Call of Duty: Ghosts. What more needs to be said about a franchise with such prestige (no pun intended) as this? By now, even non-gamers have heard of Call of Duty and with the upcoming release of a new title, the hype is becoming rather uncanny. But what else can Infinity Ward bring to the table that hasn’t previously been seen by the masses? To me, both Infinity Ward and Treyarch have had some fantastic ideas, revelling players into new styles of gameplay, yet never brought all of these ideas together. Sure there are many distinct similarities between each title, yet each game does provide its own certain joie de vivre. So what can we expect from the latest installment?
It would almost certainly be much of the same yet, considering that the franchise is primarily geared towards the online community, and the offline experience seems rather diminished. Still, that shouldn’t be placed to one side and forgotten about like yesterday’s homework. To this end, I will not only be covering the online multiplayer aspects but the campaign mode too. So without further ado, here are a few thoughts on what we want from Call of Duty: Ghosts.
Relatable Characters
Personally, I’ve never found any of the main characters very relatable. The biggest connection I ever had with one was Captain Price from Modern Warfare 2 and 3, and even then it was only because his voice actor was the guy from the Injury Lawyers 4 U commercials. Never once did I care about the welfare of the characters. I just wanted to get through the campaign, find all the secrets and generally boost my gamerscore.
The campaigns themselves have never been one to boast about either. I’ve never been sitting there in awe at my TV over the intensity of the storytelling, yet I guess IW and Treyarch need to add an offline experience. I often imagine at the Call of Duty HQ that everyone has to put their names into a hat and then pull out the random few who have to work on the campaign. Everyone else gets to sit up in the cool offices, throwing balloons at each other and eating cake whilst having the fun job of creating the relevant parts to the game. I’d like to think that actually happens, but I reckon that’s just me.
Better Storyline
Tying into the whole depreciative characters, the lack of storyline doesn’t really do the character progression justice. But really, what would you expect from a first person shooter? To break it down into simple terms, the campaign of any CoD will go something like this:
“That man is a terrorist!” says one soldier.
“We should do something about it” says another.
“Yeah let’s shoot a lot of things!” says a third.
And they all have a big gun fight.
The very limiting amount of things possible in any shooting game story is obvious. See objective, shoot your way there, and repeat. Now to me, as limiting as that may be, a good story to back this up could go an incredibly long way. Take any RPG for instance. You can see many repetitive features that dictate the gameplay, yet backed with high quality storytelling, it seems somehow enlightening that you get to input on this. For Infinity Ward, I hope you take heed on this and include an immersive campaign experience. You better not have spent all your technology points on those fish we saw in your demo and the Xbox reveal.
Enhanced Multiplayer Experience
One of my favourite things from Black Ops II was the zombie mode. They included a story, a better one than the campaign. With the capability of playing that alongside your friends, as with previous installments, the enjoyment factor skyrocketed. I tend to get bored with playing online matches, especially if I’m having a bad gaming day. Jumping into a zombies match, not only with your friends, but any old folk online is a joyful experience and that’s what I want from the multiplayer experience as a whole. I want to find it fun to sit around and play through lobby after lobby, not get incredibly bored, or annoyed and rage quit because the connection is laggy or my guns don’t work properly *ahem*
The current create-a-class system that is implemented into Black Ops II is by far the most intuitive of all the Call of Duty games. The increased customization caters the style of each player. I want this in Ghosts, but improved. As with anything that’s implemented the first time around, there’s bound to be a few tweaks that need to be made, whilst retaining the core components that made it so successful. Make sure this is around and your fans will surely not be disappointed.
Super Servers
Campers in Call of Duty annoy me to no extent. How can you have any fun just sitting there for 10 minutes or so without moving? But this grievance has nothing on a bad host for the game. Do you know how difficult it is to shoot a target that has the power of teleportation? That’s what it’s like to shoot someone with a bad connection. We need designated servers, or at least some way to dictate what a good connection is and what isn’t. There’s nothing worse than playing the game of your life, you’re 25 kills to 1 death; it’s definitely YouTube material. Then that little icon pops up and tells you your connection is interrupted. You have been disconnected from the host and all that hard work is for nothing. Damn it, Call of Duty, why do you have to be so cruel? Take this torture away please, I beg of you.
Oh and one more point. Can we have a FPS that doesn’t revolve around saving America? Please? As much as I enjoy saving one nation from a super terrorist hell-bent on global conquest, can one attack somewhere else? Is that a possibility? What about Japan? Maybe some place in Europe? I hear the Mediterranean is good this time of year…
Do you have any thoughts on what you would like to see in Call of Duty: Ghosts? Let us know what you want to see below.
