August 11, Gamescom 2014: Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Multiplayer Reveal... Details and Opinions

Written By: Tyler

Watch the video here, and this is where I took all the details from:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/watch-the-call-of-duty-advanced-warfare-multiplaye/1100-6421631/

Abilities:

• "Boost jump" allows you jump much higher than in the past
• "Slam" is an air-to-ground melee attack
• "Boost dodge" -- dodge while on the ground
• "Boost dash" -- move quickly in a direction while in mid-air
• "Boost slide" -- slide while on the ground
• Exo abilities are selectable within Pick 13 (see below) and are usable for as long as battery power is available
• "Exo cloak" -- turn at least partially invisible
• "Exo shield"
• "Exo cover"
• "Exo launcher"
• Super punch -- rather than a knife, you can punch an enemy player to death

Player Customization:

• XP still exists and is the "backbone" of the ranking system
• Create-an-Operator lets you customize the look of your character, including your head, helmet, exoskeleton, gloves, and boots
• Pick 13 system replaces Pick 10
  • You can select up to four score streaks or none at all, giving you more room to select Exo suit abilities or other items
  • Scorestreaks can be customized to make them more powerful; doing so doesn't cost Pick 13 points
  • Co-op scorestreaks let players work together, like allowing two players to make use of a flying vehicle
• Virtual firing range allows you to try out your custom loadout without having to go into a multiplayer match
• Virtual Lobby -- show off your character in the lobby, allowing you to view other players' look and loadout
• Supply drops -- rewarded through things like in-game challenges and time played; rewards you with weapons, special care packages
  • Three rarity levels: Enlisted, Professional, and Elite
  • Weapon loot -- custom weapons that modify weapons' base stats
  • Character gear will also be available, allowing you to customize your look as part of the Create-an-Operator feature
  • Thousands of rewards available and billions of possible combinations

Modes:

• 12 multiplayer modes on day one
• CTF, Search & Destroy, Hardpoint all returning
• Round-based Domination
• Uplink -- new mode where two teams fight for control of a drone that can be passed between players

Maps:

• Maps have dynamic elements, such as water from the ocean flooding a level when a tsunami rolls in
• Four maps announced today:
  • Biolab -- set in a bioengineering laboratory
  • Riot -- set in a prison in Baghdad
  • Ascend -- set in a space elevator terminal
  • Defender -- set in San Francisco next to the Golden Gate Bridge, features the aforementioned tsunami

I'm not a Call of Duty fan. I was, but then I got bored of it. It was never my shooter of choice but I did put some hours into the Modern Warfares. I don't overly enjoy the look and feel of it anymore, but I won't deny there was a time that I did. However, when I first heard of Advanced Warfare, I must admit that I said to myself, "This could be interesting." My favourite shooter series is Killzone so I enjoy Sci-Fi elements and it is interesting to see Call of Duty go in that direction.

The biggest element of the game this time around is the Exo, but we all figured that that would be the case. Because of these, you are able to boost jump, dodge, dash and slam. Now you can jump really high, or dash in a different direction while mid-air. This will no doubt add a different layer to the multiplayer because anytime you add a more vertical aspect then it'll drastically change things. It does look like Titanfall without the wall-running, but this was apparently conceived and implemented three years ago when they started development.

They talked a lot about the customization, and I'll do a quick rundown. There are a variety of choices for cosmetically altering your character, and they took "Pick 10" from Black Ops but made it "Pick 13." This basically means that there are a variety of ways to change your class to fit your needs. You can have up to four score streaks or zero (so you can focus on other things), so I give props to the amount of customization Sledgehammer Games is offering if this is your thing. I still prefer the Killzone way of set character classes, but being able to do more with your character is never bad.

You can also have a cloak, a hover or a shield, but it takes power from your Exo that doesn't recharge. You can use perks in order to add to your battery. Of course, since it's Call of Duty, there are a bunch of different perks.

XP and ranks still exist, but you can also gain stuff by supply drops that are based on time played and in-game challenges. These come in three different rarity levels and can include customized guns along with character gear. There are also rare one-time use items like perks and score streaks.

Outside of the actual combat, the virtual lobby now allows you to see more details of the people you're playing against instead of just name, rank and whatnot. There is also a virtual shooting range that allows you to test your guns.

One point of interest to me is the idea of co-op score streaks where you can now get involved in your teams score streaks to help them out. It's not mind-blowing, but it's still a neat little feature.

They showed off four maps, all with their different characteristics (obviously). The most interesting one is Defender because a Tsunami hits the map at some point during the match. There is Biolab, which has narrow hallways, Riot which has a security system that you can use to mark players, and lastly there's Ascend which really stresses the vertical nature of Advanced Warfare.

There are going to be twelve modes on day one, with a bunch of returning ones like Team Deathmatch, Hardpoint, Search and Destroy, Capture the Flag, etc. There is an update on War called Momentum and a new mode called Uplink which is basically you getting the satellite uplink and throwing it through a goal. If you jump through yourself, with the uplink, your team gets two points. We've seen things like this before, but it's still a fun mode to include. I actually have always praised Call of Duty for having a bunch of different modes... something that even Killzone doesn't seem to get right (though I love the modes they have).

If you pre-order the game, you can play the game 24 hours before the official launch. It is called The Day 0 Edition, and there will be double XP along with two bonus custom weapons and all the other bonuses. So now, if you're more casual or hate pre-ordering, you can be at a disadvantage on day one. Huzzah.



So what did I think though? I think it could be the best Call of Duty in a long time. I only believe this because I am so bored of how they did things that just being able to Titanfall my way around is a plus. I'd rather Titanfall just get more modes though because I'd rather keep playing that and it's light on content.

But I don't think it's going to be amazing. I think I'm too far gone at this point to truly love another Call of Duty. At first I got excited, when the presentation first started, but then as it went on I realized that outside of certain aspects, like the Exo, it's still just business as usual. The features that they were revealing to us are fine and dandy, but aren't a lot of them just minor improvements on a tried, tested and true formula? I didn't see anything that wowed me in any meaningful way. The Exo may have done so had Titanfall not just come out.

That's fine because people go to Call of Duty for Call of Duty, but since I no longer like the feel of a CoD, this may not appeal to me as much as it should. It's not for me, it's for the fans, but to their credit I am considering picking it up.

