The Verdict...Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

I was in the shower today when I realized my ambivalence towards Call of Duty can be neatly categorized into either optimism or realism. These two sides often duke it out, and much like Call of Duty's own multiplayer matches, the victories only last for a split second. Here is how the internal discussion often takes place...

Optimistic Tony: "A brand new studio, a longer development cycle, and new gameplay mechanics that make sense! Advanced Warfare is going to be the breath of fresh air the series so desperately needs. Its in the future, it includes new movement abilities, and even has a loot drop system. Sounds good to me."

Realistic Tony: "Yeah, but its still Activision publishing the damn thing, which means issues from previous iterations will still exist, and the total amount of paid content will be enough to make Bobby Kotick's money-stuffed mattress even more full than it already is. Its a cash cow for the publisher at this point, pure and simple."

Optimistic Tony: "Well hopefully they'll adjust some of their methods before they run the franchise into the ground, close all three development studios, and cause a lot of people to become jobless."

Realistic Tony: "Are we really up to three development studios for a single franchise? Is that what gaming is becoming? And if you think Activision cares about what happens to the franchise, or its associated developers, you're sorely mistaken. The only thing they understand is a revenue stream."

Optimistic Tony: "Don't think that way! They might do the right thing!"

Realistic Tony: "Good luck with that buddy..."

Advanced Warfare really is a fun game. It contains a large amount of content straight out of the box, it introduces some spectacular new gameplay mechanics, and the PC version (the version I purchased) is not a lazy port. However, lingering under all of this, are the same freaking issues Call of Duty has had for several years. The potential Advanced Warfare has to truly be great, makes the presence of those issues all the more enraging.

The campaign is primarily about Atlas, a private military corporation that rivals many countries in military might. As Mitchell (voiced by Troy Baker), I join Atlas after losing my arm during my brief time in the Marine Corps. Jonathan Irons (voiced by Kevin Spacey), the CEO of Atlas takes Mitchell under his wing, outfitting him with a high-tech prosthetic arm and putting him to work for the PMC. That's about all I know so far. I'll be honest, I haven't beaten the campaign yet, as multiplayer has been my primary focus. Its safe to say that it's standard Call of Duty. Corridors filled with bad guys, and scripted use of awesome gadgets that would really shine in more open environments. There is an upgrade system that allows you to improve your Exo-Suit Battery or Reload Speed between missions, but its nothing that will knock off any socks. The cut-scenes in between missions also stutter to the point where they are unwatchable, but I haven't fiddled with the settings enough to see if this can be fixed.

Exo-Suit Survival is a pretty cool diversion from the other game modes. Wave based survival with limited time in between rounds to upgrade weapons and your Exo. There are objectives to complete, such as finding and disarming bombs, or collecting intel from fallen enemies, so it isn't just killing all the enemies to move onto the next round. There is also a brief zombie level if you complete certain challenges within this mode, hinting at what is to come with DLC packs. Now, a lot of people have gotten really worked up about the fact that zombies was not included with the base game, but I feel that Exo-Suit Survival provides a comparable amount of content, even if zombies is the more beloved mode. It makes sense that Sledgehammer would want to introduce their new gameplay elements into as much of the base game content as possible.

As usual, multiplayer is the focus of most players.

Now, onto the big one. Multiplayer. The movement system involving the Exo-Suits, along with their abilities, does make things fresh as long as everyone isn't hopping around like a bunch of jackasses. I've found that maintaining forward movement in conjunction with my vertical boosts and horizontal dodges has been pretty effective. Still, the overall increased game speed due to the new movement system can make things hectic. Its sometimes hard to see where the enemy is located. I simply die and have to watch the kill-cam to understand what happened. I've noticed that this increased speed has also made it more difficult to utilize certain gameplay styles. There are light machine-guns, but it takes so long to aim down the sights with them, that I am dead before I can get a shot off. SMG's and assault rifles are king right now. EM weapons, the new category of energy-based guns, are pretty fun to play with. They don't use ammo, but they can overheat.

The pick thirteen system, an extension of Black Ops 2's pick ten, was a great idea. It allows you to tailor your loadouts to your liking without becoming awesome at everything simultaneously. Scorestreaks have also made a return from Black Ops 2, and are now customizable. The customization options for the scorestreaks are both numerous and interesting, but all of them make their associated streak more expensive. Still, for a better than average (barely) player like myself, its good to add the support upgrade to several of my streaks so that my earned points carry over even when I die. You can also click on locked slots with the spade emblem to automatically equip the proper wildcard and open that slot up. 

