Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Reviews

And last but not least: Exo Survival. In Exo-survival four players are given the objective to fight through various amounts of enemies which enter the map on a wave-basis. Certain waves may also contain specific objectives; such as collecting certain items or performing specific actions. Exo Survival offers a nice slice of content for players, but it may seem a bit simplistic for players who want a more unique experience that differentiates itself from the rest of the game.

This review pertains to Xbox One version, the PS4 version can be found over here

“Sledgehammer Games finds freshness in familiar territory, delivering the best Call of Duty game in years.”

Despite a multi-player mode that’s difficult to love and a pretty atrocious story, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare pleasantly surprised. It adds enough to the core of the game – the infantry action and gun-play – that the campaign never felt like a chore and none of the set pieces and vehicles outstayed their welcome. A new engine and new ideas breath new life into a series that was in serious danger of turning stale.

Is Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare more of the same? It depends on how you look at it. Those who are burnt out on the series won't be magically converted to the church of Call of Duty with this game, but those who are loyal to the series will no doubt enjoy the new tweaks the future has in store.

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It wouldn’t be a Call of Duty game without some extra third throwaway mode and Advanced Warfare brings along your generic wave based horde mode. In the Exo-Survival mode you’ll face waves of enemies who (obviously) get stronger and each wave has a certain goal to accomplish that vary from collecting dogtags, disarming bombs, collecting intel, and just killing dudes. Failing these objectives will lead to the next wave of enemies being given a bump in difficulty like sentry guns being added to the wave. I never found myself stressing too hard over these things though since your team should be able to easily finish them even if you’re not working together very well. Doing well will of course reward you with upgrade points that you can use to buy new guns, gun attachments, upgrade your exo-suit and even upgrade the score streaks you pick up. The only sort of issue I had with this mode was how shitty most players are. Killing enemies fills up a support drop meter which will then cause four care packages (that will either contain a perk or score streak) to drop for you to collect. The issue here is that anyone can grab them and when they drop most players rush to snag them all because they’re jerks like that. Getting to the final wave will cause the map to “flip” which means it resets you back at wave one but with slight, very slight changes. Overall Exo-Survival just feels sort of put in for the sake of having a third mode in the game. It doesn’t do anything interesting or new to justify wanting to play it with its only worth being to unlock the zombie gear for multiplayer. It’s a decent enough mode for what it is, but it just leaves you feeling like they could have done something better or axed it to further improve the rest of the game.

Call of Duty: Ghosts really felt like the last gasp of the series’ immensely successful last-gen shooter formula.

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Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare adds new life with movement and graphics, but falls short on sound design and story.

Again, it's worth highlighting that those who were looking for Call of Duty to be more like its competitors or to completely change its identity will find no such drastic changes here. Rather, Sledgehammer Games has taken a near future setting and used that to bolster combat, mode selection, and story in ways that make Call of Duty exciting again.

Set around 40 years from now, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare attempts to show us a world that's more reliant on technology than ever. It's a fictional period that has its roots in reality, and it's a premise that's relatively believable. While armies and private military corporations with access to walking tanks and hulking mech suits isn't a shocking departure from the franchise's norm, there's a definite sense that developer Sledgehammer Games is trying to shake things up a little. The question is: does the studio succeed?

In many ways, Advanced Warfare is another series reboot. While it lacks the sheer audacity of Modern Warfare's approach that shook up the shooter genre, it is staking a claim as its own part in Activision's ongoing Call of Duty arsenal. After annualization that had led to a seeming sense of complacency, Sledgehammer has joined with the best entry in years. Satisfying fans is one thing, but this one subverted my skepticism and brought me back.

But it might be too much to ask for that to change too. For whatever minor missteps Advanced Warfare makes with its story, it more than compensates with vision and remarkable execution. The latter has never really been Call of Duty's problem — Ghosts notwithstanding — but Advanced Warfare adds enough and moves far enough forward with its new abilities to feel like a risk. Turns out, that's just what the series needed.

Exo-Men: Days of Future Soldiers.

Let’s face it, Call of Duty: Ghosts was a massive let down for the franchise. Featuring a less than stellar single player campaign and more of the same old multiplayer, Ghosts was not only met with some lukewarm review scores but the blockbuster franchise also took an uppercut in the chops when it came to the overall sales figures. It was the first time in three years Call of Duty failed to shatter sales records. Fans and critics alike heavily criticized the game for its lack of innovation while strictly pandering to all those ‘Call of Duty Dude Bros’. This is nothing new for the franchise as Call of Duty has this way of bringing out the worst in some of those online keyboard trolls. Regardless, if ever there was a time the franchise needed a swift kick in the ass, it is now.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare plays it a little too safe with the campaign, but it feels like a real core entry in the series, and will please fans who are jaded after last year’s release. While Treyarch is still the king of Call of Duty in my eyes, Sledgehammer Games has shown itself to be more than capable of taking over with its debut entry. Infinity Ward is now the odd man out.

Simply throwing a robot suit onto Call of Duty could have been a lazy path to making Advanced Warfare seem different from what we’ve played before, but the way Sledgehammer has integrated its enhanced abilities and choices into every aspect of how we fight went above and beyond. By designing the levels in the campaign, co-op, and multiplayer to facilitate those new mechanics, Advanced Warfare is granted a weight and importance that changes how the fast-paced shooting action feels in all three modes. This is a Call of Duty game to its core, but one that rehashes as little as possible while still retaining its strengths.

At the heart of Advanced Warfare is the exoskeleton and all of the possibilities it opens up, transforming the way that you get around amidst the futuristic setting. Yet it delivers on many more levels too, from a compelling story and cast of characters to the graphics and the vast array of options for multiplayer character and loadout customisation. Sledgehammer have shown that there’s life in the long-running series yet, and thrown down the gauntlet to Treyarch and Infinity Ward.

Overall, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare lives up to the franchise's expectations. It looks, feels, and plays like a CoD game, and there's been quite a few additions to make Halo fans like me interested. They've done some work to make the game more welcoming to newcomers, and a lot of detail has gone into the single player campaign to make it as cinematic as a summer blockbuster. And despite a few hiccups, it plays a lot like one. If you already like Call of Duty, and you're a Halo fan to boot- you won't be disappointed by this installment in the series.

Advanced Warfare creates the multiplayer shooter players have been craving for years. Inspired by the old guard and incorporating a host of new features, this is the new face and bright future of Call of Duty.

One of the best Call of Duty games in a while, Advanced Warfare is a triumphant effort from Sledgehammer Games, whose storytelling nous and risk-taking in introducing the Exo pays off in spades. It's not the jaw-dropping reinvention that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was back in 2007, but Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the shot in the arm the series needed.