Call of Duty: Ghosts

UPC: 047875846814

Platform: Xbox 360

Publisher: Activision, Inc.

Developer: Infinity Ward

Category: Shooter

Style(s): First-Person Shooter

Synopsis: Activision's phenomenally successful first-person shooter series returns with overhauled multiplayer modes and a story that finds the United States fighting as an underdog rather than a superpower in Call of Duty: Ghosts. Set ten years after a renegade group known as The Federation hacked a powerful space station and kinetically bombarded the globe, Ghosts find players taking control of a group of elite former special forces soldiers as they engage in guerilla warfare, stealth operations, and tactical assaults in an attempt to destroy The Federation and take back America.


With the country's infrastructure in shambles, soldiers are forced to fight small-scale battles against The Federation, which is now a super-powered collection of former South American countries propped up by Venezuelan oil money. The group includes brothers Logan and David "Hesh" Walker, Booth, Neptune, the Navy SEAL commander Merrick, and even Riley, a trained German Shepherd. Missions find them battling across the war-torn remnants of the United States, under water, and even in outer space, all in an attempt to hack into The Federation's own space station and kill its leaders Almagro and Rorke.


Call of Duty's massively popular online modes have been altered and updated in a number of new ways in Ghosts, including a greater number of character customization options, new perks and kill streaks, destructible map environments, new game modes, and the new squad system. Players can choose from more than 20,000 customization options when designing their character, including the ability to make a female soldier for the first time. There are more than 20 new kill streak rewards, including unlocking a cat-quick Juggernaut Maniac, or calling in Riley to attack nearby enemies, while the revamped perks system assigns a point value of between one and five for each weapon and perk, and lets gamers use 12 points in any way they please.


During the course of multiplayer battles the environments can change in a variety of ways, from small traps being triggered to entire buildings collapsing, and a host of new contextual movements lets players lean around corners, quickly vault over objects, and slide on their knees. In addition to earning XP as they level up, gamers also earn new squad points which can be used to unlock new weapons and add squad members. Squads can then be used in a variety of new co-op and competitive modes, and team members can be used by other squads to earn XP even when the system is turned off. Traditional multiplayer action gets a few new modes as well, including the fast-paced and explosive Cranked mode, the bomb-planting action of Search & Rescue, and Blitz, in which players merely need to reach a small zone in enemy territory to earn points. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Package Contents: Xbox Live Gold Trial Code

Controls: Joystick/Gamepad

The juggernaut that is Call of Duty keeps rolling with Ghosts, developer Infinity Ward's follow-up to Modern Warfare 3. Offering plenty of action but zero surprises, Ghosts provides fans of the franchise exactly what they expect, from the bombastic single-player campaign to the frenetic multiplayer modes. Though the scenery and setting may have changed, Ghosts still feels and plays like earlier games in the series.

It's hard not to be dismayed by the familiar structure, especially in light of more ambitious games like Ubisoft's Far Cry 3 or EA's Battlefield 3. Despite this being lead developer Infinity Ward's sixth game in the series, the developers don't seem at all interested in expanding or evolving. In fact, you could argue that the series has taken several steps back over the years: replacing smart, nuanced storylines with over-the-top theatrics and action sequences more befitting of Rambo or James Bond. With Ghosts, Hollywood screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (Syriana, Traffic) throws subtlety out the window with a narrative reminiscent of Red Dawn, with South America replacing the role of Russia in the American-invasion storyline.

The game's set pieces are often gorgeous, but they are ultimately just window dressing. While missions will take you under the sea, out in space, in a castle, and even performing stealth kills as a German Shepherd (!) they still are heavily scripted and disappointingly linear. You know exactly what you have to do, which is to follow a straight path, shoot down a group of enemies, and press onward until you cross an imaginary line that automatically stops the endless waves of targets.

On-the-fly thinking? Nope. Flanking and other strategic tactics? Sorry. Multiple or different objectives based on difficulty setting? Please. You'll simply shoot your allotted number of soldiers, wait for your squad mate(s) to lumber over to a door, brick wall, or similar obstacle and then continue down the next path. It's getting to the point where even the "wow" moments are just recycled bits from previous games, such as grabbing a rocket launcher from a nearby crate to shoot down helicopters. Even the dog sequences, where you'll slink around in the grass to sneak up on guards, bear a striking similarity to the sniper missions from the original Modern Warfare.

Yet the campaign isn't the only thing that needs a shot in the arm (or to the head). Multiplayer also feels incrementally improved, with the expected changes to perks (you can now summon a canine companion that persists through your death) and maps (which are a bit larger this time around and feature scripted events that compare unfavorably to Battlefield's dynamic, destructible environments). If you enjoyed the zombies mode from World at War and Black Ops, then you might appreciate Ghosts' cooperative "extinction" mode that replaces zombies with aliens. Of course, it's hardly original.

The other "big" change to multiplayer games is the inclusion of squads, which has its own separate mode that lets you practice multiplayer maps against a combination of friends and bots while earning experience. You can also personalize multiple soldiers and team-up with friends to take on other squads, but this option has limited appeal due to the poor AI of the computer-controlled soldiers. Maps are a bit larger than in previous games, but that's not necessarily a strength in Call of Duty, where players want to hunt and kill other players as quickly as possible, rinse and repeat. Almost a wink and a nod to this style of play is the "cranked" mode, inspired by the Jason Statham movie, where you have to keep up your kills to stay "cranked" (and receive heightened abilities) or else you'll die after 30 seconds.

So Ghosts is yet another serviceable cog in the Call of Duty machine, one that's already beginning to show rust and wear. With publisher Activision's continued insistence on a yearly release schedule (with each game alternating between developers Infinity Ward and Treyarch), it's inevitable that franchise fatigue will set in. How you view Ghosts will largely depend on how many of the previous Call of Duty games you've played, with its appeal taking a direct hit with each title already on your shelf. ~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

the game requires Joystick/Gamepad.