E3 Day 0 (Part 1) -- The Microsoft Press Conference

Written By: Tyler

Image taken from http://e3expo.com

First thing's first, I have to do the obligatory Eminem reference when you've been gone from something for a while. Guess who's back? Back again, Tyler's back, tell my friends (because seriously, they have assumed I'm dead). Yes ladies and gents, I have been gone for almost a month. I went away, and I wasn't sure if I'd even bother writing anymore, but once in a while I'd check out the stats on this blog and I was still getting some views so I figure why not?

And now, what better time to come back than the Superbowl of gaming? It's E3 time, and here's my game plan: I am not a professional blog -- if you can't tell by now -- so I have no E3 press credentials or anything, and I have a real job to go to, but I intend on watching as much as I can during the next few days. At the end of each day, I will make a post talking about the day. Now, because of my work schedule (I have some really early mornings), there may be some press conferences or news I miss, but if I do, I will talk about that the next day.

As the Microsoft Press Conference went on, I realized just how big it was. I don't want to bombard you people with one completely massive post, so I tell ya what... this post has just become a Microsoft-only post, which means you will be getting multiple posts each day, depending on how long the posts are. I imagine EA and Ubisoft won't be as huge, so I might pair them into a single post. We'll see how it goes. Look at me adapting.



The first press conference of the day was Microsoft and it was great.

When the lights went down we were bombarded with a lot of flashy images and a countdown. Once the countdown hit 0, the Xbox symbol came up and Phil Spencer got beamed down from space (okay he walked out). After the typical corporate talk about how awesome games are and how great we are, he said that this presentation is all about the games this time, which is welcome because we all remember how bad last year went.

The first game that is shown is, of course, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Xbox owners will be the first to play all additional content for the game. I'm glad that Call of Duty is going a little more Sci-Fi this time around, and the footage looked like it could breathe fresh air into the franchise, but to be honest, I'm like a lot of gamers at this point where I'd need to play it and see how it is because I'm just not hyped. It definitely looks more interesting than the previous few, though.

There's a new, free track for Forza 5... and you can get it now. So, you know, do that.

Then there's Forza Horizon 2. It's 1080p and has stuff like dynamic weather. It also apparently has no lobbies so you can get right into the action. You can get it on September 30th of this year. I've never actually played a Forza and I'm not a huge racer fan so I'm not real excited, but it does look like it'll be a good time so I think any racing game fan should be excited.

And here we go... Evolve. It gets its beta and DLC first on Xbox. A lot has been said about how incredible the potential is for this game, with original multiplayer, and I really hope it's good because the trailer they showed was exciting. We get to see a new monster -- and oh yeah, it's the Kraken.

Assassin's Creed Unity is next and I'm not an Assassin's Creed guy. You can join with up to three friends on Xbox Live, which might actually be a selling point for me. I mean, I don't own an Xbox One, but I'm assuming it will be this way on PS4 and whatnot.

I'm not expecting the series to be completely re-designed and the footage shown doesn't indicate that it will be. However, I have to admit, seeing the co-op in action has me jazzed for Assassin's Creed for the first time... ever. This will add a whole new dynamic to the experience. It really looks like they're doing this right... if you can play through the story completely in co-op, I am all in.

Then we get a feature about the first games of people. Then people are burning. No this isn't the opening scene of Parasite Eve, it's Dragon Age: Inquistion. Confession time: I've never played a Dragon Age. But I want to play it.

From Fantasy to military shooter. Oh wait no, it's SUNSET OVERDRIVE... the game I'm most pumped for. Nice trickery, Insomniac Games. They show us a fun little teaser trailer before Ted Price comes out and introduces us to some actual gameplay. His favourite game is Super Metroid which makes him okay by me.

So what does Sunset Overdrive play like? It's fast, chaotic and silly.  It's colourful and fluid, and I cannot wait. You can play co-op with up to 8 friends, which would be awesome for me.

Next is Dead Rising 3 DLC. It has a really long name but it could definitely be fun. I know, I'm positive.

Here we go with something I really don't care about at all. On October 21, we have Disney Fantasia Music Evolved. You remix your favourite songs through "impressive motion play." In September, there's a digital-only title called Dance Central Spotlight. To anybody who likes this kind of thing, good for you, but it wouldn't see my money if I had an Xbone.

Fable Legends has joined the fight. I'm all for any game that allows me to play the campaign/story with friends, so the game is of interest for that reason, but Fable is not something I'm emotionally invested in. However, you are able to play as the villain and control the world from up above. This is an interesting gameplay mechanic, which I think is a nice addition because the rest of the game looks fine but not awe-inspiring. Looks like another solid Fantasy third-person action title where teamwork might actually be important.

Project Spark is up next, only for Xbox and PC. It looks like there's a lot of variety to the type of games you can make with it. I'll have to see what comes out of it... oh crap, is that... Conker? That's interesting. While I'd rather just have a new Conker, he will apparently be in Project Spark. As I was saying, I'll have to see what comes out of Project Spark but it definitely has a lot of potential.

Moon Studios is coming out with what appears to be a very artistic, side-scrolling platformer called
Ori and the Blind Forest (I think, as I was looking away briefly and I'm not sure if I read the title correctly).

The Halo music that everybody is familiar with hits, and we actually get some real footage of a new Halo. It's pretty epic and it appears that there's someone like Master Chief out there. Bonnie Ross comes out and she's pretty. Hey, I'm a guy.

On November 11th, you can get Halo: The Master Chief Collection and play all the core Halo games (featuring Master Chief of course) on Xbox One. I'm not really excited because I've played them all and I'm not the type of guy who buys this type of thing, but there's no doubt that this is a huge release. It does look like they're putting a lot of care into it... retouching "every part of the game," and they're keeping the Halo 2 multiplayer exactly the same. It has every map in all four of the games, running at 1080p, on dedicated servers and on their original engines. It will also ship with 4000 gamerscore if... you know, that matters to you.

Halo: Nightfall is a digital series and that's included in the collection. Okay, I said I'm not the type of guy who would buy this kind of thing but as the presentation goes on, I'm into it.

 In December, the Halo 5: Guardians beta shows up as well. There's a whole lot of Halo in your life.

After people were done filling the cup (Kevin Smith orgasm reference), Phil Spencer shows up to cuddle everyone with some upcoming 2015 games.

The follow-up to Limbo, Inside, is dark, moody and it looks like you're trying to escape from somewhere. I was sold on it before I saw anything just because Limbo was great.

There's a lot of indie games coming, and we see a little bit of some of them. There are too many to talk about, but I will say, there are some truly incredible looking indie games coming. This is why the indie scene is a hotbed for creativity.

