Call of Duty: Ghosts
Year: 2013
Developer: Infinity Ward
Publisher: Activision
Platform: PC, PS3, PS4, WiiU, Xbox 360, Xbox One
BBFC: 16
Published: 17/08/23
Developer: Infinity Ward
Publisher: Activision
Platform: PC, PS3, PS4, WiiU, Xbox 360, Xbox One
BBFC: 16
Published: 17/08/23
Following the difficult development of Modern Warfare 3 that closed out the Modern Warfare trilogy, Infinity Ward had seen better days, and were now in the position of needing to push out an original Call of Duty game in two years, and to make things even worse it would be the first game in the series to launch on the eighth generation of consoles. This needed to make a big impact, and the once prestigious studio were floating up shit creek without a paddle. It’s no surprise then that Call of Duty: Ghosts is one of the most forgotten and underwhelming entries in the franchise history. It’s not bad, but it simply doesn’t do anything particularly interesting.
Following the nuclear destruction of the Middle East, South America becomes a superpower because of its oil abundance. Several Latin American nations band together to form ‘The Federation’, invading the surrounding South American countries and setting its sights on the United States. After hijacking the ODIN satellite system, the Federation attacks the major cities of the United States, killing millions and leaving total devastation in their wake.
Ten years later and the remaining U.S Armed Forces are locked in a stalemate against the Federation. Logan and Hesh Walker are inducted into an elite strike force known as the Ghosts to go deep into enemy territory to hunt down and kill a former Ghost turned Federation commander, Rorke, in the hopes of turning the tide of the war.
I had to look up basically that entire plot synopsis because Ghosts does an awful job of communicating what’s going on in the story. Following on from the high narrative bar set by the Modern Warfare trilogy, and even the Black Ops games, Ghosts seems hell bent on delivering a complex near future war story where America is seemingly the underdog, but it never delivers because it lacks focus.
The first few missions that set up the story are sufficient enough to get you on board with the personal vendetta Logan and Hesh have against Rorke, but it feels at odds with the rest of the story which is about toppling the Federation. This personal revenge story that seems to take precedent over the actual war, except when it doesn’t.
Most of this problem stems from Ghosts having been planned from the offset to have multiple instalments, so this game always feels like it’s building to something bigger, and it never comes. The cruel punchline is that Ghosts underperformed so severely that sequels were canned, and Infinity Ward pursued a different Call of Duty project post-launch, meaning that Ghosts is effectively chapter one to a story that will never get a resolution.
Following the nuclear destruction of the Middle East, South America becomes a superpower because of its oil abundance. Several Latin American nations band together to form ‘The Federation’, invading the surrounding South American countries and setting its sights on the United States. After hijacking the ODIN satellite system, the Federation attacks the major cities of the United States, killing millions and leaving total devastation in their wake.
Ten years later and the remaining U.S Armed Forces are locked in a stalemate against the Federation. Logan and Hesh Walker are inducted into an elite strike force known as the Ghosts to go deep into enemy territory to hunt down and kill a former Ghost turned Federation commander, Rorke, in the hopes of turning the tide of the war.
I had to look up basically that entire plot synopsis because Ghosts does an awful job of communicating what’s going on in the story. Following on from the high narrative bar set by the Modern Warfare trilogy, and even the Black Ops games, Ghosts seems hell bent on delivering a complex near future war story where America is seemingly the underdog, but it never delivers because it lacks focus.
The first few missions that set up the story are sufficient enough to get you on board with the personal vendetta Logan and Hesh have against Rorke, but it feels at odds with the rest of the story which is about toppling the Federation. This personal revenge story that seems to take precedent over the actual war, except when it doesn’t.
Most of this problem stems from Ghosts having been planned from the offset to have multiple instalments, so this game always feels like it’s building to something bigger, and it never comes. The cruel punchline is that Ghosts underperformed so severely that sequels were canned, and Infinity Ward pursued a different Call of Duty project post-launch, meaning that Ghosts is effectively chapter one to a story that will never get a resolution.
Logan is the player character, and he’s completely mute for the whole game which makes no sense (especially seeing as the game actively acknowledges his silence in a Half-Life 2 kind of way). Hesh meanwhile does enough talk for the two of them and you can barely get him to shut up for five minutes, always stating the obvious about any given situation just in case the player has a short attention span.
Their father Elias is a walking military cliche, voiced by none other than Stephen Lang. The Ghosts have almost no personality, and Rorke is maybe brainwashed? Which is the only way that makes sense to me as to why he’s so moustache twirlingly evil.
The dialogue is so awful, and I mean the Call of Duty games have never been brilliantly written but this is really bottom of the barrel stuff as every character is just an exposition fountain that tells you everything you need to know in the most efficient and emotionless way possible.
Whilst MW3 took the approach of ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ with the gameplay it lifted almost verbatim from MW2. Ghosts takes a similar approach but rather than allowing the mundane corridor shooting to be punctuated with moments of outrageous bombastic set pieces, it kind of just does the corridor shooting all the way until the final two missions and only then introduces the spectacle to make any kind of impact.
Most of Ghosts’ missions blur together as this congealed mess of samey looking corridors and fields. There’s no meaningful progression from the Modern Warfare sequels. Only the penultimate mission, set in space, and the final mission, set on top of a moving train, have any kind of impact. There is an underwater mission near the end of the game too, but very little happens during that mission, so a great premise is let down by a lack of action.
