Release Date: 04/11/2016
Played On: Win
Available On: PS4 / Win / XBO
Time Played: 8h 11m
Progress: Completed all campaign missions
Developer: Infinity Ward
Publisher: Activision
These days, whenever I load up a game like Call Of Duty, I find myself a little taken back by the longevity of such a franchise. After all, series like this and Battlefield have been a point of derision among gamers, as they represent the big money of the gaming industry. For a while it even seemed like there was a genuine revolt against the yearly releases and expensive DLC. The surprising thing is that despite the trajectory of popular opinion, this is a series that has managed to maintain its position as one of the most consistent and reliable triple-A titles on the market.
Don't get me wrong though, I dislike Call Of Duty and Battlefield for all the same reasons everyone else does. They're the epitome of mass-market-generic-video-game, with virtually nothing new to offer anyone. I don't think anyone would disagree that these games are the KFC and McDonald's of the gaming world, in every way other than price.
It's worth noting then that Call Of Duty games rarely go on sale, and even when they do it's not for much of a percentage. These days just about every game managed to get a deep discount within a year of its initial release date, often cutting out 80-90% of the retail price. The only time I see Call Of Duty games on sale is when they're at least a couple of iterations behind, and then it's usually only about 20-30% off at best.
The reason I mention this is because pricing can be a good indicator of how well a game is doing and whether or not it's passed its initial sales window. Most games sell the most copies within the first week of release, which is why the discounts come in even months after launch. It's just a straight forward way to ensure that a game has some kind of longevity when it comes to sales, and it makes sense. For customers like me, who aren't dead set on getting everything new as soon as it releases, I'm always happy to wait a while and eventually pick up a game when it's heavily discounted.
Except when it comes to Call Of Duty, this is one series that rarely gets discounted, which tells me two things. Either it continues to sell consistently after the initial launch date, or Activision aren't interested in potentially losing money to a discount. I suspect that both of these things come into play for this series, but it ultimately shows how reliable and dominant the Call Of Duty series must be for the companies behind it. Plus, every Call Of Duty iteration will always show up on a yearly top sellers list year after year, so the sales method seems to be working.
This might all seem inconsequential, but I remember a time when there was nothing but bad press for Activision and the mega-budget games they produced. People complained about having to pay full price for something that only delivered a four hour campaign, then they complained that there was any campaign at all. These were games that had very little to offer at the time, as everything was linear, brown and grey, and every character was a gruff white man with a big gun. Talk about boring.
My point of going through all of this, is to point out that Call Of Duty has managed to survive the ups and downs of all this controversy and debate. While other series like Medal Of Honor have faded away into obscurity, Call Of Duty has managed to remain consistent with its releases through every single game in the franchise.
While I'm sure that there are other things to pick on if you're a hardcore Call Of Duty expert, I have to say that from my own experience, the series has proved why it deserves to stay. I've played just about every Call Of Duty title and it's clear to see that the developers have put in some real effort to appease their fans, while adding interesting changes when and where they can. Sure it's still a fast food cheeseburger at best, but it's debatably one of the best fast food cheeseburgers on the market.
The biggest compliment and criticism I can aim at Call Of Duty games is always that you know exactly what you're going to get. Unfortunately that means you're always going to be running down corridors and shooting undefined brown people who are trying to blow up the world or something. The stories are always incredibly American-centric and overloaded with nationalist rhetoric and flat out corny dialogue and situations. Suffice to say, there's no saving the yee-ha American shooter anyway, so that's something we'll always have to put up with.
Thankfully though, there's a good side to Call Of Duty's consistency as well. You know the production values are going to be some of the best in the business, with impressive set-pieces and excellent graphical and audio fidelity. Despite the annoying AI and boring "realism" of the aesthetics, these also tend to be stable games with few bugs and errors along the way. So not only is it a good cheeseburger, but it's kind of like the movie Avatar as well: totally shallow but looks amazing and still managed to entertain.
If you stick around long enough you might figure out that I don't write about Call Of Duty games very much, and it's for a good reason. First of all, I'm only ever interested in the campaign, because I find the multiplayer slow and generally quite boring. If I'm going to play a multiplayer FPS it's going to be something a bit more exciting like Quake Champions or even Overwatch. Hence, I don't feel all that inclined to talk about Call Of Duty campaigns, because not only are they pretty boring and predictable, but they're not the focus of the game anymore.
However, I still enjoy playing through the campaigns and seeing what the big budgets can churn out these days, so I happily worked my way through Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Suffice to say that I'm glad I did, as this might have been the most enjoyable Call Of Duty campaign I've ever played. While all the previous versions had grown stale and repetitive, this was a step into a new direction that ultimately paid off. At least for me, as the only titles I've missed have been Ghosts, and Advanced Warfare.
The big difference to the Modern Warfare and Black Ops games, is that Infinite Warfare takes place in the future. It's not quite heavy science-fiction, as there aren't any carapace covered alien frogs, or omniscient prankster beings. Instead we find ourselves in a future where humans have spread out across planets to mine resources and probably some other stuff that isn't all that interesting either. There's something about private military companies, and right at the start someone attacks Earth and blows things up, then the campaign is off and running.
