REVIEW: Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Call of Duty
First person Shooter, Multiplayer
Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, PC

Every year we receive a new Call of Duty, this time publisher Activision has handed the reins to Sledgehammer for their latest entry. Advanced Warfare is set in the future where private military contractor and CEO of Atlas, Jonathan Irons, has the largest army in the world and has some of the most lucrative contracts around the world. Jack Mitchell is a Marine who served with Iron's son, Will Irons, when they push back the North Korean invasion of Seoul, South Korea when Will Iron's is Killed in Action. Mitchell loses an arm in the process and is given a second chance by Iron's Sr. to return to duty and finish what he started. Jack is given a prosthetic arm that enhances his combat effectiveness. As the story progresses, you learn more about Jonathan Irons, Atlas and the terrorist organization known as the KVA and their ringleader, Hades, that is threatening the world.

The campaign is short, which seems to be the norm for the series. It shouldn't take much longer than 6 hours to complete the game. There are very few twists and turns and within the first couple of missions the overall story arc is laid out in front of you and you should have things figured out. I knew immediately how the story was going to end and sure enough, it came to fruition just as expected. The biggest disappointment is that there is level that stands out. In previous installments you are the gunner in a SPECTRE gunship (Modern Warfare) or the ghillie suit. Advanced Warfare never had a mission or level where I wanted to replay it. The overall campaign is a flash in the pan.

The last entry in the Call of Duty series, Call of Duty Ghosts, left a sour taste in my mouth. The multiplayer would constantly have me respawn directly in front of the enemy causing me to respawn again in dangerous territory, creating a vicious cycle of unfortunate deaths. While not the best in multiplayers to begin with, the constant dying with little chance to turn the tide made for a very unsatisfactory game experience.  Advanced Warfare does a better job on respawn locations and very rarely do I find myself quickly dead. However, the game still hasn't found a way to limit the amount of campers and quick scoping that plague the series. The balance has improved but they are still very far away from making it perfect. The addition of exo suits give the game a little bit of a Titanfall feel to the game that does enhance the play ability but also feels more like a gimmick than anything else. Not every game requires a double or super jump.



I will say that graphically, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare is outstanding. Aside from Jonathan Iron's strangely dead eyes, the game is amazing and impressive. The guns are a bit lackluster but the addition of care packages that give you new weapons and items is interesting but not as exciting as I think the developers were hoping for. After roughly 5 days of multiplayer, I still have yet to receive anything that has me jumping from excitement in a care package. However, with that said Call of Duty doesn't do much to bring anything new to the table. It is a obvious improvement from Ghosts but that isn't all that hard to do as Ghosts was awful.

Overall, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare is an improvement from Ghosts but if you are stuck deciding between this title and something else that is coming out this holiday season, I would recommend grabbing something else. There just aren't enough improvements or changes to warrant the upgrade. Unless the next Call of Duty has some outrageous or ground breaking changes, I don't see myself picking it up. While I don't feel burned on this purchase, I am just getting tired of more of the same.

VERDICT

7.5/10

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REVIEW: Destiny

Destiny
Single Player, First person RPG
Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS 4, PS3, PC


Destiny is an online multiplayer, first-person, open-world shooter set in a science fiction setting in Earth's future.

I have had the opportunity to play for several days now and have hit the opening ceiling, level 20. While I will continue to play the game, this is my review based on the first half of the game. Roughly 20 hours into it.

GAMEPLAY

Anyone who has played the Halo franchise will quickly feel like they are at home. The controls are very similar. The game has several missions that are played linearly but as you progress through them the game allows you to try different planets and jump around; however, you will need to complete all of the missions at some point in order to finish the game.

By opening up your ghost you are able to find side missions on every planet that range from kill x amount of enemies to collect items from killed enemies. There is also the occasional scan an area that you must navigate the entire map to stand in one place for a few seconds and then the mission is complete. They are all rather easy and provide a decent amount of experience points helping you level up. The best way to ensure good experience points is to do bounties, which range from kill 100 enemies without dying in the campaign to benchmarks in the crucible (the PvP arena).

Two other modes are Raids, Strikes. These put you up against bosses after fighting your way to them in 3 person fireteams. I have only done a few of them and they are most helpful once you hit the 20th level and want to continue leveling up your toon as they have a better chance of dropping "light gear."

The Crucible is the final play mode currently. For anyone who wants to pit themselves against other players there are a few modes to play where you can also win gear that will help you in the main campaign. I strongly recommend using an auto rifle as the single shot gun had me at a disadvantage for those that play this type of game a lot.

The problems that I have with the game are that it is a very short campaign. After roughly 18 hours I had completed the game and was only a few XP points away from hitting level 20. Once I hit level 20, I grew bored. The reason that I grew bored was because the game is very repetitive and monotonous. Once you have done it, you have to do it again and again. The loot that drops is far and few between. While the drops improved as I reached level 20 they still took forever to get and weren't all that helpful as they weren't much better than what I was already equipped with and didn't boost my stats enough to make the mission worth it. Destiny does use Loot 2.0 where the loot you see is yours and yours alone, which makes it so that you aren't fighting over drops. But it is only for your toons and you can only share between the characters you have created. It is disappointing as you come across things that could be useful to your online friends, it would be nice to be able to give it to your friends to help them on their journey, maybe in a patch.

another complaint is that the enemies are just new skins on Halo enemies. Their guns are very similar as well as their "classes." The differences are in looks only and it is disappointing. The loading times are annoying. It loads to get to the destination screen and once you have picked a location you will wait for it to load again, perfect for restroom breaks or grabbing a snack. Trust me, you have time.

