Call of Duty: Ghosts

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Call of Duty: Ghosts

"You're good. You would have been a hell of a Ghost. But that's not gonna happen."

— Rorke
Genre(s): First-Person Shooter
Platform(s): Microsoft Windows
Xbox 360
Xbox One
PlayStation 3
PlayStation 4
Wii U
Release Date: November 5, 2013
Engine: IW 6.0
Developer(s): Infinity Ward
Neversoft
Raven Software
Treyarch (Wii U)
Publisher(s): Activision
Square Enix (JP)
Series: Call of Duty
Predecessor: Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Successor: Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare


Call of Duty: Ghosts is a military first-person-shooter game and an entry in the Call of Duty franchise was released in 2013.

Development

On February 7, 2013, Activision confirmed that a new Call of Duty game was in development and would be released Q4, 2013. The publisher expected to sell fewer copies than the series' previous entry, Call of Duty: Black Ops II on seventh generation consoles (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360) due to the transition to next-generation consoles.

The series starts a new subseries with Ghosts to coincide with Sony and Microsoft's eighth generation consoles entering the market. The game was supposed to debut an engine built by the developer, originally described as a new engine, but later clarified to be the same engine as used in previous games with "significant" upgrades. The game also utilized Umbra Software's rendering tool, Umbra 3, as a way to speed up the rendering process of large environments by an optimization known as occlusion culling – a method of filtering out hidden objects so they are not rendered.

The Wii U version of the game was developed by Treyarch.

Infinity Ward prioritized frame rate over display resolution during the development of Call of Duty: Ghosts, with the game targeted to run at 60 frames per second on each platform. While the game outputs at 1080p on PlayStation 4, the Xbox One can only manage 720p while maintaining the frame rate. Due to a "configuration issue" however, the PlayStation 4 version still required a release day patch to reach 1080p

Marketing and release

Reveal

On April 29, 2013, the official Call of Duty website was updated with a social media mosaic that filled up every time a user logged into the site via Twitter or Facebook. The next day, the mosaic was completed and the picture showed a skull along the text "the Ghosts are real." Some details about Ghosts leaked prior, especially when Tesco pulled the listing of the game for the PlayStation 3 after it was put up accidentally. Several other retailers, including Target, listed it for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The live-action teaser trailer for Ghosts, titled "Masked Warriors", features glimpses of people wearing historical battle masks, among them one of a group of soldiers putting on the skull mask shown on the box art. It was released on May 1, 2013. Ghosts appeared at the "Xbox Reveal" event on May 21, 2013. During E3 2013 the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were promoted, and the Wii U version was confirmed towards the end of the event on June 13.

On August 14, 2013, American rapper Eminem's "Survival" featuring Liz Rodrigues, with production by DJ Khalil was premiered in the multiplayer trailer for the game.[35][36][37] The music video for the song features various footage from the game's single player campaign, and other elements from the game.

Release

Call of Duty: Ghosts was released for Windows and current-generation game consoles – PlayStation 3, Wii U, and Xbox 360 – on November 5, 2013.[1] Activision announced that the game would be available for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in time for each console's release date on November 15, 2013, and November 22, 2013, respectively.[2] Despite the official announcement for next-generation systems, the PlayStation 4 version of the game was made available by some retailers ahead of the scheduled release date

Plot

You play as Logan Walker, a member of the Ghosts task force, an elite semi-competent American spec ops unit. America has been devastated by a strike with hacked satellite weapons, and is now a minor world power while the powerful coalition of South American nations known as "The Federation" has become a superpower. In an attempt to destroy the Ghosts, the Federation decides to unleash their ultimate weapon: a former Ghost named Gabriel Rorke.

