experience. Oh and you can change like 3 graphics settings while in game, that is worse than BO2 not allowing you to change settings in the lobby.
That said, the way the game handles and plays seems as though it favors you not running around and killing people but standing still, hiding, pitching your tent and waiting for the kill. I detest campers, I feel bad when I hide around a corner because I need to reload, it is run and gun for me, but that might just have that effect because I can’t aim when the game skips frames whenever I try to aim down the sights and I end up looking 90 degrees from where I should (that is usually an exaggeration but it did actually happen once, it was not net lag as I was testing settings against bots).
I might play it again one day if they do some serious patching but I will be sticking to BO2 for now because that is as smooth as butter to play, so much better looking, and just… better.
Overall opinion, there is nothing about this game to excuse how bad it runs on my computer, super not impressed by it,
The only thing good about the campaign is Riley.
There is a point where you have to blow up missile launcher trucks. You blow up the first one, but when you approach the second truck it fires the missiles. I tried several times to blow it up, thinking that since there is an objective, there must be a way! Silly me, forgot that I’m playing a new CoD, as the story is so “on-rails”, so I gave up trying to blow up the second truck, and what do you know? The missiles blows the dam walls = part of the story. Blergh.Very predictable ending, but I still sort of enjoyed the game, maybe because I pre-ordered it and was expecting a MW1 style game. It was just like playing the other ones! Waste of money, better off renting it. Haven’t touched the MP and not keen to either.