Then we have a world premiere of the new Tomb Raider. It doesn't show any gameplay, so it's really hard to tell what it's going to give us.

Then we're treated to some new gameplay for The Witcher 3, one of the most hyped upcoming RPGs.
I don't know what to even say... it just looks like a big, bad RPG. The combat looks solid and the hunting looks fun.

Then Ken Lobb comes out and starts talking about Killer Instinct. But wait, he's bringing sexy something else back. What is it, you ask? None other than Phantom Dust, and I feel really ignorant because I don't even know what that is. The footage only shows us a cinematic of two people throwing fireballs at each other, basically, so I don't know what to think.

Oh man, now we talk about The Division, one of the games I'm most excited for. The video starts with some pretty Christmas music, but I'm going to guess that something goes wrong. You know, just a hunch. Christmas Day is treated so poorly in fiction.

After the squad meets up, we get to witness a battle. I'm well aware that the people playing it are going to play more "professionally" and thus cooler than a lot of players, since they're trying to hype the game up and make it more like real team work (as opposed to a lot of gamers just playing stupid), but damn it looks like a lot of fun. The combat, of course, doesn't go as planned and things get chaotic. Cover gets blown up and the enemies seem to be relatively intelligent. I still don't get how the multiplayer is going to work in the sense that where do opposing players fit in?

Next Scalebound gets shown off with a nice cinematic that once again really tells you very little about the actual game. All these games look cool.

The next exclusive Xbox One game is Crackdown 3. I've always wanted to play Crackdown but haven't gotten around to it. Again, it's all cinematic with lots of explosions so Michael Bay would be proud. What is it going to be like as a game? I'm sure it'll play like the others, but you can't tell much from it.

Oh hey, Phil Spencer is back to wrap it up. He talks about how awesome Xbox is going to continue to be. The press conference ends with a montage of games in a variety of genres


Closing Statement: I think it would have been hard to mess up this press conference because of the focus on games. We know that Microsoft was bound to get some awesome games, and they did a good job of giving the stage to what gamers truly care about. It was a successful conference to me and made me want an Xbone even more than I already do, as its the only next-gen console that I don't currently have.


What do you think? Did I report anything wrong? Don't kill me if I did, because I have a hard time multi-tasking so watching video and writing made my head explode and I was replaced by an incompetent robot. Tell me what you think in the comment section below or yell at me on Twitter @ArtBathednCrime

Coming Through The Door Blasting Volume 1: "Fluff" Gameplay, Battlefield 4, Dark Souls 2

Written By: Tyler

In "Coming Through The Door Blasting," I will be taking aim at various video game issues, whether it's in the form of rants or confessionals... maybe a mixture of both. Consider it a series of video game related brain droppings (pixelated poops?). A lot of the opinions that I express in the "Coming Through The Door Blasting" saga (ha) will be reactions to what I've been reading around the net or hearing in person, so obviously there is a lot of generalization going on.

There's no rhyme or reason to when I will release each volume of this because I write them when I have some stuff I need to rant about and/or when the blog is low on content.


I Don't Think Dark Souls 2 Is For Me

I'll begin this with a full disclosure: I haven't played this game enough to feel like I can write a full review of it, and I probably never will. It's like a light version of a review-in-progress that will never bloom to a completed product. I would love to write a review of it, but I am just having an incredibly hard time getting into it, and some of that is on me and not the game, but I can't look at Dark Souls 2 as a masterpiece either.

I'm playing the PC version right now, and I've read that it's buggy in comparison to the console version, but since it's my point of entry on DS2, it's all I can talk about. The mouse lag is terrible and in a game of inches like this one, it's incredibly frustrating that you can't attack like you plan and intend to. The game is hard enough as is, this extra difficulty doesn't help because it's cheap. They also clearly want you to use a controller because the commands on the screen come up as, "Press A." My controller is broken, plus I'm playing on PC, so I don't think it's unreasonable to expect developers to optimize their PC games for the PC.

But that isn't why I can't really get into the game, that's just a port issue (I'm assuming) that doesn't exist in the console versions. This is going to put me at risk at receiving proclamations from people that I am a "casual gamer," but I think I'm past the point where ridiculously hard games appeal to me. I grew up with hard games, and I don't know if it's just because I'm getting older and feel like I've done my time with hard games, or if I just don't have the patience that I had when I was a kid and could only afford one game at a time -- thus making me play that same game for hours on end, regardless of how difficult it is. Or it could be that nowadays there are so many games to play that it's hard not to be pulled in a million directions, making me dedicate less time to games than I may have in my younger years. Maybe it's a mixture of all those things, but I don't like struggling my way through a point only to die and have to do it again. And again. And again. There's a death penalty where your life decreases whenever you die, though admittedly you can get a ring pretty early that helps with that by only allowing it to go down to 75%. I still don't like the idea of the death penalty. The game is hard, and each battle is difficult, and this was just unnecessary. Keep in mind, this is the point where I will concede that this whole paragraph is more of a personal problem than a game problem, except for the death penalty which I will defend as being pointless and stupid.

I don't actually think the game is this amazing accomplishment in game design either. I think it's a completely solid Action RPG, with some occasional thrilling moments and aspects I admire like the multiplayer (which I've enjoyed since Demon's Souls). I admit that when you finally complete an area and get to a bonfire it's a rewarding experience. The combat is difficult but I don't see anything awe-inspiring about it. Block/dodge, then attack. Sometimes there are multiple enemies which increases how stressful it is. I'm not saying the combat is easy, I'm just saying it's not really that in-depth.

I read somewhere that Dark Souls 2 puts its best material halfway through the game. If this is true, that doesn't actually excuse it. A game is different than a movie. Slogging through half an hour in a movie to get to the best part is different than slogging through a game for 20 hours.

Please keep in mind before you read the rest of this paragraph that this is literally just me asking questions and pondering out loud. These aren't concrete statements, they are hypothetical musings. I wonder if the game would be getting the accolades that it has been if it wasn't for the difficulty. If games back in the NES days had the same technical advancements that games of today do, would Dark Souls 2 really stand out? Or is this a moot point not even worth mentioning because the point of Dark Souls 2 is that it exists today and promises crushing difficulty and it's impossible and just plain dumb to compare it to games of yesteryear?

I know that if On The Gamely were a popular blog I'd start getting a lot of hateful comments here saying how I'm whining or crying, but if I were to give Dark Souls 2 a rating right now, I'd give it somewhere between a 7 and an 8. This is taking into consideration the fact that I believe a rating should consist of how "objectively" good the game is and your own personal taste. It is entirely possible to acknowledge a game is really good while also accepting the fact that it's just not for you. I am like that with Dark Souls 2, but I still see some problems with it. I'm glad there are a lot of people enjoying it though and I hope the series continues and makes a shit-ton of money because the variety of games is nice.