Bad Qualities

  1. The game development mainly focused on graphics engine, resulting in a great number of issues listed below.
  2. The monologues between levels always talks about the same thing usually related to the Federation or Rorke, who is an incredibly unthreatening, slightly pudgy man.
  3. Rorke is considered to be the worst villain in the entire series due to having a terrible backstory since it tells that he turned bad because the Federation brainwashed him to their cause by drawing upon his resentment of Walker and the Ghosts for leaving him behind. He also doesn't really have much personality outside of being a generic bad guy, and seemingly has plot armor.
  4. Ass Pull:
    • The fact that the Federation managed to sneak a crew of people into the ISS to hack the ODIN satellite, without being detected by NASA.
    • The ending is this and is nothing more than sequel baiting. The game ends with Hesh and Logan on a beach, badly injured, finally have killed Rorke, and taken down the Federation. But then Rorke himself shows up, brutally beats them up and takes away Logan to turn him into a loyal Federation Agent.
      • Bare in mind, Rorke was shown to have been shot in the chest and drowned underwater in the scene before this, so it doesn't make sense why he's even alive or how he made it to shore without Logan or Hesh seeing him.
      • This ultimately doesn't matter now, since the game never got a sequel and due to its disappointing sales, Infinity Ward ended up developing Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare instead of continuing the Ghosts storyline.
  5. The story is possibly one of the most generic and cliché stories in the whole series. It follows a team of elites who try to take down an evil enemy faction that wants to destroy America.
  6. Some dialogue lines are very poor, being the kind of replies that you would hear from children. (e.g. "It's over Rorke. We beat you!", "Well, that's just 'cause I'm better than you, Elias. I've always been better than you!")
  7. The Federation, the enemy faction in Ghosts, is the worst faction by far in the series as they behave like generic bad guys since they have no real motive other than "blow up America", which they seem to want solely because they're the antagonists in a Call of Duty game. The entire faction has only four characters from it: Victor Ramos, The Dragon who appears for all of five minutes; General Almargo, who is there solely to be an assassination target and doesn't even have any lines; the leader of the Federation, who is The Ghost, and again has no lines; and Rorke, who was brainwashed into supporting the Federation. They seem to exist solely so that the Ghosts can commit all the war crimes they want without looking bad.
    • This in turn makes The Federation feel contrived, as YouTuber Act Man puts it: "Might as well call them 'Team Evil!'".
  8. The Ghost unit, supposedly the best of the best, is introduced terribly with one of their members being outsmarted and captured, and they don't even manage to save him.
  9. At one point, the Federation is able to land helicopters full of troops on a US aircraft carrier while the crew of the carrier and its escort ships do nothing. In real life, any helicopter that attempted to land on a hostile aircraft carrier would be blown out of the sky by the carrier group's air defenses before they even got close to the ship.
  10. The German Shepard, Riley, was hyped in advertisements yet is only used in a few early missions and rarely shows up after that. It wasted an optional play style that could have refreshed the tired franchise. Even the game itself eventually forgets about the dog and ultimately the protagonists seemingly leave it behind on an exploding aircraft carrier.
  11. The single-player campaign has been criticized for not adopting the changes that Black Ops II introduced, such as a player-selectable loadout, in-level unlocks, multiple endings, and branching paths.
  12. The reveal that Elias is the leader of the Ghosts isn't very shocking, in large part due to the trailers, and the fact that he knew so much about the Federation the moment they attacked. Not to mention the numerous times Hesh talks about how awesome he is.
  13. Recycling:
    • There are plenty of recycled scenes and plot points from not only older COD games (an example being Ghost, who is a major character in Modern Warfare 2), but also movies, such as (especially) the Star Wars original trilogy, Moonraker, The Dark Knight Rises, and more. Some people went as far as dubbing the game as Modern Warfare 4 because of these clichés.
    • Just like the previous games, assets and entire cutscene animations were ripped verbatim from previous games. The intro cutscene was an example of this, as the animations were recycled from MW2's ending.
  14. The multiplayer is considered one of the worst in the series due to the number of issues.
    • Some iconic game modes such as Capture the Flag and Headquarters are missing.
    • The balancing is terrible. The weapons, in particular, are too powerful, which led many to believe that they had less health. Here are just some of the poorly balanced mechanics.
      • Ballistic vests are generally hated because they nearly double a player's health, and being part of the support scorestreak package, you're almost guaranteed to get a few.
      • The Squadmate scorestreak gives you an AI-controlled squadmate with a riot shield and pistol, which essentially adds an extra player to your team. It's also part of the support package, making it relatively easy to unlock.
      • The Ripper became THE go to gun when it launched. It's an SMG with two fire modes: SMG and Assault Rifle, allowing the player to switch between firing at close range and long range whenever. Combine this with On the Go, Quickdraw, and Agility perks as well as a Muzzle Brake, you have possibly the most powerful weapon in the COD franchise.
    • The maps were lazily designed and made large to cover this up. Infinity Ward and Activision tried to rectify this by releasing DLC packs consisting of smaller maps, but by then, it was already too late.
      • The worst of these was Stonehaven. It's so big and therefore, hard to kill people because of the size. When you actually do get a kill, it's usually when you snipe inside the Castle, and one of the main ways you die when playing this map.
    • The system of prestige and unlocking weapons and attachments is completely different and needlessly complex. In order to prestige, the player unlocks a squad member with squad points and ranks it up to level sixty. Once the player has leveled up all ten squad members, they become max prestige. In order to unlock weapons, attachments, and equipment, the player simply purchases them with squad points, or can wait until they reach a certain level. The player must unlock weapons for each individual squad member.
  15. Some of the ports are pretty poor.
    • The PC version is one of the worst optimized games to come out on the PC in all of 2013, Ghosts has a seemingly limitless amount of frame rate issues, including in menus, a narrow field of view with no way to adjust it (with a fanmade utility having a cease-and-desist order placed against it), and uses far more CPU power than it has any right to.
      • Not to mention the 200MB patch released for PC just four days after the game's release, with no update notes.
    • The Wii U version is the worst version:
      • It never got all of the DLC and game patches the other platforms got. The only piece of DLC the Wii U version got was the multiplayer map Free Fall.
      • Also, the Gamepad's built-screen is never utilized, which is frustrating because COD games on the Nintendo DS were able to take advantage of the DS's second screen.
  16. Poor presentation before the game's release. The developer introduced a feature in their "next-gen" game engine dubbed "Fish AI" in which the fish move out of the way when you get close to them. This kind of technology can be seen in games as old as Super Mario 64 and GTA: San Andreas, and isn't even new to first-person shooters since fish do it in the original Far Cry, was released in 2004. The developers were bragging about fish in the background that have zero effect on the gameplay and that most people wouldn't even notice. Moreover, while they bothered to do that, they didn't do anything to stop ejected brass going right through the APS Underwater gun model if the player is moving to the right.
  17. Missed Opportunity: The Federation. The secret files make the faction more complex and interesting with several of its member states being unwilling allies and the public unrest in the conquered Latin American nations. However, this is never expanded upon or referenced in the campaign since the focus is on the Ghosts either hunting or being hunted by Rorke.

