I've played the game for about 4-5 hours now and decided to write something up here since this forum is so quiet.

PROS:

- Very fun game

- Campaign mode is split up in small missions which make it perfect for an on-the-go experience. And some of them are a bit hard, even on easier difficulties, it's a challenging, fun game. There are, though, very few missions (10) but there's also 3 different difficulties

- Hostiles mode is pretty fun, and since I often play those type of survival Twin-Stick Shooters on my phone, I really enjoy the idea of the gametype. It's a shame it's only single player, they should have added a co-op option.

- Multiplayer is where this game shines. It's exactly what you'd expect from a CoD experience. Sure, it's a bit stripped out and you don't have the same hundreds or thousands of variables you can mess with on the console / PC releases, but the core game is there, it's fun as hell, and the sense of progression is kept intact. No voice chat (unless you're in a Vita Party system or something like that, didn't look much into it). Which is okay by me, I don't want to waste time muting little kids or people that are annoying.

- The maps are mostly small (to fit 4v4 matches) but work great, and even though most of them inspire a more action oriented play style, there are some maps where you can also sneak up on people and move like a ghost in the night (lol)

CONS:

- Time Trial is... just there. I find it useless. It's interesting if you care about leaderboards. I don't care much, but might have a go at it again later. I am only interested in it from a trophy perspective (I'm a trophy whore ):).

- I don't get why Campaign Missions and the Hostile game mode don't have co-op. Nihilistic Software always said their main focus was the multiplayer, but they lost some very cool opportunities here. Eventually the Campaign will get stale.

- Only 6 multiplayer maps. Although they're good maps (a couple of them have very bad level design and are basic as hell... but still fun to play in), they're smaller than the main game's ones (which makes sense since it's 4v4 matches, and they work great on these small sized maps) and you'll get to know them rather quickly and probably start craving new ones (haven't reached this point yet, but I'm sure I will). Let's hope there's some DLC. But seriously, this game should have had more maps. They left out a lot of space on that game card.

- The respawning. Since the maps are so small, there's a lot of bad respawning. Especially on Free for All you'll see people spawning in front of you, or at your back. It's kind of ridiculous (depends on the map of course, only majorly happens on a couple of them).

- No ZOMBIES :( Here's to hoping we get them in some kind of update or DLC.

And there you go. 5 pros and 5 cons. Does this mean I feel the game is average? No. It's above average, it's good - the pros certainly outweight the cons since the game is very very fun. It's not excellent though, but it does exactly what I most wanted it to do: CoD Multiplayer on the go. There is though a lot of space for improvement that Nihilistic just didn't go into. The game feels a bit rushed it's true, they should have developed it a lot more, added more stuff (the Vita is certainly capable of it) and make it a bit more like the full CoD console / PC experience. As it stands, it's worth it for fans of the multiplayer experience especially.

Now excuse me while I pwn some dudes.

Thanks for sharing - $50 sounds like too much to ask for this.

@robcat09: I have to agree. But if you're very into the multiplayer, it's still kind of worth it. Yay for discount cupons.

so a single player mission or two while on the bus, and then multiplayer when I get home. It has potential but at £45 (!!!!!) I'm not sure it's worth it yet. We shall see!

Thanks for posting this. Reviews are non-existent at this point and I was about to drop $50 on it. Maybe I'll wait. It sounds good, but not $50 good. All top-tier Vita games are $40 so I was expecting this to be ZOMGTheBestGameEvar!!! for $50.

I think the extra $10 is a 'Call of Duty Tax' :-( If it didn't have that in the name, it certainly would have been $40.

@robcat09 said:

Thanks for sharing - $50 sounds like too much to ask for this.

It's free if you buy it bundled with a Vita

@psxndc: Yep. It's ALMOST $50 good. If they added co-op to the Hostages mode and to the campaign missions. As it stands it's worth $50 if you're very addicted to the multiplayer.

They released a patch today addressing some sound problems and added an Ad-Hoc multiplayer mode so you can play with people around you without the use of Wi-Fi. Weird thing is, on Ad-Hoc mode your level doesn't advance, you have every weapon, attachment and perk available. Maybe to prevent cheaters, dunno. It's still weird.

I might write up a review for this soon, I don't see any reviews anywhere as well.

I don't suppose there's any kind of Combat Training mode included here, huh? That would be basically the only reason I'd buy it, as I rarely play my Vita in wi-fi range.

Just bought it on PSN. Whatever.

For what it's worth, Jeff had this to say on Twitter a little while ago:

Don't want to freak you out, but my initial impression of this Call of Duty Vita game is that it's ass.

How does it look? Seem to recall people complaining about the graphics a couple of months before release.

Hmm, Jeff retweeted this:

Dan Ryckert ‏DanRyckert

Just beat the other mode in barely over five minutes. Black Ops: Declassified has less than an hour of single player content in total.