So I Took A Step Into The Realm Of Battlefield For The First Time This Past Week

I never played a Battlefield before because there are already too many shooters and another military shooter wasn't that appealing to me, despite the fact I'm in awe of the destructible environments and think it could add tremendously to the experience. I actually almost bought Battlefield 4 when it first came out but my computer couldn't run it. I consider myself lucky considering the difficulties the game has had since release.

Regardless, since it's currently on sale for $25 I reckon if I'm going to get it, I better get it now. And getted it I did. I really dig it. I'm iffy on vehicles in most competitive shooters, but depending on the game you're involved in, they can help create some truly exciting and memorable encounters. On the flip-side, it can lead to getting completely dominated in the most frustrating way possible, but my experience with BF4 has been mostly positive.

I don't want every FPS to have destructible environments, but holy crap it adds a lot. One of the first games I played, I ran into a building, the wall got blown up, so I ran into the next room and that wall got blown up. This level of destruction wouldn't be at home in certain shooters, but it's welcomed in Battlefield.

I like the game looks, feels and sounds, too. It doesn't pass my favourite shooter (Killzone), but the battles are chaotic and intense, with explosions and death everywhere you turn. Battlefield and Call of Duty compete directly with each other, despite offering different spins on the military shooter, but Battlefield stomps all over CoD.


Not Every Game Has To Be 200 Hours

I'll try to make this one quick because the article is already longer than I intended, but I don't think every game has to be long, non-linear or open-world. I don't need a million side-quests and I don't need a lot of replay value. Replay value used to come from it just being a great game that you want to experience again, though I'm not saying that another type of replay value isn't a positive thing because it is. I'm completely okay with a "short" game -- within reason -- so long as it's a memorable game.

If Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 only had the campaign, that'd be a rip-off because even though I have turned my back on CoD, I still think the campaign was great though incredibly short. Two and a half hours is too short for a full-price game.

Ten hours really isn't too short. My favourite RPG of all-time, Parasite Eve, clocks in at rougly ten hours. Mind you, games were cheaper, but the economy was also different back then. I'd be completely fine with Parasite Eve being released today with the same length because the game was fantastic from beginning to end.

We, as gamers, demand more and more from a technical standpoint these days. Games are held up to different standards because the technology is so much more advanced and we pay for that. Unfortunately this means prices also increase due to various factors, so even though cheaper games would be welcomed, you just can't expect a AAA title to do that. At least we have indie games for an alternative.

That's not to say I'm going to bat for companies pumping out short games, and unleashing unfinished games and expecting us to buy DLC is definitely not on my agenda. Bravely Default had a pretty decent runtime, and I enjoyed the hell out of that (until the end, ugh), and games such as Watch Dogs will demand lots of hours from me. There are always going to be open-world/sandbox games and I welcome that, but there's also something to be said for a concise story. If a game can do all that at once, more power to it.

My problem with a lot of longer games is that the gameplay just gets boring at some point and I end up ignoring side-quests and just doing the story. Someone could argue that since these side-quests are just extra material that you don't have to do them, but in some games you could miss out on a bunch by not doing them. I can't put the amount of time that some people do into MMOs because there's a lot of "fluff" gameplay that is just trying to extend the playtime, like stupid level/world design that makes you walk farther than you should have to. Making long-ass hallways just to make the game longer isn't appealing. Doing a million repetitive side-quests is only fun for so long most of the time.

There are exceptions to this rule, and I can be hypocritical, like with my love for Diablo-style Action RPGs. It's not an exact science. I guess my main point is that developers shouldn't stretch out the game if it doesn't make sense to do so, because it actually has the adverse effect and detracts from the overall product.



The point of these articles is to encourage discussion, so please, comment in the comment box below or tweet me @ArtBathednCrime. Let's... get this party started?

Greatest Game Ever??!! A TITANFALL Review

Written By: Tyler
Platform Played On: PC

About five seconds before I begin getting my ass kicked.

Rating: 8/10
Verdict: TITANFALL is an intense multiplayer experience, but it leaves a little to be desired outside of the actual combat. 

TITANFALL -- I know it's not supposed to be capitalized, but it's something I started doing as a joke in the Weekly News Round-Up to stress how intense the game is going to be -- was hyped. Really hyped. It was going to be the Call of Duty killer. It was going to give us something we've never had before. The innovation would lead to world domination. So does this multiplayer-only shooter live up to the potential and the hype? Sort-of. 

Let's get a couple things out of the way:

• A multiplayer-only game is fine so long as the multiplayer offers something interesting. A lot of first-person shooter fans will spend hours upon hours on multiplayer alone, with some not even playing the campaign. 
• I think more than any other genre, the FPS is dependent on "feel." This means that it doesn't matter how great a game is, if it doesn't feel right to you, you won't like it. For example, Killzone is my favourite FPS series because I like how heavy it feels. Whereas, I don't got them feels for a game like Call of Duty (this is important in the review). It's just personal preference and anybody who tries to tell you different should be locked in a room with a prime Mike Tyson and told to box him.

Detractors will call TITANFALL a "Call of Duty with mechs," and that's true to an extent. The shooting/way the guns handle is very much straight out of the CoD playbook, which is no surprise considering who developed this. It's quick and there's little recoil. Where it differs from Call of Duty is the movement and obviously the Titans. You move gracefully and quickly in this game, being able to jump, double jump and wall-run. It's incredible that they got this so right, and it's absolutely a blast to jump into buildings, across buildings or onto the roofs of buildings. This is a large part of why TITANFALL appealed to me from the moment it was announced, and it's definitely a selling point even now.

The Titans are also the element that makes this stand-out from CoD. You are an extremely agile pilot but the action gets bigger when you drop a Titan into the battle and you can get in and control these beats.

This game's combat only works because of the polish and balance. If this game wasn't balanced I think it would hurt it more than most games, because both humans and giant walking death tanks occupying the same battlefield could spell trouble. So rest assured, Respawn has done everything they could to make this a smooth experience for everybody. There are clear advantages to being a Titan, like firepower, but you are not completely out of the fight if you're a pilot. You can duck in and out of buildings easily, and it's extremely satisfying jumping up a building, running across the roof and riding an enemy Titan while blowing it to pieces. Or you could always just use the anti-Titan weaponry that you are automatically equipped with, so while it takes a few shots, you usually have other people firing at the Titans anyway. Don't get confused, seeing a Titan if you're a pilot is still scary shit like it should be, but you aren't automatically dead.

