Call of Duty: Ghosts Review (instatic)
**Review of Campaign only**
I’ve read some complaints with this campaign that it was just Modern Warfare (original trilogy)...again. And yes, it is certainly hard to dispute that. But for context I have not played a Call of Duty since that OG Modern Warfare trilogy, and I loved those games. So after taking a long break from them, and returning to this game, I felt right at home. In a way you could almost fit the characters from Modern Warfare into this game with some slight story adjustments. It feels like a bigger, re-imagined version of them (particularly MW2). So I get the complaint of similarity, but I greatly enjoyed the campaign because of this similarity.
Now given this was supposed to be the start of (presumably) its own trilogy, the characters do not have a chance to feel as developed. I did not find the characters to be as “cool” as MW, but that is probably due to 1) nostalgia for Captain Price and 2) a lack of sequels to this game. The characters are fine, but they definitely just try to win you over with “look how cool these skull masks are, these characters must be cool too”. But you know what - the masks are cool, so fair point.
The set pieces are great, action-packed, and constantly exploding. I especially enjoyed the “Federation Day” level. The game progresses at a good clip but I will say (without spoiling too much) that too many of the characters have ridiculous plot armour. It gets a bit extreme.
My understanding is that at the time of release the hype wasn’t too positive for this game so “Ghosts” as its own series was effectively abandoned. That is too bad, I did enjoy playing through this one, but it stands ok as a standalone title anyway. If they clipped off like the last 30 seconds of the game it honestly ends perfectly, but they just had to sneak a sudden cliff hanger in there. Oh well.