Call of Duty: Ghosts

It is true that this is a series that is renewed annually, but after Modern Warfare 3 and a new chapter in the middle produced by Treyarch, Infinity Ward returns in a big way, with eyes fixed on the next generation. This is a title full of explosive action military, divided by four large blocks.

A solid presentation from start to finish with the campaign that transitions perfectly into the multiplayes. Factions make sense with the story for both sides of the game. Extinction is a wonderful addition that should provide plenty of stories to tell.

With Call of Duty: Ghosts, Infinity Ward has done some of its best work yet, delivering thrill-a-minute escapades in the campaign, deep and surprisingly nuanced competitive multiplayer, and highly varied solo and co-operative play in Squads and Extinction modes.

Call of Duty: Ghosts isn't a reinvention of the franchise, but proves there's still room for innovation within its existing formula.

A forgettable - but still entertaining - singleplayer campaign, and a whole host of multiplayer content to keep people satisfied for the next 12 months until Black Ops III (or whatever Treyarch has planned) hits the shelves.

Playing into the new generation, Ghosts gains a new edge with DualShock 4 and beautiful graphics.

Ghosts doesn’t leverage the PS4 beyond providing a more visually immersive experience, it stands as a more than capable bridge for the franchise. While the campaign is relatively short at eight hours and at times feels very derivative, the high points really shine and the multiplayer experience continues to set the bar for the genre.

A strong entry in a series that is now 10 years old. It delivers much of what made its previous incarnations great, yet at the same time adds new efforts that successfully freshen up what should be a relatively long-in-the-tooth formula by now.

It’s what you expected from Call of Duty. Nothing more, nothing less, and the world’s going to be fine with that.

Ghosts plays it safe. That doesn’t mean it’s not a competent game by a long shot. The single player has gotten a fun new settings, the multiplayer maps are well designed and the new modes are a lot of fun to dive into. It’s just too bad that a few popular modes have been removed and it doesn’t cater as much to the competitive player as previous installments in the series. That doesn’t take away from the fact that this is another great shooter in the Call of Duty franchise.

Call of Duty: Ghosts is a great new addition to the franchise but it is definitely showing its age now. Far too many invisible walls and glitches in the single player campaign show a lack of due care and attention which I didn't expect from Infinity Ward. The multiplayer experience more than makes up for it though.

Call of Duty: Ghosts isn’t treading any new ground, but the single player campaign is still a memorable one. But with each installment it’s getting harder and harder to get excited about Call of Duty’s multiplayer. Refining the same ideas over and over again is no longer enough, the multiplayer is in dire need of a complete re-design. [Nov 2013]

The singleplayer is spectacular, but rather short. The online multiplayer is huge and highly addictive. No surprises there. New additions to the franchise either manage to deliver a surprisingly fun experience (Extinction) or a slightly disappointing spin on the known multiplayer formula (Squads).

Ghosts is a cookie cutter game with a little touch of alien frosting on top. However, the well-designed multiplayer maps, soldier customization, and polished gameplay is more than enough to sink your teeth into.

It seems that Infinity Ward lost a unique opportunity to introduce the CoD franchise to a whole new generation of hardware. Ghosts is by no means a flawed game, on the contrary, the multiplayer and extinction modes are great, but the feeling that we're doing the same thing all over again is quite strong.

This is a seasoned series delivering sure fire quality. It might not be for you, but if it is, you'll go happily and satisfied into this new round. In the end, it is what you expected: Call of Duty. Love it or hate it. This game doesn't care.

Infinity Ward doesn't manage to surprise us with the new generation: Ghosts is still a really fun multiplayer game, although less inspired than before.

Ghosts is good and bad at the same time, it still feels as Call of Duty and is therefore a good first-person shooter. But the game also lacks real innovations and is playing too safe.

Even a minor shift can turn the large and vocal fan base away, and so this isn’t the big sweeping change to rejuvenate the series in the eyes of those who have tired and moved on.

Overall Infinity Ward Call of Duty Ghosts holds firm, resists the assaults of the competitors, and welcomes the new generation with dignity after all, despite the big single player problems and thanks to a well-crafted multiplayer. But after Ghosts, Infinity Ward will have to somehow rethink his Call of Duty, cause Black Ops 2 has clearly exceeded the "historic" Modern Warfare team already.

A campaign focused on spectacle benefits from next-gen heft (the PS4 game is comfortably the best looking console version) but hardly innovates, while the multiplayer game remains as fast-paced, responsive and downright noisy as ever. Yet if Call of Duty is, as some have suggested, the gaming equivalent of junk food, Infinity Ward has prepared it to gourmet standard.

Call of Duty: Ghosts is an uneven episode for this series: the single player campaign is poor and shows all the flaws that the series has always had, while the multiplayer modes are fun and engaging as usual.

Call of Duty: Ghosts is not the perfect jump into next gen for Infinity Ward. Bland visuals and a mediocre campaign ruin the ambitions of the game, but Extinction and the multiplayer are still fun.

Even if it isn’t a drastic departure from what some have grown to hate or love, it is still a product that is tremendously fun to play with your friends and has enough options to keep you playing for hundreds of hours.

Call of Duty: Ghosts throws a lot of stuff at the walls and attempts to see what sticks. In addition to the campaign and multiplayer there's now Extinction, Squads, Clans Wars and more. There's a little bit of everything to be found here and it's all built on the foundation of a fast paced shooter. With so much customization over your character and you routes of play there's probably something for everyone in Ghosts.