The space mission is fun, allowing you to be in an environment where you can be attacked from a full 360 play-space. Enemies will try to get above or below you to get a good angle, and whilst it’s a little clunky and brief, it does act as a launchpad for where Infinity Ward would take the series next as the very least.
The premise of the game, a small elite strike force renowned for their stealth tactics seems exciting, but that premise is never actually delivered upon as the game has frighteningly few stealth sections (and all of which are variations on things done better in the Modern Warfare games). It feels like such a waste too as Call of Duty had at this point ballooned into a Michael Bay style thriller, so something slower paced, more methodical, and less chaotic would have made for a welcome change of pace.
Their father Elias is a walking military cliche, voiced by none other than Stephen Lang. The Ghosts have almost no personality, and Rorke is maybe brainwashed? Which is the only way that makes sense to me as to why he’s so moustache twirlingly evil.
The dialogue is so awful, and I mean the Call of Duty games have never been brilliantly written but this is really bottom of the barrel stuff as every character is just an exposition fountain that tells you everything you need to know in the most efficient and emotionless way possible.
Whilst MW3 took the approach of ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ with the gameplay it lifted almost verbatim from MW2. Ghosts takes a similar approach but rather than allowing the mundane corridor shooting to be punctuated with moments of outrageous bombastic set pieces, it kind of just does the corridor shooting all the way until the final two missions and only then introduces the spectacle to make any kind of impact.
Most of Ghosts’ missions blur together as this congealed mess of samey looking corridors and fields. There’s no meaningful progression from the Modern Warfare sequels. Only the penultimate mission, set in space, and the final mission, set on top of a moving train, have any kind of impact. There is an underwater mission near the end of the game too, but very little happens during that mission, so a great premise is let down by a lack of action.
The space mission is fun, allowing you to be in an environment where you can be attacked from a full 360 play-space. Enemies will try to get above or below you to get a good angle, and whilst it’s a little clunky and brief, it does act as a launchpad for where Infinity Ward would take the series next as the very least.
The premise of the game, a small elite strike force renowned for their stealth tactics seems exciting, but that premise is never actually delivered upon as the game has frighteningly few stealth sections (and all of which are variations on things done better in the Modern Warfare games). It feels like such a waste too as Call of Duty had at this point ballooned into a Michael Bay style thriller, so something slower paced, more methodical, and less chaotic would have made for a welcome change of pace.
Ghosts also doesn’t represent a significant visual enhancement from MW3. It utilises an upgraded version of the same engine that allows for better performance from the eighth-generation hardware, but this does feel like it comes at the cost of environment detail a lot of the time. Most environments look sparse, are smaller in scale than what the Modern Warfare sequels offered and are generally less visually interesting. Character models are a bit more detailed and move more naturally, and once again the final two missions stand out visually because they’re so distinct, but otherwise Ghosts looks like a marginally more polished MW3.
Ghosts does deliver some fun multiplayer, but once again this is built upon the strong foundations laid by the Modern Warfare games with little attempt to change. One new feature is the ability to trigger map altering events on some larger maps, but these are few and far between, and it feels somewhat superficial compared to the destructive environment offered by DICE’s Battlefield series.
The ‘new’ Extraction co-op mode promised to one up the spec-Ops mode offered in MW3, but it’s just a Black Ops Zombies mode with aliens instead of zombies. There is slightly more depth thanks to the inclusion of objectives, but it’s just straight up not as interesting or replayable.
Mediocre is the word that springs to mind for Call of Duty: Ghosts, and it’s not hard to understand why in such a long running series it’s one of the most overlooked and forgotten entries. It’s rarely an awful game, but it doesn’t ever leave the shadow cast by the MW trilogy. I appreciate the attempt that trying to make a multi-game story off the bat, but the result is actually kind of boring and it only gets interesting far too late into the game.
For the Call of Duty that was supposed to kickstart the eighth generation, it actually leaves you wanting to go back to the previous generation games much more than spend time on that shiny new machine. Exactly the opposite effect of what it should have had.
From here Infinity Ward went back to the drawing board, desperate to revolutionise the franchise once again, but their next venture would prove to be the entry that ultimately killed the franchises mass popularity before it even released.
Ghosts does deliver some fun multiplayer, but once again this is built upon the strong foundations laid by the Modern Warfare games with little attempt to change. One new feature is the ability to trigger map altering events on some larger maps, but these are few and far between, and it feels somewhat superficial compared to the destructive environment offered by DICE’s Battlefield series.
The ‘new’ Extraction co-op mode promised to one up the spec-Ops mode offered in MW3, but it’s just a Black Ops Zombies mode with aliens instead of zombies. There is slightly more depth thanks to the inclusion of objectives, but it’s just straight up not as interesting or replayable.
Mediocre is the word that springs to mind for Call of Duty: Ghosts, and it’s not hard to understand why in such a long running series it’s one of the most overlooked and forgotten entries. It’s rarely an awful game, but it doesn’t ever leave the shadow cast by the MW trilogy. I appreciate the attempt that trying to make a multi-game story off the bat, but the result is actually kind of boring and it only gets interesting far too late into the game.
For the Call of Duty that was supposed to kickstart the eighth generation, it actually leaves you wanting to go back to the previous generation games much more than spend time on that shiny new machine. Exactly the opposite effect of what it should have had.
From here Infinity Ward went back to the drawing board, desperate to revolutionise the franchise once again, but their next venture would prove to be the entry that ultimately killed the franchises mass popularity before it even released.