The new Call of Duty is coming out soon, and it has to be one of the most eagerly anticipated games of all time. There are loads of new features – as you’d expect – but the best bits of the old games have also been kept intact. The great thing about COD is that there are two developers, with one releasing a new game each year, which means that the games aren’t as rushed as other yearly series.
So what’s new in this version? The location of the game has changed, as it seems to each time. No longer are you in the second world war, although thankfully the developers haven’t tried to increase the “controversial” elements of the game by allowing you to fight as terrorists or anything like that. There are a number of new weapons to use, different levels and a whole new story.
The main part of COD is obviously the multiplayer though, and it seems this is where most of the time has been spent. There is a raft if different game modes and you can now bet on certain types of games with “money” you use to buy items and upgrades. It’s a shame that you can’t bet in regular games though, but it’s still a nice touch.
Graphics aren’t talked about so much anymore, mainly because we seem to have hit a sort of plateau and the visuals aren’t advancing anymore. It will be interesting to see whether this COD game has any motion sensing features built in, using the PS3, Kinect and Wii input devices. My guess is that it is probably too soon after release for that, but maybe the next one will have some sort of integration. It’ll be very interesting to see how this works though, because you don’t want the game play to be distracted by gimmicky controls.
All in all, I can’t wait for the new COD, although I don’t get as much time to play games as I used to. I’ve never been let down by the series, and there are a lot of features I want to try. The most important thing for me is that they get the balance of the multiplayer right, as that’s where most people will spend the majority of time. If they mess that up – and it gets bad reviews – then the whole thing could be over before it’s even started.