The pick thirteen was a solid move.

 The single greatest addition to Advanced Warfare, in my opinion, is the supply drop system. Every hour of game time (give or take) rewards me with a supply drop. When I open it, it gives me weapons, cosmetic equipment (hats, gloves, knee guards, etc.), experience boosters, and boosters that lead to more frequent supply drops for a time. The variants for each base weapon are cool, and allow you to fine-tune your loadouts even more. They contain slightly different stats and sometimes have attachments permanently affixed to them. Any attachments and camouflages that are unlocked for a weapon are available for every variant as well.  

Loadouts are just one category of customization. You can also choose your gender, your face, and many other options.

Most equipment earned from loot drops can be sold for XP.

 

All of this would work together to create a phenomenal multiplayer package, if lingering issues with Call of Duty as a whole weren't glaringly present. Quick-scoping with sniper rifles is still a big issue. There have been several instances when I've watched the kill-cam and should not have died unless the sniper rifle projectiles are three feet wide. The spawns are often atrocious. It becomes one giant game of leapfrog as I kill someone and then am killed by a recently spawned enemy ten feet behind me, who is killed by someone that spawned ten feet from him, and so on. I have literally died, and come back facing my killer, who lit me up again since he had the advantage and I was attempting to take a few milliseconds to get my bearings. I'm fairly certain in a few of these instances, I respawned and saw my body still collapsing to the ground, just a few feet away. That does not create tense and hectic firefights. It builds a clusterfuck with advantages often being the luck of the draw.

But the worst thing, is that Activision is still trying to shove their proprietary matchmaking down our throats because apparently they're too cheap or stubborn to spring for real dedicated servers. This has resulted in massive amounts of unfair deaths, ping spikes, disconnects, and generally a bad time for a lot of people. I've had it pretty easy so far, but it isn't uncommon for me to open up the scoreboard mid-match and to see red bars on my ping indicator. There have been several instances where I seem to only take a few bullets before I die, when in fact the enemy player had started shooting much sooner, as indicated by the kill-cam. Michael Condrey stated about a month before release that we would receive dedicated servers, and that we should expect an announcement "soon." We have been given no information since then. In the past day or so, when asked again about their status, he merely shared this statement from Activision...

" Advanced Warfare employs game servers hosted at data centers globally on all platforms and listen servers as part of our proprietary matchmaking system. Our goal is to ensure the best possible connection and greatest gameplay experience regardless of location and time of day."

This has indicated to many people (myself included) that perhaps we may have been misled. I'm getting the vibe that Activision simply won't allow dedicated servers, even if Sledgehammer tells them that its for the good of the game and its what the players want. If that is the case, then that's a bunch of crap and several people somewhere need to pull their heads out of their collective asses. The conspiracy theorist in me also wouldn't put it past Activision to deny superior post-launch support in the form of dedicated servers, because they only care about the initial influx of sales and it herds everyone towards next year's release.

 

Until they straighten out the inherent issues present in the Call of Duty franchise, it will continue to piss a lot of people off. People that put their faith, and their money, into each yearly release hoping that it will be better than the last. Unless Sledgehammer and Activision turn some of these issues around, Advanced Warfare will frustratingly solidify the fact that Call of Duty is the Justin Bieber of video games. It sells to the uninformed consumer and the young, but the number of frustrated people that don't want it to be around anymore, is growing exponentially. The only way we'll ever make any headway, is to speak with our wallets. Unfortunately though, we spoke with our wallets when it came to Guitar Hero, and Activision is still a giant in the industry while Guitar Hero's developer, Neversoft, is no longer in existence. 

Something needs to change, and unfortunately, Advanced Warfare is the poster child for that fact. I truly think Sledgehammer wants to give us the best game they can, but it seems like their money-hungry overlords are standing in the way of that. This is the last year I'm buying a Call of Duty title on release. I've skipped entries in the series entirely, but I've always given others my money on day one, because I wanted to believe the fundamental issues would be cleaned up at some point in addition to new mechanics.

Verdict: Some amazing improvements to the tired Call of Duty formula are painfully marred by Activisions' inability to treat their customers as more than walking bank accounts. Until we receive dedicated servers and fixed spawn points, let this ship sail.