Crazy, movie-like action sequences, futuristic weapons, vehicles and warfare, and at last but not least: a Kevin Spacey, who is just perfect as a snide, hyper-intelligent and dangerous warmonger. Those are the main aces in the developer Sledgehammer’s sleeve, which promised to prepare us a perfect Call of Duty experience with their latest entry in the series: Advanced Warfare. The stakes were high, so after the promising trailers just one question remained: does Advanced Warfare has what it takes to deliver on the high expectations?

It’s hard to resist to Kevin Spacey’s charismatic leadership. If it weren’t for the trailers with “spoilers” in them, I would believe in Kevin Spacey. He plays Jeremy Irons: ruthless a multimillionaire entrepreneur who owns a private army and developed the latest, futuristic technology in modern (or: “advanced”) warfare. Spacey is one of the best villains ever in computer games history: his charisma and energy gains our sympathy – and also the sympathy and trust of Mitchell, the main character played by Troy Baker.

So Spacey is just perfect, but the question remains whether Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was able to offer something new, a much needed change in the whole series? The short answer? Yes and no. The long one? Well, let me elaborate…

Classy actor in run-of-the-mill story

After playing through the campaign I must admit, that the game remained mostly the same – for better or worse. That includes the story, which feels kind of familiar as well. You assume the role of veteran soldier Jack Mitchell (played and voiced by the ever-present Troy Baker), who lost his arm in a furious battle against the North Korean army. Fortunately for Mitchell, his Marine squad mate and best friend Will is the son of Jonathan Irons (deftly played by Kevin Spacey), head of the wildly successful private military corporation ATLAS. Irons offers Mitchell a second chance by bestowing him with an advanced robotic prosthetic arm and employment as a soldier in ATLAS’ army. Nations begin heavily outsourcing their combat functions as well as their construction and infrastructure projects to ATLAS over the next several years, and thus the PMC sees tremendous growth.

On the surface, Jonathan Irons appears to support justice and freedom for all, though it becomes questionable where his allegiances and morality lie. Advanced Warfare’s story wants to touch a bit the issues of military privatization, US international policy, and perhaps: politics, but the game’s story doesn’t really go below the surface.

While Spacey is excellent in every scene where he is present, the rather simple writing doesn’t leave him much room to really show a complex character and besides Spacey every other actors and characters are pretty bland. Almost nothing about the story is exceptional or memorable: it’s in the same league with Call of Duty: Ghost or Black Ops 2. That includes the ending, which is as clichéd and run-of-the-mill as you would expect it from any action movies from the eighties.

Michael Bay would still like it

So while the story isn’t bad per se, but nothing to write odes about, the first person shooter gameplay is still as dynamic and exciting as always. While I am not fond of Michael Bay, his kind of vision with a constant stream of high-adrenaline, loud action works here pretty well – the same as in past Call of Duty games. In almost every parts of the game you have the impression to take part in movie-like action sequence which feels just great. And while there are also several exploratory, stealth, and vehicle sections there’s always a sense of urgency in the game.

Concerning the vanilla FPS parts, Advanced Warfare remained basically a traditional shooter with very limited movements. The game is also heavily scripted – perhaps even more than previous Call of Duty games. It’s not that much distracting but still noticeable.

There are also an extreme amount of futuristic weapons in the game and each and every one of them feel great to use. There’s actually so much weapons lying around that it’s kind of difficult to choose between them.

The AI is dumb, but my character is smarter

The same kind of diversity cannot be told about the AI and general FPS gameplay. The AI is pretty straightforward and rather dumb as always and higher levels of difficulty only results in higher level of sharpshooter accuracy which is a bit annoying and stupid. To take aim at someone, to shoot and to hit successfully takes time and effort and on higher difficulties we must fight against enemy soldiers who are hitting us every moment with a robotic precision.

Still, on the plus side let’s not forget the exoskeleton enhancements either, which makes a difference both in single and multiplayer – perhaps a bigger difference in the latter. Thanks to our futuristic enhancements we can jump much higher than a normal person, we can crawl on walls, like Spider-Man, and there are several other “super-human” possibilities available to our über-solders as well. Sometimes I felt a bit like I played Master Chief in a Halo game, which was even more accentuated by the “hide and wait until you get better” kind of gameplay first present in Halo.

The visuals are most impressives indeed

However if there’s one thing which must be lauded that’s the game’s overhauled visuals. Sledgehammer had a much longer development period on Advanced Warfare and greater time with the new generation console hardware so they could provide us the best graphics the franchise has seen. There’s a big leap in graphical fidelity which is instantly recognizable, especially in the campaign.

Seoul, the South Korean capital in the first chapter looks gorgeous with many neon-covered, high tech advertisements and futuristic environments. The visual department has done a great job to show a future world which is not only a sight to behold but also totally believable.

Let’s not forget the models of human faces either which received an astonishing jump in quality and also better capture the performances of the source actors like Kevin Spacey. Loading cut scenes have a stunning appearance and, while pre-rendered, assist in creating a cinematic experience.

The winds of change?

Not quite. Concerning the single player game this is still the same kind of Call of Duty, despite small, cosmetic changes like the exoskeleton system (which is a much bigger change in the multiplayer.) Still, besides the small annoyances, like the dumb, but sharpshooter AI, ever present corridor shooter gameplay, or shallow story with flat characters the game is pretty fun.

To sum it up: the usual high-adrenaline action experience with cool futuristic weapons and setting, the overhauled graphics, and last but not least the presence of Kevin Spacey makes you forget that you are playing the same old Call of Duty as always.

-BadSector-

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Editor: Activision

Developer: Sledgehammer

Genres: FPS, 3D, shooter

Publication: 2014 November 4