Good Qualities

  1. Unlike other Call of Duty entries, this one's intel collectible actually has intel and even an audio file which expands upon the world of Ghost.
  2. The soundtrack by David Buckley is pretty good.
  3. Great graphics.
  4. Decent voice acting, especially Stephen Lang as Elias Walker and Kevin Gage as Gabriel Rorke.
  5. Its downloadable content is pretty good, bringing guests like Michael Myers and the Predator, although the Wii U version lacks it.
  6. Strikezone became a popular map in the game, it was even remade as Genesis in Infinite Warfare.
  7. This game introduced Extinction, which was supposed to be Infinity Ward's alternative to Zombies.
    • This mode features up to four players fighting Cryptids (aliens) in outbreak sites where the Cryptids have overrun the area. There are four classes for the player to choose from, Weapon Specialist, Tank, Engineer, and Medic. For each class there is a specific set of unique abilities/perks that the player will be able to utilize for themselves or their team. There are also loadout slots that players can choose different options from including: Pistol, Ammo Type, Team Support, Strike Package and Equalizer. There are no rounds, but instead objectives, which are to destroy cryptid Hives and complete challenges. Each map also has an ending. Players can earn money which can be used to purchase additional weaponry placed throughout the map (similar to Zombies) and use abilities selected pre-game. In addition, players are able to customize their player, but the other objectives vary between maps. As the player progresses through the game and completes challenges, they unlock skill points, which they use to upgrade their load out. Guns are bought throughout random spots in the map, and equipment and attachments are found by scavenging. There are 30 levels, with different defenses unlocked as the player progresses. Once the player reaches level 30, they prestige and have the option of using relics, which allow the player to level up faster. Every time the player prestiges, they can use one more relic.
      • An update added a new game mode to Extinction known as Chaos Mode. The player is put in a part of the map they choose to play, and they must pick up new weapons and other pickups to survive. It is timed rather than round-based, and it will keep going until the combo runs out after the time runs out, or if the players die.
  8. The multiplayer introduced killstreaks based in some maps (like the aforementioned Michael Myers and Predator), unfortunately that mechanic was repeated only in Advanced Warfare.

Reception

Critical Reception

Call of Duty: Ghosts received both "mixed or average" and "generally positive" reviews with many praising the multiplayer gameplay and Extinction mode although criticizing its single-player campaign and lack of innovation. On other hand, the game got negative reviews from the Call of Duty fan community due to Infinity Ward not separating Ghosts enough from the Modern Warfare series, with some fans criticizing it for not following any of the gameplay advancements from Black Ops 2 that Treyarch delivered. As a result, Ghosts ended up being the poorest performing modern Call of Duty title. Many fans also widely considered Ghosts to have been the beginning of the Call of Duty franchise's decline.

Due to its disappointing sales, Infinity Ward ended up developing Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare instead of continuing the Ghosts storyline despite Ghosts ending on a cliffhanger.

Sales

Despite shipping $1 billion worth of units to retail channels within 24 hours of the game's launch, overall sales were down compared to 2012's Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Activision blamed the fall in demand on uncertainty caused by the upcoming transition to eighth generation consoles. As of February 2014, the game has sold over 19 million copies in physical retail.

Trivia

  • Neversoft, the studio behind the Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero franchises, developed the extinction mode of this game, and this was the last game they ever participated before they merged with Infinity Ward and then became defunct.

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