Part of this is because of the level design. They did good work here, offering over ten maps that are a good balance of indoors and outdoors. This is important since going indoors is best way to not get killed by Titans. I don't know why some people wanted destructible environments because that would kill the balance, but people are strange. The combination of well-designed levels and the ability to jump everywhere means that it's hard to camp and there are always interesting and exciting ways to enter buildings or get out of them.

Your Titans actually drop pretty frequently. Even though the matches are short, even if you aren't that good you should be able to get a couple drops in at least. Kill some grunts and you can have more. I had a conversation with my brother and neither of us are sure if the frequency of the drops is good or bad. I guess it's good because honestly, the game is called TITANFALL, so it's to be expected.

I'm iffy on the bots. I understand why they're there -- anti-camping and a way to balance the game by allowing everyone to get Titan drops more often -- but I think I would have preferred just slightly larger games. There are tactical advantages to the bots, because if you kill them you get points and it speeds up your Titan drop, or you can hide within a group of them and fool your enemies, but I find myself looking at bots way too often and getting killed by a real player. That could just be me being terrible at the game, but I still think there are ways to balance the game without having bots, especially considering they're always in there, with one of the game modes being one where you only get points for killing Pilots. Seems silly, but they are there for a logical reason so I'm not outright condemning it.

Even though I actually hate how Call of Duty feels, I'm more forgiving here because it makes sense. I don't think mechanics like Killzone would be appealing here, though a little recoil would feel nice. You still feel a bit like paper, but again, since I can double jump and run across walls I'm more okay with it than I would normally be.

Someone in the chat said, and this isn't a direct quote, "This is one of the only games where you could suck but you still do something cool every game." This is an intense game. People do cooler things than me, but I've done things like wall-chase a guy while shooting at him. I've been in frantic Titan battles, ejected onto a building, shot a rocket and blown up the Titan. I've seen an enemy Titan, ran to the other side of a building, jumped on top of it, ran to the edge, jumped off onto the enemy Titan and blew it up. I've seen people jump kick me in incredible ways. I've gone into Titan battles four Titans deep, and it's very cool being part of a large Titan march like that. It doesn't matter how bad you are, you'll probably do something neat, and the action will remain fast and absurd at all times. Believe me, I suck badly, but I still have a blast.

There are also little touches that I enjoy. I like having to evacuate at the end of matches by running to a dropship that can be blown up by the other team. It adds to the frantic nature of the game. I also like how it shows you jumping out of the dropship at the beginning of games because again. These are little touches but I like them.





So why is this game only an 8 then? Read on, my son.

For being a full-priced multiplayer-only game, it doesn't offer a lot of content. Sure, the combat itself is some of the more interesting FPS combat because of how it blends together a bunch of different games within the genre, but the rest of the game leaves a little to be desired.

If you're going to charge regular game price for a game that is dependent solely on being able to go online (meaning if the community ever died, well, you're shit out of luck... not that it will for a long time), you need to add some depth.

For example, the character customization is Call of Duty-lite. You pick your gun, attachments, and your tactical abilities and whatnot, but there's not much to it. There aren't many guns or attachments, and while being able to customize your Pilot and Titan loadout is fine, it still operates on the same progression system that we're all used to... and arguably does it worse than some of these other games. Love it or hate it, Killzone: Shadow Fall tried to do something different and abandoned the typical XP system we are familiar with. I'm not saying they should have done something so drastic, but this is a multiplayer-only game. Do something intriguing. I could be remembering MAG wrong, but I seem to remember it having a much better progression system. Hell, Dust 514 is incredibly (maybe overly) complex, and while the progression in that is dampened due to the free-to-play nature of gaining points, it's still a game that tried something big. I'm not saying TITANFALL needs to be Dust 514 -- TITANFALL is a better game -- but I'm left disappointed regardless.


If you're looking for game modes, TITANFALL doesn't give you many, and the ones it does give are pretty standard, outside of Last Titan Standing which starts you in Titans in a round-based game where you only get one life per round. The normal modes enter the fray like Capture the Flag or Hardpoint (which is Domination), but honestly this doesn't bother me much on a personal level because I only play a couple modes in shooters anyway. Still, again, this is a multiplayer-only game so they should have stepped their game up here as well.

The campaign is good in spirit but is ultimately just a bunch of multiplayer matches. The story doesn't matter because you don't pay attention to it while you're fighting because who has time? There are Titans everywhere! It's a nice thought, but it was unnecessary. Still, you might as well play it because it nabs you stuff that you wouldn't get just by playing the Classic mode.

The game looks fine. I'm not in awe of the graphics, even on high settings, but there are things going on in the background and they do a good job of making the game look busy while you're playing. I know TITANFALL has gotten criticized, but it's pretty enough. Visual design is more interesting than graphical power anyway, but that's beside the point.

This is one of the weirdest 8 out of 10s I will probably give a game. The fact is that I enjoy the hell out of the game when I'm in a match, but after the match I am left disappointed with what the game has to offer. The movement adds a layer to the game that most games in the genre don't have, but it's a pretty shallow experience out of the actual combat.

On The Podcast Episode 4 -- Black Ops Zombies, Thief, Too Much Sonic, Flappy Bird... And Jacob Tries To End The Podcast Before It Begins

 Welcome to Episode 4 of On The Podcast, YOUR (okay our) weekly Podcast... starring Jacob and Tyler, two random dudes who talk about things and may or may not be related.

Anyway, this week we have a video game focused episode. Most of the time we try to throw in some real world events, movies, books, whatever... but this time we found ourselves mostly talking games. We did touch a bit on things like Pinky Pony and whatnot, however.


Youtube: http://youtu.be/rL7kKIpkYEs
Listen To Mp3:
Download Mp3:https://archive.org/details/onthepodcastepisode4

News Round-Up February 9 - 15: More News About Titanfall, Nintendo And GOAT SIMULATOR?

Written By: Tyler

Hey peeps, what's up? Hope your week is going okay, and now that it's Saturday you can read my long-ass News Round-Up... which is a weekly thing I do where I make fun of some of the more important news of the week. Read on.


