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Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PS4)

Status: Finished playing
I started playing this game on Sunday 14 January, 2018  //  I stopped playing this game on: Tuesday 23 January, 2018
Current opinion of this game
No comment, yet.

January 23, 2018 07:06:55 PM
Finished!

Again, a bombastic intense experience that is the game equivalent of the hollywood summer blockbuster. I enjoyed the new things added - the flying a ship in space levels were different and interesting, especially due to the (I think) significant effort that went into making it easy to fly around, locate opponents, and take them out. This is no small task and I'm guessing that there's a lot of behind the scenes assisting going on - I felt like I was a really ace pilot despite only using a thumbstick and shooting stuff. So, it made something hard look hard, but end up being easy without condescension towards the player. I'm super impressed! (especially having played other "spaceship dogfight" games that don't quite pull that player ease off).

I then tried out the zombie mode and - while I had played it before in previous CoD games - this one was another huge surprise! New characters, art, setting, etc. It's set in the 80s in the context of B-horror movies where you kill zombies...but, oh so many details! The music, the colors, etc. What I find most surprising is that if you cut the entire zombie game out, you could sell it as a bonafide mid-tier indie game. And I'm sure it would be a hit as well. They even have an entire arcade with working vintage activision games! (most are Atari 2600 originals, I think).


January 15, 2018 01:00:54 PM
Starting playing this yesterday and so far I am not disappointed in the least. While it has taken me a bit to get used to the gunplay (and how much recoil you get when you take a hit - it really makes it impossible to shoot) - I'm slowly getting into it.

This game is as bombastic and action-driven as all the others I've played. That's one of the things I really enjoy about CoD. I don't go for the multiplayer, but if I'm looking for a blockbuster action movie with over-the-top effects... It really is a an example of polish and design that I feel gets a bit of an unfair rep. Here's a few examples:

a. This time around, you're in space - and there's a sense that you're on a ship that you'll use as a base and continually return to (in fact, you select what missions to do from a holographic table in the bridge). Everytime I've visited there are little changes - it's not always exactly the same. The first few times the rec-area was off-limits because it was being repaired, after that it was open and there were people sitting around and chatting.

b. There are lots of inter-stitial cut-scenes - when launching for a mission, when returning, etc. I thought I'd quickly get tired of them, but you can't really because - they're not always the same. Sometimes, they're cut differently. Other times, they're not there at all! For example, in the beginning I had to walk to my ship, that'll get old quickly I thought, but next time around I just cut straight to climbing in to the ship, another time it cut to the cockpit, or to an animation of getting into the cockpit, and so on. I'm guessing these were all a lot of work, so it's nice to see the time and effort going into making that experience less repetitive...

c. This game feels more like a campaign than an action movie - especially because there are optional missions I can choose to pursue (or not, but I'll do them all just because...) as well as the bridge changing and also because they've added some progression-lite systems. For example, if you find a weapon and pick it up, you scan it and it can be available in the future (there's trophies for finding all the weapons and such). There are also "special" bad guys - represented by playing cards on a white board in your quarters. You can do missions that provide opportunities for you to take them out - thus making progress towards "completing" the deck of cards.


 
kudos for original design to Rodrigo Barria