Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Review

"Power Changes Everything"

*Reviewed for the PS4

I had mixed feelings about the latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise when it was first announced. Lets face it, Ghosts was not a good game. There were hardly any new changes in multiplayer, the maps were too big for 12 man teams, the campaign's storyline was awful although gameplay was fun. But when it was announced that a new studio, Sledgehammer Games, was developing this game I can say that I was still excited, hoping for something fresh. And Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey is an iconic actor and to bring him into a video game franchise like Call of Duty is very ambitious and fun. So I picked up the game on Day Zero, Monday November 3rd, and immediately jumped into multiplayer mode since it was double XP for the launch.

Right off the bat you can tell that Advanced Warfare is different and fresh from its predecessors. We'll be breaking down this review into four categories: multiplayer customization and modes, campaign, overall gameplay, and graphics.

Advanced Warfare is set in the year 2054. You play as a United States Marine who later gets recruited by the Private Military Company, Atlas, led by the ruthless Jonathan Irons. The story dives into relevant themes in our society today such as the role of PMCs in warfare, drones, and biological weaponry. It's been a long time since I actually cared about a Call of Duty campaign. The Modern Warfare storyline has been the only one that ever meant anything to me. But I can honestly say that even though Advanced Warfare's story has its shortcomings, I actually cared about the characters and what was happening to them. The real star of the game is Kevin Spacey who provides the voice and motion capture for Irons. His character is almost identical to his House of Cards character, Frank Underwood, minus the southern accent. They both have that internal drive for power and nobody will stand in their way. The voice acting by both Spacey and Troy Baker is really awesome and the motion capture is gorgeous. The missions provide a lot of variety and the campaign clocks in at around six hours which is longer than the past couple in the franchise.

Irons alongside Mitchell and Gideon

Why do people continue playing Call of Duty after all these years? Because of it's award winning multiplayer. Unlike some multiplayer FPS games, Call of Duty is very fast paced. Advanced Warfare makes it even faster. With the introduction of the Exo suits, you are able to dodge, strafe, and double jump to yours hearts content. In previous iterations, if you walked into the middle of a giant firefight and needed to get away, you really couldn't. You would try to kill as many as you can and then accept your fate and die. In Advanced Warfare, you can run into a firefight, shoot off a few rounds, then boost jump and strafe to safety. Everything is so much more mobile. The basics of multiplayer haven't changed, the game is familiar but fresh at the same time. Advanced Warfare takes Black Ops II's Pick 10 system for your loadout and expands on it making it Pick 13. You can use wildcards that work in the same way as Perks do with options like "Overkill" which allows you to carry 2 primary weapons, or "Primary Gunfighter" which lets you equip 3 attachments for your primary. Customization is one of the main things driving this game, the game lets you play your way. With the Exo suit you can choose different abilities like Overclock which temporarily boosts your speed or Hover. Taking a piece from Ghosts, Advanced Warfare lets you customize your playable character with face models, different types of gear, and Exo suits. It's nothing but eye candy, but still a cool feature to flip through and look at what different people have chosen in your lobby.

A typical loadout screen

An issue that the multiplayer has is the lack of guns. There just aren't enough of them for me to feel like I am getting a good variety. Advanced Warfare tries to fix this using Supply Drops, these come as little care packages you receive as rewards during multiplayer and they have new gear for your character and sometimes a customized version of a gun with its own unique name and stats. But it still doesn't work for me. All your favorite game modes are back like Team Deathmatch, Domination, Capture the Flag, etc. Along with a few other ones like Uplink, which is essentially Quidditch with guns and it is a lot of fun. The goal is to score points by throwing a small satellite drone into your opposing team's goal while still killing the opposing team's players.

The graphics on the PS4 are absolutely stunning. No Call of Duty before has looked this good. The cutscenes in the campaign work very well with the story that Slegdehammer has set up. I have no complaints concerning the look of this game. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is one of the best in this blockbuster franchise. Gameplay is quick and fun, the story is meaningful albeit sometimes cheesy, multiplayer is great and the maps provide good variety in size, and it's easily the best looking Call of Duty game ever made.

9.0

+Solid campaign

+Beautiful graphics

+Fast and fun multiplayer

+Acting performances

-Gun variety

-Cheesy story moments