This year’s highly successful action series Call of Duty has a somewhat controversial aura surrounding it, as it was apparently intended to be a DLC expansion for Modern Warfare 2, according to an examination of the source files for last year’s installment. During a “last minute” development, Activision decided to release the game as a completely new game at full price. While the publisher says it’s supposed to be a “premium, content-heavy product,” some aspects of the game don’t really indicate that, such as the very short (even by COD series standards) story campaign and the lack of platinum. trophy
- Platform: PS5 (review), PS4, PC, X1, XSX/S
- Publication date: 10/11/2023
- Manufacturer: Sledgehammer Games (USA)
- Genre: FPS
- Czech localization: No
- Multiplayer: yes, up to 18 players
- Download data: 150+ GB
- Game time: 3+ hours
- Price: 2099 CZK (PS store)
Campaign borrowed from Warzone
If you pre-order the game digitally, you can get early access to the story campaign a week early as one of the rewards. You might be a little surprised by the circumstances of the installation (on PS5 you need 100 GB for the “COD series main menu”, which also requires you to download 50 GB of files for the campaign itself). However, once you start the campaign itself, you’ll get a relatively pleasant first impression: the first mission is a classic “movie” built corridor that, with impressive decor and atmosphere, leads you through carefully constructed scenes full of fast-paced events. The problem, however, is that the second mission abandons this traditional campaign model in favor of something completely different.
They call this new format “Open Combat Mission” and it is an “open environment” mission where you need to go around and complete multiple objectives such as “find three stations” or “kill the commander and take his key.” The problem is that these missions lack much of the “cinematic” drama that is the source of the vast flow of story missions in most COD series. Additionally, their environments are “borrowed” from the Warzone map, so individual locations aren’t even original or interesting (and even littered with Warzone armored vehicles or rifle crates). But the worst thing about them is that if you are spotted by any of the deployed enemies, the alarm will go off and the enemies will start spawning endlessly, which noticeably breaks the design and structure of the mission. These missions make up roughly half of the three-hour campaign, and unfortunately they lack not only style, but mainly the quality and setting of what we’re used to in COD campaigns.
They call this new format “Open Combat Mission”.
However, the individual missions are traditionally connected by cinematic sequences that tell the finale of the trilogy with the beloved characters, so at least the story might be worth it, you say… Unfortunately, the campaign didn’t work on this front either, partly due to the rush of the story , but mainly because it ends open-ended – it’s unclear whether the story will only continue through seasonal content or throughout the next game. And yet it cannot be said that the entire campaign went completely badly. Some of the traditional missions are actually good, the design is good in places too (see screenshots), the gunplay and general gameplay are already quite interesting for this series, and it also runs great as usual (you can also enable 120Hz mode on PS5). Overall, though, it’s very hard not to feel like this is a half-baked piece, compromised by a rushed full-price release.
Partial rating (campaign): 4/10
Multiplayer and Zombies scores will be added once they are released along with the overall verdict.
Source :Indian TV