In general, reviews are coming out for the game now and generally agree that this is SOME OL' BULLSHIT right here. Only two fully written reviews ready so far, but the complaints are insanely high already. And, of course, the lack of more than an hour's worth of single player is pretty noticeable.

@dawnclover: Your thoughts?

@Little_Socrates: Like I said, my main reason to buy the game was the multiplayer, and I'm satisfied with that, even if it has very few maps and is a bit stripped down. The single player content would be way better with co-op, right now the only thing that keeps me going back to it is trying to get 3 stars on each mission and on various difficulties, but that's because, as I said before, I'm a trophy whore :) - SP content is very unsatisfying, but it has its fun moments. The major problem is the length, yes, it is around 1 hour of single player content if you blaze through it without going for 3 stars on each mission. They could have done a lot more.

So I'll say it again, it's not worth $50 if you're expecting SP content. If you're going for multiplayer, the fun is there. It's a shame, but that's how it is. If you want a bit of both, wait for the price to drop. If you're in mainly for SP content, stay away from it or wait for the price to go way down. It's a disappointment, but it's still a fun MP game.

Those are my thoughts :)

I don't trust anyones reviews after the shit they gave the awesomeness that is Resident Evil 6. If you are having fun with this game then that is awesome, and at the end of the day all that really matters. I was hoping for a good single player FPS on Vita, so good multiplayer is meaningless to me. I will wait for Killzone next year. 

@DarthOrange said:

If you are having fun with this game then that is awesome, and at the end of the day all that really matters.

Quoted for truth.

I don't trust reviews, period. Even if it's from people I know / like. At the end of the day, different people have different tastes. I do enjoy reading reviews and watching reviews and quick looks etc, to gather more information on the game. I'm enjoying the game for the MP. Jeff disliked the game as a whole, all the faults he pointed out are true, but they don't interfere with me having fun with the game. It delivers on what I expected to.

@dawnclover: You sir, are correct. Reviews are simply a synopsis of someone else's time with a game. Everyone is different. Glad you're enjoying it.

@DanTheGamer32 said:

so a single player mission or two while on the bus, and then multiplayer when I get home. It has potential but at £45 (!!!!!) I'm not sure it's worth it yet. We shall see!

I seen it for £45 and thought, yeh well worth £5 more than the average game, by no means even considered picking this one up

Quick update of my impressions:

I just spent about 2 hours straight playing "Hostiles", it's pretty fun if you're not too judgemental of the AI. Seriously, the AI needs a lot of work, enemies run into walls and seem to get "confused" and shoot at you through walls. The level design on the 3rd Hostiles map has a huge flaw, there's a room where you can just stand there and shoot everyone that comes through the door in line.

It is still fun, mindless fun. It could / should be a lot better though. And I still miss co-op :(

Had my first Multiplayer problem yesterday, the game crashed and I had to send an error report to Sony. Pretty weird. Other than that, MP is still the game seller. :)

The pricing of this game is so frustrating! What where they thinking?!

As for the game, It's not the horrific abomination that most sites have painted it out to be. For a small team on a budget to make something that looks and feels like Call of Duty is quite the achievement and, with expectations in check as to what the package offers, it's actually rather enjoyable. Had it been, say, 20 quid in shops and 15 on PSN, it'd be a much easier sell. But no, I bet Activision got greedy.

This had such potential and Nihilistic seems to have made the best of what they could, only to get tossed into the firing line by the shitty mega corp overlords. Perhaps the game would have been much, much better had some of the infinite funds and multiple secondary teams been sent to help, even for a short while.

Yet it feels like Activision had written it off from the start by the way they showed absolute indifference. All they offered was an unreasonable time-frame and a a demand for it to be sickeningly overpriced.

All that said... as much as I'm getting a kick out of the game, I only paid 16 quid for it. Any more, and I would have felt soooo terrible.

@HouseOfWolves said:

Just bought it on PSN. Whatever.

You make it sound so glamorous, i'm definitely buying it now, thanks.

@DarthOrange said:

I don't trust anyones reviews after the shit they gave the awesomeness that is Resident Evil 6. If you are having fun with this game then that is awesome, and at the end of the day all that really matters. I was hoping for a good single player FPS on Vita, so good multiplayer is meaningless to me. I will wait for Killzone next year.

Now I don't trust anyone's reviews.

@Trainer_Red: lol, I share the same feelings towards RE6 :( I didn't really like RE5 too... Just IMO.

@dawnclover said:

@Trainer_Red: lol, I share the same feelings towards RE6 :( I didn't really like RE5 too... Just IMO.

RE5 and RE6 (sort of) were good games, just really shitty Resi games and I will fight tooth and nail before I accept them as such.

@Trainer_Red: Yep, my thoughts exactly. The only moments I managed to enjoy RE5 were during Co-Op and thinking "OK, this is not a Resi game, and as such, it is fun". I'll probably get RE6 for the Co-Op with a friend when the price goes way down...