Call of Duty: Ghosts

Logan Walker is a member of the Ghosts task force, an elite semi-competent American spec ops unit. In the near future, America has been devastated by a strike with hacked satellite weapons, and is now a minor world power while the powerful coalition of South American nations known as "The Federation" has become a superpower. In an attempt to destroy the Ghosts, the Federation decides to unleash their ultimate weapon: a former Ghost named Gabriel Rorke.

When I heard of this game I thought, "Okay, so yet another generic FPS title saturating the interactive media market. I wonder if it might be awesome." So when it came out, I thought it wouldn't be bad, but it wouldn't be good, either. Aside from great graphics, decent voice acting (especially Stephen Lang from Avatar as Elias Walker and Kevin Gage as Gabriel Rorke), an interesting soundtrack, this game development mainly focused on graphics engine, resulting in a great number of issues.

The presentation before the game's release was poor. The developer introduced a feature in their "next-gen" game engine dubbed "Fish AI" in which the fish move out of the way when you get close to them. This kind of technology can be seen in older releases and isn't even new to first-person shooters since fish do it in the original Far Cry, was released in 2004. The developers were bragging about fish in the background that have zero effect on the gameplay and that most people wouldn't even notice. Moreover, while they bothered to do that, they didn't do anything to stop ejected brass going right through the APS Underwater gun model if the player is moving to the right.

There are plenty of recycled scenes and plot points from not only older COD games (an example being Ghost, who is a major character in Modern Warfare 2), but also movies, such as (especially) the Star Wars original trilogy, Moonraker, The Dark Knight Rises, and more. Some people went as far as dubbing the game as Modern Warfare 4 because of these clichés. Also, just like the previous games, assets and entire cutscene animations were ripped verbatim from previous games. The intro cutscene was an example of this, as the animations were recycled from the ending for MW2.

The story is possibly one of the most generic and cliché stories in the whole series. It follows a team of elites who try to take down an evil enemy faction that wants to destroy America. The Ghost unit, supposedly the best of the best, is introduced terribly with one of their members being outsmarted and captured, and they don't even manage to save him. The Federation, the enemy faction in Ghosts, is the worst faction by far in the series as they behave like generic bad guys since they have no real motive other than "blow up America", which they seem to want solely because they're the antagonists in a Call of Duty game. The entire faction has only four characters from it: Victor Ramos, The Dragon who appears for all of five minutes; General Almagro, who is there solely to be an assassination target and doesn't even have any lines; the leader of the Federation, who is The Ghost, and again has no lines; and Rorke, who was brainwashed into supporting the Federation. They seem to exist solely so that the Ghosts can commit all the war crimes they want without looking bad. This in turn makes The Federation feel contrived.

The single-player campaign has been criticized for not adopting the changes that Black Ops II introduced, such as a player-selectable loadout, in-level unlocks, multiple endings, and branching paths. Worse, the multiplayer is considered one of the worst in the series due to the number of issues.

• Some iconic game modes such as Capture the Flag and Headquarters are missing.
• The balancing is terrible. The weapons, in particular, are too powerful, which led many to believe that they had less health. Here are just some of the poorly balanced mechanics.
  • Ballistic vests are generally hated because they nearly double a player's health, and being part of the support scorestreak package, you're almost guaranteed to get a few.
  • The Squadmate scorestreak gives you an AI-controlled squadmate with a riot shield and pistol, which essentially adds an extra player to your team. It's also part of the support package, making it relatively easy to unlock.
  • The Ripper became THE go to gun when it launched. It's an SMG with two fire modes: SMG and Assault Rifle, allowing the player to switch between firing at close range and long range whenever. Combine this with On the Go, Quickdraw, and Agility perks as well as a Muzzle Brake, you have possibly the most powerful weapon in the COD franchise.
• The maps were lazily designed and made large to cover this up. Infinity Ward and Activision tried to rectify this by releasing DLC packs consisting of smaller maps, but by then, it was already too late.
  • The worst of these was Stonehaven. It's so big and therefore, hard to kill people because of the size. When you actually do get a kill, it's usually when you snipe inside the Castle, and one of the main ways you die when playing this map.
• The system of prestige and unlocking weapons and attachments is completely different and needlessly complex. In order to prestige, the player unlocks a squad member with squad points and ranks it up to level sixty. Once the player has leveled up all ten squad members, they become max prestige. In order to unlock weapons, attachments, and equipment, the player simply purchases them with squad points, or can wait until they reach a certain level. The player must unlock weapons for each individual squad member.

