It is hardly a pleasure to shove an overturned van while having to endure the intentionally abrasive metal-on-pavement noise that accompanies it. (The campaign's other brief vehicular sections are unremarkable.) Certainly, I would have preferred more of these breaks from standard combat over the arduous occasions when you're asked to push objects. The game varies the action in other ways, such as with a riveting sequence involving a jet ski with diving capabilities. Sledgehammer’s future vision of weapon tech is positively practical with heads-up displays that are as clean as they are informative. To be fair, though, enemy weapon drops are plentiful in scoped firearms, often with the same see-through-walls technology as one of the tech grenades. Advanced Warfare's visuals come nowhere near the exquisite detail of the Metro Redux shooters that would likely kill the game's 60 frames-per-second smoothness, which would be sacrilegious to the series.Ĭall of Duty games typically provide the chance to snuff out enemies from afar in their campaigns, but surprisingly, there is only one such sequence in Advanced Warfare. The myriad locales work not only to minimize monotony, but also serve to showcase the talents of Sledgehammer’s art team in war-torn urbanity, dark forests, and sun-drenched deserts. This tool is notably exclusive to the campaign, and when you discover its capabilities beyond traversing man-made structures, you can see why it was omitted from the multiplayer. Even Kevin Spacey’s boastful tour of an Atlas facility is a pleasurable golf-cart ride on rails that wouldn’t feel out of place as an EPCOT Center attraction, albeit one with a lot of killing machines in the background.Īside from the positively imaginative two-chapter tutorial that kicks off the campaign, the one mission that leaves a lasting impression is a tense stealth op that prominently features a grappling hook. His tours offer a smattering of memorable missions, including a fast-paced intra-city manhunt through Santorini and several pulse-quickening escape sequences. That said, Mitchell's story isn't as clear-cut as it seems he isn’t simply a Marine-turned-mercenary who travels where Irons tells him to. When the services of the Atlas Corporation are sold to the highest bidder, every country is fair game.
It's never been easier for a Call of Duty campaign to justify the series' traditional chapter-by-chapter globetrotting. Marine, but after a catastrophic event during his first mission, he joins Atlas, a private military corporation run by the generically named Jonathan Irons, who is played by a realistically-rendered Kevin Spacey. And while we're at it, let's test your subwoofer with the bass of an explosion and the vibrations of slow-motion melodrama.” This is an introduction that kicks off the wartime journey of protagonist Jack Mitchell, played by Troy Baker.
“Let's show the other games how to make a proper entrance. “Welcome back to Call of Duty,” the first chapter seems to say. Sledgehammer Games crafted an opening that does everything a great first chapter is meant to do: it welcomes you with big-budget bravado, offers control tips without excessive hand-holding, and establishes the tone of the campaign. And when you first bear witness to a flying giant snake made up purely of small drones roaming the streets of Seoul, you know this is new science-fictional territory for Call of Duty. It's the perfect futuristic backdrop to introduce Advance Warfare's new movement abilities, which are granted by the soldier-enhancing exosuit introduced in the campaign. This mid-21st-century metropolis is awash in ultra modernity, to a degree I haven’t seen since visiting the economically prosperous version of Tokyo in the 1980s. By the time I finished Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's single-player mode, I wanted to return to Seoul, South Korea, the setting of the game's first chapter.