| Game Information |
| Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare |
| Platform: PlayStation 4 |
| Developer: Sledgehammer Games |
| Publisher: Activision |
| MSRP: $59.99 |
| Released: November 4th, 2014 |
Every year we watch Activision release an annual edition of Call of Duty from one of its stable of developers and every year the game is polarizing among gamers. You either pick it up day one as a die hard, as a filthy casual who plays every so often, or you just avoid it completely. Admittedly, I’m a filthy casual when it comes to this franchise. In fact, I didn’t play one second of Call of Duty: Ghosts. However this year, I bought Call of Duty midway through release week. For some reason, I felt like this edition would be different and that Sledgehammer Games would help bring a fresh perspective to the series.
If you’ve been following the Advanced Warfare marketing parade, you’d know that Kevin Spacey headlines this year’s title and he’s the leader behind a private military organization named Atlas. Atlas is the type of privatized military that solves problems that certain governments are unable to. However, when the United States is devastated by a massive terrorist attack, it’s Atlas that steps in and becomes its own world power. You’ll spend the campaign going through this journey and honestly, it’s one of the best campaigns to date.
In recent weeks, Activision did mention that this campaign would be quite longer than most others before it, but after completing it in roughly 7-8 hours, I’d put it in line with its predecessors. The campaign is full of ‘wow’ moments, explosions, awesome military tech, and just a ton of ways to make you feel like the ultimate Atlas badass. The biggest change in gameplay this year comes via the Exo skeleton that you, Mitchell, wear throughout the story. This Exo suit has a ton of capabilities that helps bring a new level of excitement to the Call of Duty franchise.
The Exo skeleton will enable you to cloak yourself, utilize a shield, go into overdrive (slow time), double jump, use a grappling hook, and a couple of other unique abilities. As you can imagine, you’ll need to utilize these abilities throughout the campaign if you want to be able to fully upgrade your suit and if you want to survive. The other big gameplay change is how the grenade mechanics have changed. In the past, you pretty much had a tactical and lethal option. Now, you still have those two options, but each can be cycled through three choices when throwing those grenades. Tactically you can throw an EMP, threat detecting, or flash grenade. When it comes to lethal, you have the choice of smart (heat sinking), contact, and frag grenades to kill your enemies.
When it comes down to it, the campaign portion of Advanced Warfare is everything you’d hoped it would be. It’s adrenaline pumping, has excellent set pieces, and is an engaging ride from start to finish. Some may complain that the game isn’t long enough, but most gamers pick Call of Duty up for its robust multiplayer, not the campaign. When you look at it from that perspective, Advanced Warfare offers a respectable campaign that should make you satisfied with your purchase.
This is Call of Duty, so you know the meat and potatoes of the product is its multiplayer component. As an old school Delta Force Landwarrior player, I’ve always had a love for Capture the Flag and outside of Halo, Call of Duty is the next best thing when it comes to CTF competitive play. That means this entire multiplayer review is written with the majority of my time playing CTF rather than the other basic modes of online play that everyone is already accustomed to. It’s also worth mentioning that there is a Zombies mode, but it’s only for Season Pass holders right now.
The only portion of Call of Duty does a lot right. The new armory interface is beautiful and it’s extremely easy to navigate. It’s also very easy to see what you need to unlock new attachments, weapons, and perks. Having those openly displayed makes it much more easy and makes me want to play more as I inch closer and closer to goals I’ve set for myself in online matches. The character customization for your online character is also well done. There is a good amount of customization options available and like your weaponry, you can also unlock even more options the more you play. You can also unlock things through supply drops that you earned through the campaign mode too.
One of the coolers aspects of online play is the addition of eSports rules and modes of play that allow you to advance your Clan and player ranking. I’m not entirely sure if this was available in Ghosts or not, but it’s definitely a great addition for Advanced Warfare. Unfortunately for all console players (from what I’ve heard about Xbox One experiences), this is where the impressive portion of the online play ends for AW.
As stated above, I’m a heavy Capture the Flag player and one thing that can absolutely ruin the online experience in any game mode is lag and server unreliability. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has both of those in spades. I experienced a situation where a player grabbed our flag and scored it without even being seen. He lagged across the map moving in bursts that you couldn’t shoot or keep up with. I hit him dead on and then the next moment he wasn’t even on my screen anymore. Situations like this absolutely destroy online play. This is 2014 and the fact that dedicated servers are not being used for the most played online shooter in the world is an embarrassment.
I experienced this low ping lag across all modes of play and while I had the four perfect bars, I regularly came across a ton of players with one red bar. This, of course, ruins the game for everyone else. It’s shocking to experience this on Call of Duty when it’s the type of title you’d expect to have something like this under control. I know for a fact I’m not alone in this type of experience and to me, that makes it much worse than it should be.
It’s disappointing because Advanced Warfare has the best gun control mechanics, design, and sound effects that I’ve ever experience in a video game. Sledgehammer Games did a fantastic job designing this game and it truly shows when it comes to the sound quality of the title. Playing Advanced Warfare with a solid headset is must for any true fan of the franchise and even for the filthy casuals like myself.
Going hand-in-hand with audio excellence is the visuals Sledgehammer has thrown together for fans. Advanced Warfare looks brilliant. The only negative I can even remotely think of when it comes to this game is how everyone’s eyes look like they’re just dead inside. This is a common problem though and it’s hard to slight Sledgehammer for that type of end result. Though, whoever finally cracks the ability to finally add some life to eyes will definitely be on the cusp of something magical.
When the shell casings are on the floor and it comes down to it, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is a game of two faces. You have an excellent, adrenaline pumping campaign that seems to never have a dull moment and you have the multiplayer experience that is plagued with lag and ultimately leaves a lot to be desired. In its current state, if you play Call of Duty for its campaign, then this is a must-own or rent title to play your way through it. If you’re not a campaign fan and just love the competitiveness of the online component, then you’re probably best waiting until they sort out the online play to eliminate the extremely laggy situation. It’s unlikely they fix this and you may just have to bite the bullet, but I’m holding out hope that they get their act together.