• The multiplayer did however introduced killstreaks based in some maps, unfortunately that mechanic was repeated only in Advanced Warfare. Additionally, Strikezone became a popular map in the game, it was even remade as Genesis in Infinite Warfare.

Unlike other Call of Duty entries, this one's intel collectible actually has intel and even an audio file which expands upon the world of Ghost. The secret files make the Federation more complex and interesting with several of its member states being unwilling allies and the public unrest in the conquered Latin American nations. However, this is never expanded upon or referenced in the campaign since the focus is on the Ghosts either hunting or being hunted by Rorke.

Speaking of Rorke, he is considered to be the worst villain in the entire series due to having a terrible backstory since it tells that he turned bad because the Federation brainwashed him to their cause by drawing upon his resentment of Walker and the Ghosts for leaving him behind. He also doesn't really have much personality outside of being a generic bad guy, and seemingly has plot armor.

The monologues between levels always talks about the same thing usually related to the Federation or Rorke, who is an incredibly unthreatening, slightly pudgy man. Also, some dialogue lines are very poor, being the kind of replies that you would hear from children. (e.g. "It's over Rorke. We beat you!", "Well, that's just 'cause I'm better than you, Elias. I've always been better than you!")

Some things don't really have an impact:

• The fact that the Federation managed to sneak a crew of people into the ISS to hack the ODIN satellite, without being detected by NASA.
• The reveal that Elias is the leader of the Ghosts isn't very shocking, in large part due to the trailers, and the fact that he knew so much about the Federation the moment they attacked. Not to mention the numerous times Hesh talks about how awesome he is.
• At one point, the Federation is able to land helicopters full of troops on a US aircraft carrier while the crew of the carrier and its escort ships do nothing. In real life, any helicopter that attempted to land on a hostile aircraft carrier would be blown out of the sky by the carrier group's air defenses before they even got close to the ship.
• The ending is this and is nothing more than sequel baiting. The game ends with Hesh and Logan on a beach, badly injured, finally have killed Rorke, and taken down the Federation. But then Rorke himself shows up, brutally beats them up and takes away Logan to turn him into a loyal Federation Agent. Bare in mind, Rorke was shown to have been shot in the chest and drowned underwater in the scene before this, so it doesn't make sense why he's even alive or how he made it to shore without Logan or Hesh seeing him. This ultimately doesn't matter now, since the game never got a sequel and due to its disappointing sales, Infinity Ward ended up developing Infinite Warfare instead of continuing the Ghosts storyline.

The German Shepard, Riley, was hyped in advertisements yet is only used in a few early missions and rarely shows up after that. It wasted an optional play style that could have refreshed the tired franchise. Even the game itself eventually forgets about the dog and ultimately the protagonists seemingly leave it behind on an exploding aircraft carrier.

Interestingly, this game introduced Extinction, which was supposed to be Infinity Ward's alternative to Zombies. This mode features up to four players fighting Cryptids (aliens) in outbreak sites where the Cryptids have overrun the area. There are four classes for the player to choose from, Weapon Specialist, Tank, Engineer, and Medic. For each class there is a specific set of unique abilities/perks that the player will be able to utilize for themselves or their team. There are also loadout slots that players can choose different options from including: Pistol, Ammo Type, Team Support, Strike Package and Equalizer. There are no rounds, but instead objectives, which are to destroy cryptid Hives and complete challenges. Each map also has an ending. Players can earn money which can be used to purchase additional weaponry placed throughout the map (similar to Zombies) and use abilities selected pre-game. In addition, players are able to customize their player, but the other objectives vary between maps. As the player progresses through the game and completes challenges, they unlock skill points, which they use to upgrade their load out. Guns are bought throughout random spots in the map, and equipment and attachments are found by scavenging. There are 30 levels, with different defenses unlocked as the player progresses. Once the player reaches level 30, they prestige and have the option of using relics, which allow the player to level up faster. Every time the player prestiges, they can use one more relic. An update added a new game mode to Extinction known as Chaos Mode. The player is put in a part of the map they choose to play, and they must pick up new weapons and other pickups to survive. It is timed rather than round-based, and it will keep going until the combo runs out after the time runs out, or if the players die.

So, as you can tell, this game left me feeling average about it.