Arkham Origins Is A Bug Collector
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/batman-arkham-origins-has-no-plans-to-fix-several-game-breaking-bugs/1100-6417619/

How do you piss off your fans? How do you piss off people that paid for your product? You do exactly what Warner Brothers Montreal did this week. You tell people that if you release a patch, you will address the progression glitches, but you will not fix the other bugs. Why not push DLC over a broken game? I mean, don't even promise people that you'll fix the major issues that literally corrupt save files. Great customer service.


Remember How The Creator Of Flappy Bird Took It Down?

Last week I reported (meaning I ripped the news off of other, more credible sites... and Twitter) that the creator of Flappy Bird issued a Refused style break-up message with Flappy Bird and took it down. Well don't worry, because there's more!

You can buy a phone with Flappy Bird on it if you don't already have it... for a tremendous amount of money. Or you could buy one of the many clones that have popped up.

No... this:

Jonathan Blow would love this.

Oh, people.


Steam Update Rolls In, Shows New Updates
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/02/10/steam-store-adds-a-recently-updated-section

Valve updated Steam this week and the new update is an easy way to tell what games have recently been given updates. Of course this will be a good way to go back to old games. Great, just what I need, more reasons to play more games.


Minecraft-Inspired Movie SHUT DOWN
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/minecraft-inspired-movie-shut-down/1100-6417633/

The Minecraft movie that wasn't licensed by Notch that apparently didn't even have a deal in place was shut down. It's really not a surprise that Notch shut it down "Brendan Schaub vs Cyborg Abreu at Metamoris II" style considering the director of the movie doesn't own the IP.


Watch Dogs For The Wii U Delayed
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/02/10/watch-dogs-coming-to-wii-u-later-than-other-systems

Once upon a time there was this game called Watch Dogs that flew under the radar. When it came close to release date, it got delayed but very few people cared. Now it's scheduled for release in the Spring... except for Wii U. It's very rare that bad things happen to the Wii U so this isn't such a big deal.

...

World of Speed Is Coming And It's Going To Be Free
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/world-of-speed-a-racing-mmo-with-grand-ambitions/1100-6417561/

World of Speed is an ambitious free-to-play... oh wait, I have to listen to the internet grumble for a bit over "free-to-play."

Titanfall Will Not Allow You To Shoot Through Walls
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/titanfall-dev-explains-why-you-can-t-shoot-through-walls/1100-6417629/

In a decidedly non-Next-Gen move, Respawn announced that you can not shoot through walls in the much hyped Titanfall. So of course, in the comments section the internet erupted and argued about why this does or doesn't make sense. Screw you Titanfall! It doesn't make sense to have Titans destroying everything! This is going to be shit like CoD! Battlefield 4 rulez! DUDE TITANFALL ISN'T OUT YET! I PEED MY PANTS!

It was an internet war unlike any other, and many lives were lost. They will be missed.


New Call of Duty Will Prioritize Next-Gen Consoles and PC
http://www.destructoid.com/this-year-s-call-of-duty-to-prioritize-pc-ps4-xbox-one-270313.phtml

Speaking of next-gen, do I have some news for you.

Instead of making something for current gen (last gen? What IS IT NOW?), Sledgehammer is going to develop for the brand spankin' new consoles and PC and then port to the old systems from there. What this means is that in the new CoD we will have two dogs on screen at a time during campaign and we will also see real fish AI like Super Mario 64 since we'll be able to handle it now.


Supposedly Dark Souls 2 Is Rated T
http://www.destructoid.com/dark-souls-ii-earns-a-t-rating-from-the-esrb-270295.phtml

Unless T stands for TerriblyFrustrating, I don't see how this can be true. Due to the extremely dark and maddening aspects of the game, I would rate it CB for Chris Benoit... because it's so difficult you'll kill yourself and your family.

Too soon.

Remember That Flappy Bird Game I Talked About... Above?
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/02/11/flappy-bird-creator-explains-why-he-pulled-the-game

Basically, people are assholes and addicts and he didn't want to be a part. Well played dude, even if the game sucks.


Murasaki Baby -- The Trailer Is Weird, But... Strangely Alluring (Like Your Mom)
http://ca.ign.com/videos/2014/02/11/murasaki-baby-vitas-weirdest-game

If you'd ignore the fact that I made a "your mom" joke for a second and go to that link and watch the trailer for this new promising Vita game, you'll understand what I mean when I post this:

Goat Simulator
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/goat-simulator-is-a-real-game-that-s-really-happening/1100-6417672/


It's not very often that a random game shoots up my "Most Anticipated Games" list, but this one did. I'm not even joking. There is no joke here. I don't have to make one because the video will make you laugh.


Sons of Anarchy Game Is Still In Production
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sons-of-anarchy-game-back-on-will-be-f-ing-awesome/1100-6417670/

Kurt Sutter, the creator of SoA, says that the game is in production and it's going to be "fucking awesome." Straight to the point, I like it.

In all seriousness I might play the game if Rockstar makes it -- even though the idea of an SoA game doesn't overly appeal to me (despite being a huge fan of the show) -- because they made The Warriors and that was fantastic. They also made uh, Grand Train Audio or whatever, so it might be okay.


PS4 100+ games
Microsoft 25 bucks for usage of head phones


But Enough About That Shit, Let's Hear What EA Has To Say

In the first ever EA Corner, we got the stuff that EA says, except for the things they say in private to their wives and husbands because that's probably creepy. Whenever EA says something I will be here to make the same jokes about it that I do every week. Without EA I wouldn't even have a weekly news round-up.

It's important to note that it's what EA says, not Respawn (hence Titanfall news being above). I don't want to confuse all three of my readers, you know. Let's get on it.


EA CFO (Certified Fork Operator) Blake Jorgensen stated that Titanfall is going to be a series that is around for a long, long time. Yeah, well at least a year because that's how long it's going to take to hammer out the bugs to make it work because you force it out early. Ba dum tsss.

EA CFO (Cranky Fish Omnipotent) Blake Jorgensen said that mobile games won't kill consoles. That's right, because EA will. Zing!

EA chief creative officer Rich Hilleman... wait where's Blake? Dammit, I had something going there. Anyway, Rich Hillerman went all Tower Defense and defended the crappy launch of Battlefield 4 basically stating that he won't accept that people think it's a bad product and doesn't think customers will say that anyway. He also said that they will learn from their past mistakes. Just like with Sim City. OH SNAP!

Well that concludes The EA Corner for now. Let's move onto other news.


Like The Nintendo Direct That Was Held This Week

Every Nintendo fan gets excited for Nintendo Direct. I'm no different. We shouldn't have gotten our hopes up too much because Nintendo said it was focused on games releasing this Spring (despite a couple games being shown that have later release dates).

