Call of Duty: Ghosts

I was never really a "Call of Duty head" as a large subsect of the gaming community is, so maybe I am not qualified to talk about this game as much, but I did play 5 or 6 different CoDs growing up and this game was the beginning of the end. The campaign showed me how FPS campaigns are no longer captivating, and the multiplayer showed me how toxic the COD community is. The survival mode in the game was the most enjoyable thing but still makes me wanna walk overall. I guess if you work so much you don't have the mental capacity to absorb much else from video games, this one is for you.

ok so this game is like, OBJECTIVELY bad. the story is bland and unimaginative and has all the subtlety of a micheal bay movie. this game is probably the last stand of COD in its jingoistic, mountain dew chugging days. and yet i keep coming back to it. christmas 2013, my dad bought me and my brother an xbox one and bought it for us in secret without telling my mum. and we had such a blast with it. we didn't even have xbox live so we couldn't play online, just against bots, but we didnt care, we adored it all the same. so because of that, i have so much nostalgia for this game, especially its campaign. sure, it's bad, but some of the missions have burnt themselves into my brain.

Multiplayer was honestly a blast. Campaign is arguably some of the best we've seen in the series (CoD has never really been known for having the best campaigns, mind you), but I feel like the only reason this game ever got hate is because it was very experimental as the game series was just continuing in this never-ending spree of best selling game after game.

Side content, like the extinction modes, however, are very clearly poorly scrapped together, and pretty clearly where the game falls flat on its' face.

The game begins two sons (Logan and Hesh) listening to their father's (Elias) story about a group of soldiers known as Ghosts. The two sons don't quite believe they exist. Their Dad's story is interrupted by tremors thought to be earthquakes, until they see the explosions. They run through collapsing buildings to their truck to escape. The timeline jumps back, this time you play as an astronaut on board a satellite which has been taken over, and missiles launched towards several cities in the USA. You manage to destroy the satellite just before you meet your fate. The story jumps forward a bit, where the family are now in the military. Your Dad is a commander, and you (Logan) and your brother (Hesh) are out on missions accompanied by their dog, Riley. Soon, you meet the Ghosts and join them at war against the Federation, led by a former Ghost member.

The impressive thing about the campaign is the mission variety. There's missions where you need to infiltrate with stealth, silently taking down enemies. Other missions will be more run and gun with plenty to shoot. There's a mission underwater where you have to stealth past sharks. Some of the early missions allow you to control the dog Riley and take down enemies. Despite the hype surrounding Riley, he is only utilised during a few early missions.

The bad thing about the game is that there's large portions where you don't need to do much. There's a few missions early on where you move forward and listen to dialogue, taking brief moments to take down a couple of enemies here and there. On the plus side, it is very cinematic and creates a great action atmosphere. The graphics are generally really good, but there are some textures here and there which are sub-par.