Finally, I played as a warlock and one of the powers is to glide, while a cool power it does make it difficult to get to higher locations on the map. A hunter is able to double and later triple jump making it easy for them to reach hidden chests and places, where I was stuck making several attempts to reach a ledge. While my buddy and I would laugh about the whole ordeal, it was frustrating to say the least.

Very early in the game (on launch day) I took part in an in game event as a giant Sputnik like satellite fell to Earth and my friend and I tackled the event alone. I figured on launch day hundreds of people would rush the scene and take part in the event but alas, my buddy and I did it by ourselves. Not sure if the game ramps up the difficulty as more players join in but it wasn't all the difficult to do with just two people. Since then, I haven't seen an event. While the game, Defiance wasn't all that great, one thing they did do well was in-game events and it is a model that Bungie should model themselves after.



GRAPHICS

If there is one thing Destiny does well is how beautiful the game looks. Sitting for a few minutes to watch time pass in the game will reveal a stunning horizon. The guns are modeled well and the enemies are rendered well.

AUDIO

Bungie recycled a lot of the audio from Halo and fans will notice it quickly. The voice acting, while it features the very talented Peter Dinklage as your ghost companion, is not very exciting and in my opinion appears to have phoned in his lines and then cashed his check.

Some of the upcoming events before the planned DLC in December:

VERDICT

While Destiny has a lot of things going for it and has many events planned soon (see below) it is very monotonous and repetitive. The fact that the campaign is short, only 18 hours or so strikes me as very short sighted. The lack of directions on what to do after reaching level 20 is disappointing and while it could be fixed with a little tweaking, the loot drops are far and few between make for a lot of unnecessary grinding.  With that said, Bungie does seem very committed to game and we should see some positive changes very soon. I am not all that impressed with the game but look forward to seeing how the game develops over time and improves. It has a lot going for it and I am hoping for improvements to make this game last as a rotating title in my playlist.

6.5/10

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REVIEW: Wolfenstein The New Order

Wolfenstein: The New Order
First Person Shooter, Action-Adventure
PS4, XB1, PS3, 360, PC

It has been quite a while since I have played a Wolfenstein game. The latest foray into the world takes place 3 years after the adventure found in Wolfenstein (2009). In this alternative history, the Nazis have come up with a lot of new advanced technologies, which led to Germany conquering the world's superpowers. In a last ditch attempt to turn the tide, William "BJ" Blazkowski and Fergus Reid attempt a raid against a weapons labratory when they are captured. Blazkowski manages to escape but is put into an asylum for many years before snapping out of his vegetative state when a group of Nazis come to the hospital seeking patients for their experiments and he kills the interlopers and escapes with Anya, the young nurse from the facility to join up with the resistance.


Gameplay

The gameplay is quite easy to pick up the weapons wheel allows you to set two of your weapons for quick switches. and the game plays well. I only noticed a few glitches here and there that never deterred from the enjoyment of the game. While the alternative history may be something we haven't seen before, the Nazis controlling nearly the entire planet, the shooter aspect is something everyone will have seen before. The weapons may be slightly different but the overall gameplay is familiar territory.  However, where Wolfenstein excels is the visceral appeal of killing the bad guys. Many of the weapons have a duel-wielding option that to me was unnecessary. Although it did come in handy a few times early in the game when faced with two robots coming at you at the same time.

While Wolfenstein the New Order is a shooter, many of the levels depend upon stealth and the use of knives in order to succeed and progress through the level. I enjoyed stalking my enemies through rooms and corridors and once I had my hands on a silenced pistol, I continued to hunt them and take them apart one at a time leaving the rest unaware of their partner's fate. Hunting down commanders to avoid them calling in reinforcements helps avoid future conflicts. But I would have liked to have had better AI on the soldiers. Sometime they would encounter a body and not even bother to go on alert but continue to walk their patrol route making it easy for me to pick them off.

One thing that I did enjoy was how you unlock new abilities. By completing mini-games through the levels you unlock new abilities. The skills also have to be unlocked in order, which adds a nice layer of depth to the challenges.

The levels are all unique and subtly show Germany's dominance in the world. There is a space station, a junk yard and a capital city to name a few all adding to the mythology of this alternative history.

One of the downsides to the game is the very old feel of having to press 'X' every time you encounter health, ammo, and armor. It would have been nice to just walk over it and collect it. There is also a lack of NPCs, making the world seem a little less populated. There are a few points in the game where the learning curve is high. At one point you enter a sewer system and are confronted by an armored dog and there is no clue as to what you are suppose to do; attack it or run away. Only after trial and error do you find out the answer. There are a few situations like this that bothered me a little.



Graphics

While the game deals with a very dreary subject matter, the game is quite colorful. The swimming aspect and alternative history allow for some spectacular visuals. I found myself immersed into the world that MachineGames created. The glitches I mentioned above can be found throughout the game but do not deter from the game. They are minor nuisances that are so small that they are only jarring for a second.

Audio

The music is rather subtle. As I write this review, I can't even really recall much of the soundtrack. I did enjoy the voice acting. From Fergus' Irish humor to the sounds of the guns. They all added to a fairly fantastic game.

Verdict

Wolfenstein doesn't break new ground with their latest in the franchise but it is one of the better games currently out there. The PS4 and Xbox One are flooded with shooters looking to get your money and Wolfenstein The New Order is the one that should be getting it. It is a fun game dealing with some truly ugly events that really occurred. The fact that MachineGames can bring them to light without repercussions speaks loudly to how well they blended history with their alternative vision. The fact that nearly every level has at least two ways to approach it gives it some replay ability. The lack of multiplayer  is blessing as it is a great single player campaign.

Overall 8/10

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