But there's always that hope that BANG, NEW ZELDA! Or Metroid. Or Star Fox. Or Earthbound. Whatever. We didn't get it, spoiler tags.

We now know that Little Mac is in Smash Bros, which is awesome. We finally saw a little more of THE GREATEST RPG EVER -- X. We saw some more Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, Yoshi's New Island, etc.

We saw some games that are coming for the eShop, and admittedly some of them look cool.

We saw the tears of all Nintendo fanboys.

We saw more about games we already know about. It was about par for the course with Nintendo Direct, and yet I keep getting hyped. I was going to make a hype train picture but it turns out there's already a bunch of them. Well played, Internet.


Steam Going To Have Tags
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/02/12/valve-introduces-user-generated-steam-tags

Now you can categorize stuff! Yay! FINALLY!

...

In all seriousness I like how the article makes sure to mention that swear words will be censored. Dang.


Farting Will Feel Authentic in the South Park RPG
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/south-park-rpg-will-make-farting-feel-authentic/1100-6417695/

In what is surely the most important news of the week, Trey Parker said that the farting will feel authentic, and I quote, "It was really important that you didn't just press a button to fart. You need to feel it go out of your asshole."

I agree! 100%. This is wonderful news, and it's nice that we're finally getting realism in our games. I think this game was meant for the Oculus Rift... if it was... on your... ass.


Square Enix Says FFXV Is Far Into Development
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/02/13/final-fantasy-15-quite-far-into-development

In some reassuring news, especially considering the news before that they weren't sure when the game would be released, Square Enix says that FFXV -- the latest entry in the most final series of all time -- is far into development.

I also learned that there are direct sequels coming. Do you remember the days when Final Fantasy games would just be standalones? Because Square doesn't.

Now, just get The World Ends With You 2 underway and we'll be good.


Hideo Kojima Loves the PS4 The Mostest Forever <3
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/02/13/hideo-kojima-praises-the-power-of-the-ps4

The article states, however, that the Xbone hasn't been released in Japan yet so Kojima may not have included it in his statement.


Xbox One Patch To Fix The Controller Input
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/02/13/xbox-one-patch-to-fix-controller-input-for-titanfall

Titanfall apparently runs roughshod over everything, but it's good because now the Xbox One update that is coming later this month will fix the controller input because now it's "overly twitchy."

CandySwipe Developer Published An Open Letter to King
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/02/12/candyswipe-dev-publishes-open-letter-to-candy-crush-publisher

As the title states, Albert Ransom -- who developed CandySwipe -- published an open letter on King.com which basically states that King are assholes and that they win, just in nicer terms.

If you aren't aware of King, they tried to mess things up for The Banner Saga too because Saga is in the title so they don't want the Viking epic to be confused with Candy Crush Saga.

Meanwhile, in a dark alley way, King are hanging out with EA. True story.


The Evil Within Gets A Release Date
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/02/14/the-evil-within-release-date-announced

The Evil Within, the documentary about this blog, gets a release date... and it's right now. Nah it's August 26. Prepare to piss yourself at the end of summer.


Xbox Live Gold Is Free Right Now
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-live-gold-free-for-all-this-weekend-on-xbox-360/1100-6417715/

If you're one of the few people who don't have Xbox Live Gold, then it's actually free this weekend. I don't have any jokes here, I've just realized that I don't often put positive Microsoft news. #microsoftsux


Bungie Reveals One Of The Mounts In Destiny
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/02/13/destiny-bungie-unveils-the-shrike-vehicle

PETA be damned.

The mount is called the Shrike.


Why Not Release a Hitman Game That Isn't Like Other Hitman Games?
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/hitman-getting-a-turn-based-strategy-game-for-real/1100-6417725/

Square Enix Montreal apparently agrees with that sentiment because they are developing a Hitman game for tablets and mobile that is a turn-based strategy game.

I'm just going to go ahead and ignore every Hitman game from now on until they literally come out and say, "Hey. We are done experimenting with a franchise that shouldn't be experimented with, we've decided Absolution pissed on everything and we're going back to what made the games so good from the beginning to Blood Money."

What is the over-under on that happening?


In Much Better News, The Arma 3 DLC Is Kind Of Like Dungeons and Dragons
http://www.destructoid.com/arma-3-s-zeus-dlc-introduces-a-new-role-game-master-270495.phtml

Oh shit.

The Zeus Game Master DLC will allow players to basically be Dungeon Masters and control objectives, spawn units, etc. I don't know how this is going to work in a game like Arma, but that's a damn cool idea and Square Enix Montreal should listen to the developers of this.


Gearbox Not Working On Borderlands 3 Now, I Repeat, Gearbox NOT Working On Borderlands 3 Now

I don't even know what to do. I don't know where to go, who to talk to. I don't know who to blame. I am so lost.

Oh you bet your ass I can. And I do.


Halo 5 Coming To Xbox In 2015... Maybe?
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/halo-5-coming-to-xbox-in-2015-according-to-master-chief-voice-actor-update/1100-6417742/

Nobody really knows except for the developers. But we like to just latch onto stuff one individual says. That's what we do.


DayZ May Come To PS4 and Xbone
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-one-and-ps4-could-get-open-world-zombie-game-dayz/1100-6417765/

This is great news to anybody who doesn't have a PC that can run DayZ. Mind you, it'll probably be better on PC but it's nice when more people are able to get killed by other, better geared players and rage quit. Console gamers should be thankful for this potential awesomeness.


Video Games May Help With Dyslexia
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/video-games-are-good-for-you-may-help-manage-dyslexia/1100-6417764/

May also help you with boredom.

It's always nice when articles like this come out because there are always going to be critics of video games who still see them as useless and a waste of time. Now however, instead of just praising this discovery and using it to better our lives, we can slap it in the face of hatas.

VIDEO GAMED.

And so there you have it -- some of the most important news of the week. Make sure to tune in next week when I make fun of more news and quietly lament Ellen Page being gay because now there's even less chance than there was before.

The Little Indie Game That Could - A Call of Duty: Ghosts Review

Written By: Tyler Selig

"AH I CAN'T SEE, EVERYTHING IS BLACK. Oh wait.."

Rating: 6/10

Verdict: Call of Duty: Ghosts is not a new experience. It changes up the formula a tad here and there, but not enough for me to get back into the series. Fans of the series should eat this up as a fun, fast, action packed game… while people who hate the series will find yet another bland military shooter that feels like paper. Pick your side, because Call of Duty is here to stay.

