CoD: Ghosts, The Epic Flop

Let's face it, Treyarch has far surpassed Infinity Ward despite having started out working under them. Stories and game modes are more original, and engines have less issues. Probably the only thing they haven't done better is their matchmaking engine in Multiplayer.

Let's face it, Call of Duty used to be in the top echelons of shooters, but the quality has finally taken a nose-dive into a tanker. The only reason it remains near the top today is merely due to lack of competition. Ghosts has stepped onto a stage that was raised far too high for it to climb. However, as a whole, Ghosts has still at least given us more than we were expecting, though it still doesn't make up for anything. Much like all the Modern Warfare games that came before it, Ghosts brings many new and innovating ideas and mechanics to the game as a whole, but severely lacks in following through with deliverance.

As much as some of us were stoked about this game's release, it is most definitely considered their greatest flop, and the biggest disappointment of 2013-2014 gaming. One might say that Infinity Ward has expected this, which would explain why they had agreed to sell some of the rights to Sledgehammer, breaking from their long tradition of only alternating releases with their former sub-department, Treyarch. From any business standpoint, it would be the only way for the title of Call of Duty to remain afloat in this industry. They're running out of ideas, plain and simple, and very apparent with Ghosts.

For those who are hardcore fans from the beginning of the first Call of Duty, or even just the ones who started with Modern Warfare, everyone's familiar with basic story structure of the Single Player Campaign. We all loved following our heroes in their missions to save the world against the terrorists and the mysterious Makarov. This change to the story of Ghosts is merely to a different setting, and time. However, the story is basically exactly the same as Modern Warfare. Same back stories, story progression and vendettas. They even followed through with the typical suspense ending that "leaves you hanging", knowing that there's going to be another game coming out in a couple years to conclude the story. Despite the wonderful execution of how it was written and enacted at the end of Campaign, you're already bored of the story, being a complete mirror of what we saw in the MW series.

It's hard time that Infinity Ward fess up that they have long since run out of ideas. Even with creating game modes, they only just now tried to run something out of the "ordinary" with the Alien Extinction game mode. However, it didn't even have a story to it until the release of the first map pack, which still isn't all that original, either. We can see that how they wrote it is a pure rip-off of both Resident Evil and Dead Space.

And wait till you see the maps in Multiplayer. There are already 2 remade maps by the first map pack. The developers are getting lazier every release.

Like with Modern Warfare 3, Ghosts features 3 different types of Killstreaks: Assault, Support and Specialist. However, they've changed what kinds are being featured, and it has become an extreme disappointment. The Killstreaks are easily destroyed and are very overused. Others are just pointless and completely useless. Anyone who has played Black Ops, MW2, MW3 and Black Ops 2 knows what good Killstreaks are like, and these are just plain dull and boring.

As anyone can tell you, Ghosts is the first Call of Duty that's not about skill. This game's maps are all designed for camping, and that's all anyone ever does anymore. What used to be 4-5 minute Team Deathmatch matches now turn into 15-minute waiting games. If you have any level of skill, just avoid this game.

As many of you know, our "innovators" at Infinity Ward have come up with new loadout and unlock concepts that are pretty great. To get more gear, killstreaks or unlock anything, you need to actually EARN Squad Points to pay for them, which meant leveling up, fulfilling challenges, completing field orders, etc. However, the problem is that perks are easily unlocked through fast leveling up, which is not hard, and the guns and attachments cost next to nothing. All in all, it's really not quite worth the effort for many players.

Infinity Ward has also promised a new engine and reduced people's ability to cheat. Completely wrong before the game's release. 1 month prior to release, and even to the present, this game was hacked like crazy. Aimbots, all-perk hacks, wall hacks, and a multitude more. This game has more hacks for it than any other Call of Duty in history, and that's only in the first 5 months of release. Despite being a "new" engine, it was easily broken because it's not actually new. It's the original engine, but just modified, using the exact same base programming.

In order to "balance" classes, Infinity Ward came up with a concept to lower the abilities of the perks you can equip, creating a 35-perk list. This, despite being an attempt to balance the game, ended up raising the number of people who choose to hack the game, as well as people who just plain camp. In the history of CoD multiplayer, less than 1/2 the players found online camp, making the game fairly exciting and keeps the challenge going. However, with Ghosts, more than 90% of players you meet will be just hiding the whole game, eliminating any real challenge or excitement in the game. This game actually has the highest number of matches that only end because time runs out, not because the objective(s) were completed.

As stated before, Infinity Ward has finally come up with the Alien Extinction game mode as something that is beyond the "ordinary". However, something in this category has been a popular concept for years already, and despite IW jumping on the bandwagon, they still only did it half-assed. The first map, Point of Contact, was the first attempt at it, but it was far less than impressive. Any decent players can easily beat it within an hour to an hour and a half. Despite the implementation of their unique loadout system and the usage of Relics to make the game "harder", the gameplay is still pretty dull due to the easily predictable AI. You literally have to have a severe case of ADHD, lack of common sense and an inability to learn anything simple to not be able to figure it out within a game or two.

Recently, they released their first map pack, introducing the new map, Nightfall, which actually tells a story, and a new "Hardcore" mode. Nightfall increases its difficulty with lowered money earned, 3 new species of Aliens, introduction of new weapons (including a "Wonder Weapon") and collectable intel. However, the map's programming overcompensates for the ease of Point of Contact. Despite this, it's still fairly predictable and the challenges aren't really that much harder. On the topic of the "Hardcore" mode, it really doesn't add much of a challenge to the game. They "increased" the AI difficulty a little bit and added Ricochet, where you take damage when attacking your own teammates. Though this was a clever thing for Multiplayer, it's completely pointless in Alien Extinction as the number of times you see a situation where the Ricochet function would be used is almost non-existent.

Much like a lot of things in this game, great concept, fell horribly short.

For those who lack an internet connection or are just too terrible that no one wants to play with them, Infinity Ward gave us the Squads game mode. This mode gives us an alternate "Survival" mode, and AI-run simulations of actual online gameplay, with the ability to choose the difficulty level. Also, as you prestige, you can modify each of your squad members and customize your "teammates" better for playing objective games. To make it fair for better players in Multiplayer, each mode in Squads limits you to only earn 1 to 2 Squad Points, though quite a few players online have problems earning that much, already.

In the long and short of it, Squads was really made for all the bad players in lieu of the old "Combat Training" mode Call of Duty has been known for, and a merely just an over-elaborated version of it. If you're even an average-skilled player, this is a complete waste of time. This mode is purely for beginners only.

If you still haven't gotten this game yet, don't bother. A good majority of players have already repopulated a lot of Black Ops 2 and Modern Warfare 3 servers. In rare cases, some players have also converted to become Battlefield junkies. If you're looking for an exciting game, this is not for you. If you already bought it, my condolences.