Call Of Duty: Ghosts Review

The maps have all been designed for the fast-paced nature of the Call of Duty franchise. They manage to offer something new. None feel like maps that have featured on previous titles, dispelling the idea that it is a copy and paste game. It is only overtime that ‘camp spots’ and other such advantages will be discovered. Nevertheless, all of the maps currently feel balanced with spawns being spaced out and offering well placed objective locations. Visually they all differ with a decent range of locations depicted. This alongside the small changes that will occur when playing on certain maps truly helps keep the gameplay fresh. There is once again a map choosing system allowing gamers to vote from the available choice of maps. This will not be used to great effect early on, currently being rarely used at all, but within a few weeks its importance will become clear: allowing gamers to vote for their favorite maps and attempt to skip those which are commonly disliked.

The multiplayer element offers gamers a lot of opportunity to customize their gameplay experience. There is a decent range of weaponry to choose from all with unique stats. These stats can then be altered via the many attachments and perks on offer. This reduces the probability of coming across a player with a similar class. For the first time, in the Call of Duty series, gamers can massively alter the appearance for their online characters. There are plenty of different army based outfits to unlock, as well as items such as helmets and patches. Even the characters themselves can be altered with the choice of both male and female soldiers; each having a number of faces to pick from. Having female soldiers in Call of Duty: Ghosts is neither groundbreaking or game selling, nonetheless it is a worthy addition to the customization section.

Killstreaks available to players in Call of Duty: Ghosts fit the title perfectly. There are three major killstreak trees to choose from Assault, Support and Specialist. The Assault strike package offers killstreaks to help you get more kills, the Support package offers things that can aid teammates and the Specialist tree offers the ability to learn bonus perks by earning point streaks. The game then lets players further customize their characters to their individual play styles. As with the other Call of Duty games, the killstreaks have been tweaked to fit in with the rest of the title. The most unique and ‘Ghosts’ style killstreak is the Guard Dog. After achieving a five person killstreak, players can call on an Alsatian that will attack enemies with deadly results.

Call of Duty: Ghosts adds some new things to the game’s repertoire but does little to advance the overall franchise. For example, despite being a welcome improvement, the map altering events are used to much better effect on other first person shooters. Little has changed but with many eager to play the next Call of Duty, they know what to expect from Ghosts. Be this a positive or a negative, the game drastically needs the impact from the next generation of consoles to really shine. The awful graphics and occasional screen freezes are sure to be an issue of the past but it begs the question, why bother releasing the title on these old and visibly stretched platforms? Graphics isn’t the be all and end all though. The gameplay is solid and will offer hours upon hours of entertainment, fun and enjoyment, at least while you are on the winning side.

[Editor’s Note: Call of Duty: Ghosts was reviewed on the PS3 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]