There is innovation here and even if it’s not always in exactly the areas you’d wish it’s enough to ensure that Call Of Duty’s status as the world’s favourite FPS is still largely deserved.

From an exuberant campaign full of spectacle and variety to the way Extinction's unpredictable aliens force you to use those targeting skills in entirely new ways, Ghosts strikes an excellent balance between the familiar and the novel. This is a game that's keenly aware of the series' strengths, but doesn't find itself beholden to them. No matter what standard you apply, Call of Duty: Ghosts is a terrific first-person shooter.

Ghosts had potential to be more than it is. As the first series entry on new consoles and the first of what will assuredly be a new brand, I was disappointed to see it resemble its predecessors even more than the franchise typically does. Even without its own significant hook or sense of identity, however, Ghosts is still fun thanks to Call of Duty’s polished and reliable backbone that’s been established for years.

There’s a lot of highly polished content in Ghosts, and although it’s disappointing to see that it doesn’t truly embrace next-gen possibilities, I can’t lambaste it because I’d be denying the loveable bombast it doles out in wild, indiscriminate sprays. But yes, there should be a new engine powering all of it, plus genuine innovation always trumps the best-of atmosphere that pervades the solo campaign.

The franchise's arrival to PlayStation 4 was intended to be a step forward, given the graphical improvements. Despite being a better version thanks to its 1080p resolution and 60fps, this is by no means a blockbuster title, as it is a very limited game and its graphical aspects are still a far cry from PlayStation 4's maximum capabilities.

It's not bad, but Ghosts can't escape from a growing feeling of deja vu - we've definitely played this game before. [Issue#238, p.60]

Infinity Ward has taken its foot off the accelerator here. The marketing department might as well have called it Call of Duty: Coasts. [Christmas 2013, p68]

Call of Duty: Ghosts is a safe and familiar entry in the franchise that won't win any new fans with derivative design.

It's a mixed bag for Call Of Duty: Ghosts as the brilliant, balanced multiplayer and thrilling Extinctions mode makes up for an unusually flat single-player outing and wasted Squads mode.

You might expect Call of Duty: Ghosts to play it safe and lean heavily on past formulas. Instead, it goes in the complete opposite direction and crafts its own path. In some areas, like the Campaign and Extinction, that works exceptionally well, but in others, such as the Squads mode, it falls woefully flat.

It’s not the second coming of Christ, it’s merely another good product in a different wrapping. Ghosts is a great FPS but this time it’s not necessarily a great Call of Duty game. [13/2013, p.46]

Call of Duty: Ghosts is a solid installment, but it lacks creativity and innovation. Its new engine already looks dated in the face of the competition, and it eschews many of the solid concepts seen in Black Ops 2.

Going into a new generation of consoles this was the opportunity for Infinity Ward to really push the series forward. From a pure visual standpoint they do a pretty good job of that. However from a mechanics standpoint this is a very competent Call of Duty game that plays things safe. Everything about this game is solid, but does nothing from a narrative or gameplay standpoint to move the franchise forward.

Ghosts is certainly not a bad game, but it offers few surprises. Although Black Ops II wasn’t always successful, it felt like it was conscious of stagnation and attempted to push the series forward through player choice in the campaign and the introduction of the 10-point system in multiplayer. By comparison, Ghosts seems almost afraid of screwing anything up.

Call of Duty: Ghosts has a weak campaign and a good multiplayer. It's not the best game in the series and is definitely not a next generation game. Activision has missed the opportunity to painlessly move the franchise to the next level. Call of Duty will be a shadow of its grandeur, as long as it hangs on to old technology and a boring "future war" setting, and as long as the developers lack the guts to take risks, as they once did with Modern Warfare.

Outside of multiplayer, the campaign is a po-faced, nonsensical rehash of greatest hits long past. Extinction (Left 4 Dead meets Zombies) is a lot of fun, and Squads feels like a well-marketed shell for Black Ops' Combat Training mode...Multiplayer is still the star then, but it's diminishing with every return, its addictiveness tempered by over-familiarity.

Many will be satisfied by the simple existence of a COD game on the day next-gen hardware launches, but this is a missed opportunity nonetheless. The studio that defined the console FPS in the current generation has declined to do the same here. By the time it gets another chance, it may be too late.

Infinity Ward had a chance here to throw down the gauntlet for the next hardware generation, to set the new standard, to show that this hugely popular, much derided behemoth can dance to a different tune. It's chosen to play a Greatest Hits package instead.

Call of Duty: Ghosts is a huge step backward for this popular franchise. After the great Campaign Mode in Black Ops II, the simple 5-hour long Campaign of Ghosts is a shame. The Extinction mode alone could sell the game, but the overall competitive multiplayer experience isn't as good as the one we loved in the last episode from Treyarch.

Call of Duty is a series that is oftentimes criticized for making the same game year after year, which is of course totally true and Ghosts is no exception. It even feels like a step back. The campaign is devoid of anything interesting and even the online part feels uninspired. It’s not a bad game by any means but it’s like its predecessors, only worse.

Infinity Ward has really struggled to push the Call of Duty formula forward in any meaningful or significant ways. [Issue#142, p.96]

You’ll march through a campaign with an imagination as wide as its corridors, but be enthralled by a lavish if largely familiar multiplayer suite.