A friend of mine gave me a copy of Ghosts for the xbox one yesterday, I haven't bought a COD title since Black Ops so coming back to it was a little weird especially after playing Titanfall and Planetside 2 fairly heavily last month.

After playing Titanfall for a while the whole time I was playing Ghosts I felt slow and plodding. I wanted to run and jump and fucking move , a lot of the time I got killed because I tried to evade enemies in ways the game just doesn't allow for, its passable combat but it feels a bit dated, for what was the run and gun game of choice it needs a bit more speed. However It also highlighted the lack of features in Titanfall for me.

For example my 4 hours with Ghosts was taken up with about 2 hours of multi and two hours of this weird squad AI game where you level up a squad and people can challenge them online. You can name them, set their loadout and perks, I think you might be able to change their appearance as well. Its bizarre and not needed and I spent 2 hours playing it, and I know I'm gonna go back it when I boot up the game again...It sparks the same part of my brain that X-com sparked, especially when playing kill confirmed. I care when my dudes get gunned down and their dog tags get taken. It's a weird mode in a game that already has three other modes, its totally superfluous and I couldn't stop thinking about it all day. In a way it reminds me of Soul Calibur 3's RPG mode, bell and whistles for no apparent reason but something I eventually ended putting 40 or so hours into.

The thing that's getting me about the mode is while I remember someone saying something about it on the Bombcast, there was no discussion about it and while I'm not super vigilant on videogame coverage I generally keep informed but here, in this game, there is a whole mode that I will probably sink 20+ hours into and I don't remember anyone really providing any coverage of it in any meaningful way. Like it was throwaway, not worth discussing, that it wasn't important at all. But it seems like a great idea, one that seems pretty fleshed out and fun. I also think you can play it split screen, which while not a big deal for a lot of people is a big deal for me as I play games with my friends on a regular basis.

And Squad mode its one of, I believe 4 fleshed out modes, there could be more modes lurking on that disk somewhere, I haven't dug that deep. I haven't even tried single player or the alien hoard mode thing at all.

In 4 hours of playing Titanfall I believe I would have played on every map and would probably be around level 25-35 depending on how good I was playing. I would have unlocked most of the guns and equipment, there would be little new content for me to experience. I've put a total of 20 hours or so into Titanfall and I'm done. I don't know if i'll even be done with the Squad mode in Ghosts in 20 hours, let alone the basic multiplayer and single player campaign.

I hope the Titanfall sequel, now that Respawn have the actual game under their belt, can add things like this to their game as the little touches and modes may give it some needed longevity.

So I guess what I'm saying is while I prefer the minute to minute gameplay in Titanfall, I prefer all the big and little things COD brings to the table along with good combat, not best in class, but serviceable. It gives the game a value for money feel that I just haven't gotten with any other title this year. Not from Titanfall, Infamous or Southpark. I was starting to think that even AAA development was going the way of "more focused" (read cheaper to make) games. But here is COD essentially swinging its dick around and while it may be bad form I have to say its made me remarkably happy.