Call of Duty

With several leaks in recent weeks, Activision has seen fit to release information on its best selling franchise, Call of Duty, with a new trailer and the name: Ghosts. Not the MW4 many were expecting/dreading, the new title implies a slight departure from the traditional story, akin to what Black Ops did. With Infinity Ward once again at the helm, it should be an interesting game to follow, with more information arriving on the day of the Xbox press event.

Having said that, it's not a game I'm extremely excited about. Whilst it boasts a new engine along with a new story, I can't envisage a huge overhaul of the overall gameplay, which doesn't necessarily make it bad, just something I'm not particularly interested in.

Recently, I have still been playing a fair amount of Black Ops 2, though have started to become increasingly frustrated with it. Maybe I'm just getting worse, or the online competition better, but the multiplayer does not feel as compelling or solid as the MW series did. It left me even resorting back to MW3 on one occasion.

I've come to the conclusion that whilst Black Ops 2 did boast a number of improvements to the multiplayer, the gameplay itself had a bit of a tumble. The new load out screen for example is a vast improvement compared with MW3, which is cumbersome and slow to navigate. Upgrading a weapon or your perks, whilst not complicated in MW3, is so much simpler in Black Ops 2 and definitely something future iterations should adopt. The perks have also been overhauled to make changes to the player only, not the weapons which are separately modifiable. Finally the scorestreaks do seem to balance the game a bit more. You won't find yourself constantly bombarded with airstrikes and nukes like in MW2 and 3 to some extent.

I swear this (MW2) just looks better too, especially compared to BO2

Having said that, after giving MW3 a go, I felt the gaming experience was much more enticing. The maps were more interesting and varied, Black Ops 2's best was the reused Nuketown. Weapons handled and sounded better. I got more pleasure out of it than Black Ops and wanted to play more. Ultimately, I find neither stand up to MW2 or MW1 which for some reason feel a lot more balanced and more entertaining. MW2 had some really good maps which the more recent releases have failed to recapture, and MW1 I consider the ultimate experience, despite joining the party a few years later.

Whilst COD is still a good way to spend an hour in the evening to destress after a working day, it's repetitiveness is beginning to ware on me. Either that or I just don't find the latest ones as much fun. I might stop Black Ops altogether and go back to the MW series. Having said that I've gotten back into the excellent Red Dead Redemption, in anticipation of the exciting release of GTA V...