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Phone call Of Duty Ghosts is a quieter, more flexible beast than its predecessor, which takes more risks with the franchise's world-conquering template

By now, Telephone call Of Duty isn't but a gaming franchise, it's an event. Every successive entry in this series lands with the impact of a blockbuster film or a shiny new device from Apple. Fans line upwardly around blocks, millions of units are shifted and loads of people call in sick to piece of work the day subsequently the latest Call Of Duty comes out.

Call Of Duty: Ghosts is the sixth game released since Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare transformed COD into a tape-breaking and world-shaking gaming franchise. Infinity Ward has to be feeling the pressure.

Call Of Duty Ghosts: Plot

Information technology's to the developer'south credit then, that it takes some necessary risks with Activision's flagship shooter IP. Evidently the plot for Telephone call of Duty Ghosts began equally Modern Warfare 4, but flowered into what exists now.

The mod weapons, equipment and military tech are still present and correct, but the world of Ghosts is one where the condition of United States equally a superpower has been obliterated by an assail from a unified South American Federation. The U.s.a., far from being a armed services hegemony, is now on the back foot with invaders pouring through its southern and coastal borders.

The thespian takes on the role of a soldier named Logan who patrols what's left of the California edge subsequently San Diego was reduced to a mass of craters. After he and his brother Hesh pick their way through the rubble of southward California for a bit, they stumble across an aristocracy core of soldiers known as the Ghosts and it's not long before both Hesh and Logan join their ranks.

Call Of Duty Ghosts: Characters

The fact that the player (Logan) is accompanied on a multitude of mission by his brother Hesh – likewise as the pair's dog, Riley – is presumably meant to make them connect to the graphic symbol on familial level.

1 of the themes of Ghosts, nosotros've been told, is the importance of family unit, but bluntly, this is territory COD should never be aiming for. This is a series that banked its reputation on the twin punch of a deep multiplayer and a campaign where shock and awe is the order of the day.

While emotional connectedness has its identify information technology's hard here as the characters are slightly unbelievable – being equally they are presented every bit unique, elite soldiers, capable of blowing massive holes in the enemies resources and supply lines while numbering but a handful.

The dialogue that spills from their mouths is too so clangingly bad at times, that one surmises the work of Stephen Gaghan – nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay for the film Traffic and credited equally author hither – probably contributed, at most, a plot outline.

Call Of Duty Ghosts: Campaign

That having been said, Telephone call Of Duty Ghosts presents a compelling vision of a future in which the U.s.a. has been taken down a peg, and while some missions are equally one-note as those in previous COD games, there'southward more variation here overall.

Given the fact that the Ghosts are a stealthy infiltration unit, there's more opportunity for Infinity Ward to hit myriad beats in the same mission. A level where the Ghosts break into a skyscraper in South America stands out, as the way the action escalates from a stealthy hacking mission into a total blown dash through the building as it snaps in half is particularly sublime.

The best level is arguably the mission involving the Ghosts impersonating enemy soldiers as they infiltrate a weapons manufacturing plant deep in enemy territory. Here, the activity moves between knife-edge tension and visceral gun battles and then back once again with frightening ease.

The developers even find time to toss in a tower-defence section and chase on runway, with the player covering the Ghosts' escape with a turret gun.

Where Infinity Ward fail to impress with level pattern, they seek to silence critics with new and interesting battlegrounds. Underwater battles, gunfights in zero gravity in space, power-sliding tank battles and a race beyond the summit of speeding train are just some of the highlights – and they're all as fun as they sound.

The only times the campaign really sags is when its beats feel likewise familiar (such every bit when players terminate up staring at the AI allies backsides because Logan seems incapable of opening doors himself) or when the Ghosts are given any space to stand around talking to each other.

Call Of Duty Ghosts: Multiplayer

But equally any COD fan will tell you, the entrada is a mere hors d'oeuvre for players to savor before they go stuck into the game'south main course: the online multiplayer. For Ghosts, Infinity Ward has taken a more open up-concluded approach – mirroring Treyarch's efforts in Black Ops 2 in some means – allowing players more than customisation options.

Players can now select perks from the same categories and they're based on points systems, which tie in to how stiff they are. KillStreak rewards are counterbalanced, simply the biggest bounding main modify here is the fact that players can select and purchase whatever perk, reward, gun or piece of equipment and unlock it, provided they've earned enough in-game cash.

In other words, if it tin can be used on the battlefield, 1 can buy it. However, cosmetic upgrades need to exist unlocked through in-match achievements and levelling upwardly. In a fashion they're like visual bragging rights. Oh, and for the start time ever in a COD game, players can select female avatars for their online matches.

The list of match types contains some familiar faces – Free-For-All, Kill Confirmed, Team Deathmatch, Domination and so on – but are a robust list of newcomers.

Some of them experience like mods on well worn match types – Search & Destroy is a hybrid of Kill Confirmed and Demolition, for example – while others are brand new – Blitz, for example, involves scoring points by entering an enemy'south end zone while preventing them from doing likewise.

In that location are a couple here, though, that feel like claiming allurement for the hardest of the hardcore; Cranked, for example is a mode in which players have to score a kill every 30 seconds or they die.

Call Of Duty Ghosts: Squads & Extinction

Newbies take a gentler entry into the online fragfest this year through Squads Mode, which is substantially an expanded version of 'Gainsay Grooming' from the first Black Ops game. In it, players tin compete against each other in where most of their team is rounded out by bots.

These can be 1-on-one affairs – in which bots will score the lion'south share of the kills on a player – or bot vs humans and bots where mates tin play co-operatively with each other. There's fifty-fifty a pared downwardly version of Modern Warfare 3's Survival Mode (Horde) tossed in for skillful measure, except here it's chosen Safeguard.

Finally, Extinction rounds out the parcel. The setting is familiar to anyone who has ever actor COD: Black Ops two'due south zombie mode; 4 players are dumped into a map filled with hostile creatures, given a chore to accomplish and are awarded cash for each kill, with which they can then purchase weapons and equipment. This time, all the same, they're fighting an invasion of feral alien quadrupeds, rather than a zombie horde.

Even without the undead, there's fun to be had. In Extinction, the idea is to utilise a drill to dig through the roots of alien plants while conflicting pooches attack from all sides.

Players tin deploy ammo, guard turrets, explosives and at that place are even a couple of items in their environments – such as a firetrap – that they can unlock, provided they have the cash. It recreates the frenetic shooter action and resource management from Black Ops 2's zombie mode, merely it's closer in spirit to Valve'due south Left 4 Expressionless series. To wit, communication is essential; if y'all don't work as a squad, you won't terminal long.

Call Of Duty Ghosts: Verdict

Call Of Duty: Ghosts will probably sell by the truckload and it's probable to delight the COD fanbase. But those who have never been swayed past COD may feel their reservations carry more than weight with this year's iteration.

Infinity Wards deserve kudos for making a more than flexible beast than they take in contempo memories, but Ghosts doesn't push the envelope enough to be considered a true innovation for the serial – even if it does accept a dog in it.

Call of Duty Ghosts release appointment: 5 Nov 2013

Call of Duty Ghosts: £ 39.99 (On Xbox 360)