FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

infinite-warfare

It’s that time of year again when the Call of Duty machine rolls out a new release for us to enjoy or hate on depending on your preference. It’s difficult to remember a time without the yearly CoD from Activision, but the series started 13 years ago with the original Call of Duty releasing in 2003 and being developed by Infinity Ward. It was a revelation at the time being set in WW2 and people loved it, and so for Activision it was the smart move to keep releasing games in what was to become their biggest cash cow.

After a couple of games, Treyarch had their first bash at a mainstream CoD game with Call of Duty 3; the two developers then released their owns games in alternating years. For Infinity Ward, we had the Modern Warfare story arc, the third of which is the bestselling CoD of all time with 30.7 million units sold at the time of writing and Treyarch had its Black Ops story arc which has seen equal success with 1 and 2 in the series being in the top three biggest selling CoD games. Treyarch also deserve a special mention for introducing zombies into the franchise, starting in World at War and continuing into the Black Ops series. It has been a big reason for people to keep buying and playing the games.

Anyway, enough of the past and on to the future, literally in the case of Infinite Warfare. After forgetting to preload the beta, I missed the first day of playing, although from what people have been saying, it was a bit of a mess anyway so I didn’t miss much.

Infinite Warfare

My initial impressions are favorable. The gunplay feels familiar to BO3 but better. I honestly couldn’t pin it down, but everything is just a bit more solid, apart from the grenades that feel like you’re throwing paper airplanes at people.

Jumping and wall running is still around and again it feels just like Treyarch’s last effort, though the game itself does feel faster paced overall. The maps utilize the movement system better I felt though, with plenty of opportunities to wall run and lots of shortcuts through the maps to enable you to get to the action that much quicker.

Sniping is another thing that feels a lot better this time around. The guns themselves feel meatier and shoot very nicely; it’s a lot more fun playing as a sniper. The maps help with this again, whoever designed them took a lot of care to include lots of viable vantage points for players to take advantage of the new rifles.

With any FPS, the test of the game will be in the guns, how they handle, look and sound. Thankfully, the guns I’ve tried so far all feel nice and solid with good recoil. Sounds are spot on and when you’re hitting someone it feels like you’re actually making an impact, the same as when you’re getting hit! The only criticism in the beta is that there is no Hardcore mode available which is my normal preference – we will have to wait and see if that changes the gunplay at all.

Call of Duty

The new Rigs system is in place, which is thankfully not like the Exo suits from AW, which a lot of people were worried about, but seem to be an improvement on the Specialists in my opinion, something that breathed a lot of life into BO3 for me. The ones available all have differences and don’t feel like just a different skin and the perks are interesting, especially Persistence which is a lifesaver for someone who isn’t the best at getting streaks…like me.

I have enjoyed my time with Infinite Warfare so far. but you can’t talk about Call of Duty without bringing up a certain other FPS game that has just been released. Battlefield 1 has been launched and so far it’s performing well above previous games in the series with the first week of sales beating Battlefield 4’s and Hardline combined. Call of Duty had a rough start this year with its launch trailer getting an unbelievable amount of dislikes on YouTube, (over 3 million and counting!), and with each year’s sales getting lower and lower, the pressure is certainly on from the gaming community.

In a shrewd marketing move this year, if you buy the Legacy edition of Infinite Warfare, players are also getting the remaster of Modern Warfare, which I’m sure will boost sales and help keep CoD performing well but who knows, the consumer is king after all and this could be the year CoD falls.

Will you be playing come November or are you already exploring World War 1 in Battlefield?

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