Can you tell that I didn't really pay too much attention to the finer details? That's because it's still Call OF Duty Story-Telling 101. You're a gruff military dude, some bad guys blow up your shit, you go after them to stop the world ending, and so on. Infinite Warfare's strengths lie far from its story telling and writing.
Instead, this is a Call Of Duty game that gives you interesting weapons and technology to play with. Not to mention some exciting space battles and limited (but functional) ship combat. I'm not sure if these features were introduced in Advanced Warfare, so bear with me if this is old news.
One of the biggest additions that changes gameplay significantly is the inclusion of your own pet robot. This mechanical soldier opens up a range of different tactical manoeuvres, along with your own HUD that has a few new toys attached as well. Now you can tag enemies and hack robots and systems to work against them, while your robot will open up pathways ahead and help you flank groups. You can even "possess" an enemy robot by hacking them, before setting them to self-destruct in the middle of all their buddies.
It might sound simple, but having these extra abilities actually goes a long way to making the same old Call Of Duty formula feel a little fresh. Along with your standard weaponry are a bunch of energy based guns and fancy other things that kill things, but the coolest (and most fun) are the different grenade types. There are shock grenades and regular old frags and flashbangs, but then there are anti-gravity grenades, or deployable drones that run up to enemies and explode. I had a lot of fun trying out different grenades in various situations and figuring out what works well together. I can report that launching a group of enemies into the air with an anti-gravity grenade, then running up to them and blasting them with a powerful shotgun is pretty satisfying.
For most of the campaign, you will find yourself on a military ship that acts as a central hub for missions and editing loadouts. Each level follows the same sequence: select it from the star map on the ship, stop in at the armoury to pick a loadout, then watch a cutscene that takes you to the action. It's the same old system we've come to expect, but it offers a little more freedom than some of the previous titles that would plonk you down on the next mission with a predetermined loadout.
The part I enjoyed the most out of Infinite Warfare's campaign, was the variety between missions. Sure it's not exhaustive, but swapping between ground missions and ship combat was a welcomed change of pace and ultimately didn't feel like every other Call Of Duty game I've played before.
Ground combat is pretty much what we're used to. There are a series of points that need to be taken and controlled, or someone needs to be rescued, or something else that requires killing a large amount of bad guys. While these missions are definitely up to the standard of the series, and things like the fun grenades make life a little more interesting, these ground missions are pretty standard. It's the ones in space that really got me hooked.
Infinite Warfare is at its best when it really shows off how experienced the development team are, and how big their budget must be. One of my favourite missions involved floating through space to infiltrate a big enemy spaceship, taking out the important stuff onboard, then escaping through a visually impressive space battle.
For flying around and shooting at space ships, we're given a little fighter that can be decked out with different guns, much like the ground loadouts of other missions. Controlling the ship in space is a little wonky at first, as it took me a minute to get my head around the odd flight controls. I'm not sure how to describe it, but flying the ships in Infinite Warfare felt completely different to every other flying/jet/spaceship game I've played. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I definitely felt like I had to learn the game's odd flight mechanics if I wanted to get anywhere at all.
Thankfully though, once you wrangle the controls and get used to flying around the place, all those space battles start to be a lot of fun. There are plenty of other little fighters to chase and shoot down, along with "special" named fighter pilots who are a little tougher and more difficult to handle. Although, most of the space battles all blend into each other as it tends to involve shooting all the little ships before they shoot the big ships too many times. Even though I enjoyed myself from start to finish, there could have been a little more variety in space to keep things more interesting.
As I mentioned before though, some of the best levels involve floating through space to attack big ships. The mechanics of moving around with six degrees of freedom work well and it's a lot of fun seeing enemy soldiers float in and take cover behind floating debris. These are Infinite Warfare's big moments that are as impressive as they are short, which is still par for the course in a Call Of Duty game.
Keep in mind that I haven't touched the multiplayer and I never intend to. Even though I can imagine some scenarios where space combat would be a lot of fun with friends, but it could be just as boring as every other Call Of Duty game, so don't take my word for it. What I will say is that the campaign actually lasted for a decent amount of time and I felt like I'd actually been given a big enough slice of pie to feel satisfied. This is still a short and sweet blockbuster, but it's not as offensively brief as some previous campaigns have been.
Overall I feel content with calling Infinite Warfare my favourite Call Of Duty game to date, even though it's "still a Call Of Duty game". Hopefully most of us know by now whether or not we enjoy the formula for what it is, so if you're a little bit interested then I'd be happy to say give this one a go.
Just remember that there are still linear missions, forgettable writing, and everything else that makes a big budget blockbuster so generic. The upside is that with money and a great team behind it, Infinite Warfare offers a few little improvements and fun additions thanks to the setting.
Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare hasn't reinvented the wheel, but it's added a few spokes here and there that make for a good time. I suppose at this point in time it's more than I would expect from the series, but still not enough to really blow your mind.