Montenegro Review: Call of Duty Ghosts

Activision is back at it again with a release of another Call of Duty game.  This time its a whole new series focused on a Special Operation's force called Ghosts. For majority of the game, you play as Logan Walker and he was with his brother David "Hesh" Walker and his father Elias Walker when the Federation (antagonists, oil-producing nations of South America) take over the controlling space station of the Orbital defense Initiative (ODIN).  Its a super weapon that utilizes kinetic bombardment and is used to destroy several cities is the southwestern part of the United States.  While American astronauts sacrificed themselves to destroy the space station to avoid future destruction in the US, Logan along side is brother and father barely escape death in San Diego.

The game timeline progresses 10 years as Logan and Hesh are part of a US unit commanded by their father and noticed that an American is working with the Federation by the name Gabriel Rorke.  He was a former Ghost that was presumed dead after a mission that was completed with Elias where Rorke was abandoned.  Rorke was taken hostage by the Federation and was tortured into going against the Ghosts.  Logan and Hesh have a mission in Dead Man's Land (the land that was destroyed) and proved themselves worthy of being part of the Ghosts.  Their main objective is to kill Gabriel Rorke and they progress through many missions throughout the game to get to that point but do they complete the mission?

One of the disappointing things about story mode is how they hyped up the dog Riley but he was only in the very beginning after the prologue and then left when he was injured.  To me it seemed like Riley was going to be more of a factor in the story mode.  Don't get me wrong, the time that I did get to play with Riley was fun, attacking enemies, pulling pilots out of helicopters, how he responded to commands.  He was definitely the coolest character, just the hype was way overboard for him compared to the amount of time that he is in the game. 

One mode that is brand new to CoD is the Squads Mode.  You can customize up to 10 squad members from their styles of combat (Assault, CQC, Stealthy, Heavy Gunner, etc).  You can take control of any squad members that you have unlocked.  Under squad mode there are four game modes: Squad Assault which is you and 5 members of your squad vs an AI squad that another player has made.  Squad vs. Squad which is you and your squad vs another human player and their squad.  Safeguard is you and four other players going against AI (survival mode).  Last is Wargame which is you and 5 other players fight a team of AI players similar to what you would face in multiplayer.  Squads mode is a good way for people who need to brush up on their skills.  Also these squad members you created, you can use in multiplayer (one at a time).

Multiplayer has the modes that Call of Duty fans love; Team Deathmatch, Domination, Free For All among others but there are new ones that are fun.  One is cranked, once you get a kill you have a timer that starts at 30 sec and counts down so you have to gather up kills, and as you get more and more kills you gain perks like faster movement, faster reloads etc.  Once the timer hits zero, you explode if you aren't killed beforehand.  This mode makes the matches fast paced and extremely intense.  Another one is called Blitz, its similar to capture the flag but you have to take control of the enemy's zone for a certain period of time in order to gain points.  Once you score points on an enemy, you will teleport back to your zone and have to run the full length of the map to the enemy's zone again.

Another new mode is called Extinction, four players gather up to fight aliens in a post apocalyptic world.  Most people might say that this is similar to Treyarch's Black Ops Zombie Mode.  You have to complete objectives, destroy hives, kill aliens and going through search parties.  You gain money by doing so which can be used to purchase additional guns that are laid out throughout the map.  This mode is not infinite, after destroying a specific amount of hives and releasing a nuke you must return to your starting point for extraction within the time limit.

After putting a decent amount of hours into Call of Duty, I do for the most part enjoy the game.  The story line to me seemed too short, left me wanting more.  But I do like the fact that it is a brand new storyline and will continue as a series.  Most Call of Duty fans either have the game or will purchase is in the future but for the gamers looking for something new, Ghosts is a game that anyone can pick up even if you never played a CoD game before because of the new storyline and the new mode of Squads for people who are not familiar with multplayer.  So for those who have the game, what do you think about it?  Write your review below.  As for those playing on PSN, hope to see you in multiplayer.

Ms. Montenegro