It's one of the biggest, most successful, and most widely recognised gaming franchises on the planet. Call of Duty's next-generation launch-day debut in November will doubtless impact upon the Xbox One console's immediate sales success, and just as with Call of Duty 2 and the Xbox 360, how its top-of-the-line engine fares with the next generation's technology will set a benchmark for all triple-A titles that follow. This latest iteration in the series is a fresh start, hence Infinity Ward's decision to drop Modern Warfare from the title and craft an entirely new Call of Duty universe, with new direction, an original cast of characters, and an all-new story. The studio enlisted the help of Oscar-winning writer and director Stephen Gaghan to pen the single-player script; it focuses on a group of skilled survivors forced to forge a new unit, the Ghosts, from the scattered remnants of other special ops forces when America's status as a superpower is suddenly and irrevocably shaken.



Infinity Ward is still being coy about the details, but a wide-scale disaster of some kind strikes, and both the government and military are left decimated in its wake. The US no longer has the resources or the superior firepower that it once did, so the titular Ghosts are a ragtag, if suspiciously well-equipped, bunch of soldiers banding together against the enemy.

Under the sea

Activision debuted three levels atE3: Into the Deep, No Man's Land, and a behind-closed-doors exclusive, Federation Day. Takingplace somewhere in the Caribbean Sea, Into the Deep displays a level of graphical fidelity tantamount to sensory overload. Natural beauty and man-made destruction collide as stunning coral reefs give way to the rusting wreckage of abandoned ships rotting on the ocean floor.

Sunlight and shadow dance on the sandbar; shoals of brightly coloured fish dart and flee as you pass, and translucent fronds of seaweed gently sway in the warm Caribbean current. Instead of the usual browns, greens and greys we're accustomed to seeing in modern military shooters, everything on screen is bathed in a brilliant cerulean blue. It's so astonishingly beautiful it almost feels like a shame when the sightseeing inevitably gets cut short by sub-aquatic shooting.

Executive producer Mark Rubin cites this as his favourite level. "It really encapsulates what we're trying to do with Call of Duty: Ghosts. It shows off great new tech, really immersive environments and some really interesting new gameplay." While Rubin may be right on the first two counts, the "really interesting new gameplay" is more debatable.



Take away the setting and it's functionally identical to any Call of Duty single-player mission you could name. Follow your leader, sneak for a bit, take out enemies with co-ordinated shots, infiltrate somewhere, hide from a passing patrol, complete your objective, watch as something goes wrong, shoot some guys, and escape in grand fashion. The demo ends before we get to see that last bit, but it'll be there as sure as the post-release DLC will be.

All Riley'd up

The second level demoed at E3, No Man's Land, treads more familiar Call of Duty territory. Taking place ten miles north of San Diego, it's the kind of rubble-strewn set-piece scenery we've long grown accustomed to - with a few caveats. Whatever disaster has struck here, it has bent and broken the landscape beyond all recognition. The ground is cracked and scarred, with massive fault lines threatening to swallow entire buildings.

The focus of this demo isn't the devastation, however, but the third addition to your squad, Riley - the Ghosts' much-touted canine companion.

Much has been made of the inclusion of a service dog since it was announced at the Xbox One reveal, and though a large portion of the community response has been cynical, No Man's Land attempts to showcase Riley's presence as a natural and vital component to gameplay: part recon tool, part distraction and part stealth takedown option.

Thanks to a vest-mounted camera, vibrating collar and earpiece, you're able to send Riley to scope out environments whilst issuing commands from a distance. He can bark to lure enemies out from behind cover, where you can mark them for a swift sniper shot; you can also command the dog to sneak around them for a gruesome instant takedown, where he brutally - and silently - severs the jugular. At one point during the demo, your companion instructs Riley to jump through a window, causing the enemies inside to panic and flee through a nearby door, and creating a slow-motion breach move in reverse.



It's worth pointing out that at this early stage, Riley's involvement seems heavily scripted. He plays very much like the spider bots and robo-drones of previous CoD games, although Rubin politely rebuffs our suggestion that was the plan all along - apparently Riley started life as a dumb AI companion, and was pimped out only after the military consultants told Infinity Ward of the canine technology on offer.

Making an exit

Our final mission is Federation Day, a stealthier affair set in a dazzling late-night Caracas. Fireworks pop in the distance, and the city lights on the skyline suggest a world beyond the mission at hand. Less appealing is the way Infinity Ward leads the player by the nose through the level. There are still a few tense moments as they rappel down a skyscraper to take down guards while their comrades look the other way. The suspense is kept up inside the building as the player hacks servers to plant a computer virus, sets explosive charges, and then escapes into the night by abseiling down the skyscraper - while it collapses spectacularly around them.

Textbook CoD, then, and while it's understandable that Infinity Ward is sticking to the formula, it also makes it difficult to get excited about. Aside from the admittedly dazzling visual upgrade and Riley's starring role, there isn't much we've seen to set Ghosts apart. There are changes, but they're small: your character can now vault over smaller ledges and obstacles, eliminating those awkward jump animations. You can also slide into cover and out of fire, in a move similar to Black Ops' Dolphin Dive, and lean around corners to get a better feel for your surrounding environment.

A new diving cover move will surely be a boon in multiplayer sessions. These have been beefed up a little too, to now include random dynamic events, such as tornadoes and earthquakes. Opportunistic soldiers can also trigger environmental disasters to ensnare competitors, like shooting a latch to cause an avalanche of heavy lumber logs to fall on top of them.



It's the multiplayer, of course, that will be the game's big draw, which begs the question of why Activision doesn't cut to the chase and show that straight away. It's just not ready yet, says Rubin: single-player missions are finished earlier, while online gets adjusted right until the last minute.

A sound justification - but that didn't seem to be a problem for DICE, which had a spectacular Battlefield 4 map playable on EA's E3 booth. Its swarms of vehicles and toppling buildings were a much more convincing vision of what next-generation combat looks like. Ghosts' classic single-player package of over-the-top Hollywood bombast, boosted by the Xbox One's superior firepower, still impresses, but it's going to have to do more to guarantee sales. Bring on that multiplayer, then.

Source: Rheena.com