            I’m of the mind that a reviewer should embrace his or her biases, and make them known. I’m not trying to start an argument here (or maybe I am, I don’t know), but I don’t understand this obsession with objectivity. I’m not trying to say that you can’t try to break down the pros and cons of a game in the most unbiased way that’s possible, but a game that is boring for one may be an intense experience for another. Objective turns subjective pretty quick in a lot of cases, and that’s why I will always be upfront with anybody reading this about my own personal prejudices and desires (sounds sexy). It’s also the reason I’ve always enjoyed a system built upon multiple critics reviewing the same game, because that will give a more balanced opinion. Nobody reads my blog, so as much as I’d like to have multiple people reviewing things, it’s just not possible right now.

                So with that out of the way, let’s talk the newest entry in the blockbuster series – Call of Duty: Ghosts. Most people will know what this is, but for those few who don’t, Ghosts is a first-person military shooter based around an elite group named Ghosts, who are known for their great war skills, be it stealth or gunplay.  There’s also a tiny, insignificant sub-plot where the game takes place a few years after the US of A has fallen and the soldiers are fighting to get their country back.

                Call of Duty: Ghosts should please CoD fans, unless they’re the jaded kind that haven’t liked a game in the series since the first Modern Warfare but keep playing each new entry anyway -- there is no hope for them at this point. For the rest of them, I can’t see them being overly unhappy with the game as a whole. I got out of Call of Duty during Modern Warfare 3… just one day I stopped enjoying it as much as I had, and I wasn’t even a massive fan to begin with.        

                This is a major reason for the 6 out of 10. As a Call of Duty, I’d rate it very highly because the developers do what they do really well. If you want a more arcade-style twitch shooter, then CoD is fantastic. For people like me, who now feel that the game just feels like paper and doesn’t feed me like a heavier shooter like Killzone does, then it’s not that enjoyable. I do like it, just not that much, and I feel the game does some things better than previous entries, and some things worse.

                Firstly, I would say the campaign is a step down from what I feel is the best campaign in the series – Modern Warfare 2. I felt this way during MW3 as well. Many have criticized MW2 for its length, but I felt that it was fast-paced and exciting, partially because it didn’t really have time to wear out its welcome. Ghosts is a normal length campaign (8 – 12 hours like most games), but there’s a lot of “been there, done that” going on. There are action set pieces galore, but somehow it just manages to not be thrilling. When I wasn’t so familiar with the series, I could handle the format, but I have a harder time now.

                For example, the series has pretty much always told you what to do. “There’s a helicopter coming, get down,” and so you do. Rinse, repeat. It would be nice if it could get changed up a bit so we have more control over what goes on in the single-player. Let me call some shots outside of, “waiting on you, take the shot.” The game is linear and just gets you from Point A to Point B. Some don’t mind this, but after a game every year, it drains me. I don’t even find the big action movie-esque action as much as I used to. The one level where they open up the game a little bit for you is a welcome change, and I give them props for including that. However, in the end, I’m just a little tired of their brand. I feel that a lot of it just ends up falling flat.

                 The premise of the fallen Amerika is a good one. Setting you up like an underdog fighting for your country should make the game a little more personal and interesting, but it only achieves that mildly. Right from the beginning they stress the idea of family, but really, I couldn't bring myself to care that much because I know that Ghosts is focusing more on blowin' shit up. That's fine, but it just means another Call of Duty campaign with a story I don't care about.

                And you might as well forget about the dog. The dog was an unnecessary addition. There wasn’t really much potential to be extraordinary there, anyway, but you only use him in a couple missions. One of them is a boring stealth mission, however most of the time you just press a button and he attacks enemies. Okay, cool, I guess? It’s not bad, but it’s not good.

                Fair enough though, Ghosts, I know that multi-player is where you excel. Some people don’t even play the Call of Duty campaigns. So does the multi-player hold up? I would say yes, again, if you like what the series has always done, there’s a lot to like here.

                I give the series props for being like Halo and offering a bunch of interesting game types. As much as I love Killzone and their warzones, I’ve always hoped that Killzone would do a little more like Call of Duty in that regard (but only that regard), and offer more choices of games to play… even if I mostly play deathmatch, having the variety is nice. There is variety here. They’ve added some new games, and kept the classics. I can’t criticize them at all for this. There is still a lot of excitement to be had here.

                They also shifted the levelling system around a little bit, and this too is a positive, because using their new point system, there’s less of a gap between level 50s and level 1s, outside of skill. Never found Call of Duty to be as much of a skill-based shooter as some others, and this does a decent job of rectifying that a little bit. Good job on that too, but I still get murdered by everyone because I suck!

                They’ve also made environments a little more destructible. I’ve always said that making things more destructible is a next-gen idea that I can get behind, because it vastly improves the gameplay. Ghosts is no Battlefield, and even the combustible environments are a bit scripted and unimpressive. But they aren’t bad… they are an improvement, ultimately. Shooting a pipe and having smoke fill the area is a welcome inclusion, so I won’t hate on it or make fun of it.

                They also have online split-screen, which I loved about MW3 (and was the main reason I played it as much as I did), and since it returns, I have to say, thank you.

                If you are into the multi-player in the other games, you will like this. I enjoy it, but like my 6 indicates, I don’t love it. I probably never will again. I wasn’t even going to play Ghosts but life took me down this road anyway.

                The most interesting feature to appear in Ghosts is Extinction Mode. Instead of zombies, like in Black Ops, you have to drill hives and kill aliens. Even though it’s played mostly straight (god forbid they be funny), it’s nice to see Infinity Ward include a left-field choice like aliens in their military game.

                The best aspect is that it’s not just a copy of zombies, but it is similar. The aliens are more interesting rivals than zombies here because zombies are usually predictable and aliens jump up on things and attack in different ways. You can scavenge for things to help you out, and use the environment to aid you in your fight against them, and all-in-all, I’d say Extinction is better than Spec Ops in every way.

                Just as a final remark before my closing statement, Ghosts doesn’t push the system graphically, but I’ve never felt that CoD really wanted to anyway. It’s a good looking game, but it’s not awe-inspiring. I often forget to even talk about graphics because graphics matter so little to me in relation to everything else, but I know some people do so there you go.

                Call of Duty: Ghosts is a good game. Hell, it’s probably a great game, just not to me. At this point, Call of Duty can go fuck itself. Until it offers something new, or at the very least stops getting released every year, it will probably continue to get scores like this from me. But to the fans, I’m happy that you get another game.