Call of Duty titles competing with themselves
IT was never going to be a smooth ride for a new Call of Duty title, launching alongside a number of spectacular FPS titles including Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is an excersise in pomp and excess, showing little of the substance found in the aforementioned stitles.
It is fairly common knowledge that Activision have also bundled a remastered edition of the classic Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare inside the Infinite Warfare box. Some would say that it is a little desperate to use one of your older and dearly cherished titles to sling your latest shooter. I would be inclined to agree, if I wasn’t such a rabid fan of the now-ageing shooter. My major gripe with this is that it actually feels like Infinite Warfare is not just competing with other blockbuster titles on the shelves - its competing with another title in the same box.
The general plot in Infinite Warfare is well-trodden ground for the Sci-Fi genre. The human race has pillaged Earth to the point where resources are so scarce that humanity has had to colonise other planets. As the world united it formed the UNSA, but an evil splinter faction also formed: the Settlement Defence Front.
You take the helm as protagonist Nick Reye, promptly experiencing the savagery of the SDF firsthand. After the initial dust settles, Reyes undergoes a trial by fire when he’s suddenly promoted and give command of hi own ship, both while continuing to repel the SDF threat. In fairness to Infinite Warfare, its campaign is actually the best in years. While it is relatively short, there is an awful lot of suspense, terror and thrilling gameplay built into the 5-7 hours it will take you to complete it.
Where single player is a pleasant surprise, the multiplayer portion of Infinite Warfare - no doubt intended as the crown jewel - is surprisingly boring and deeply flawed. In Advanced Warfare, guns had numerous mods. They all operated under a basic trade-off - you could increase your range while lowering your damage and so on. In Infinite Warfare, mods improve upon the base weapon with no downsides whatsoever. This means that those who are willing to fork out for the mods have a better chance of winning against those who don’t.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is yet another passable title from the team that revolutionised multiplayer shooters in 2007. Perhaps the worst thing about Infinite Warfare is that it comes packaged with another title that is by leaps and bounds the more enjoyable game.