First Review of Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Brace yourself gamers as Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s first review is out, and from the sound of things COD fans may be happy with Sledgehammer Games first shot to the series.

Videogamer managed to write the first review because they were able to find a store that had broken the street date on the game.

“Activision held a review event this week for Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and we (Videogamer) were not invited to it”, Videogamer said in their review. They further wrote; “We were told we would receive a copy of the game on Monday, November 3, after the game had been released. Instead we bought the game ourselves and present this review without any form of embargo to adhere to.”

The review also discussed the embargo that Activision’s explanation would be, “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s multiplayer is a big part of the experience and we want reviewers to experience the game on live servers alongside real players.”  This is mostly true but Activision also knows that COD has a significant audience that would buy the game no matter what. Nonetheless, Activision had calculated earlier that the upside to positive reviews was lower that the downside of negative reviews.

Still, Videogamer’s review suggests that Activision didn’t need to worry about critics trashing it. The site enjoyed it a fair amount. They gave high praise to the game’s main innovation, the futuristic exoskeletons. These suits, they said, added a new element of strategy to the multiplayer.

“It’s a case of risk and reward: do you boost jump to a higher plane for overwatch, knowing that once you get there everyone will know where you are? Do you choose a suit that can make you invisible, or one that can deploy a bulletproof shield or improve movement speed in a crisis?”

Videogamer’s review says that the map design really made exoskeletons shine, too. Many maps are expansive enough to give players multiple routes to traverse the route, but still have critical chokepoints that everyone will gravitate toward. With enemies able to attack from multiple directions, players are encouraged to stick together more.

The single-player campaign is usually the weaker half of any Call of Duty game. However, Videogamer actually called Advanced Warfare‘s campaign the “best purely single-player mode the franchise has seen in years.” The 8-hour campaign doesn’t soar as high as Call of Duty 4 but sounds like it’s worth players’ time nonetheless.