Destiny - House of Wolves

Destiny's 2nd Downloadable Content Pack

[Destiny - House of Wolves DLC, Bungie, Activision, 2014]

Wow! A Real Plot!

House of Wolves finally delivers what so many people have been clamoring for in Destiny...a serviceable story line! I know, I know. I was a bit surprised, too. First, some backstory. You knew something was fishy when those Fallen were serving the Queen on the Reef in the original release (For the uninitiated, that's a race of aliens, a matriarch, and an area in space that another race, the Awoken, call home). Well, it turns out your instincts were spot-on. They have started a rebellion against the Queen under a Kell (read: king of a Fallen House, kind of like the Targaryens but much nicer to one another) named Skolas. He has declared himself the Kell of Kells and hopes to overthrow the Awoken and unite the Houses of the Fallen under one banner. Wait, I've seen this before somewhere. It's the Passion and Braveheart mixed up with a smattering of Mass Effect thrown in for that futuristic feel! Sneaky buggers. 

It starts out with the first real mission on Venus. A girl named Petra whose haircut looks like Gary Oldman's from Fifth Element serves as the equivalent of the Awoken Queen's National Security Advisor sends you after the Kell of Kells. Skolas runs from you like a little girl in this mission, but it wouldn't be much of a story if you killed your nemesis and the final boss in the first mission, now would it? Then again, "not very much of a story" has been kind of the theme with Destiny so it wouldn't be a complete shock. Ba-dum-ching! 

From there, you go chasing Skolas around the universe and performing bounties for Petra to earn some pretty worthless junk like shaders and banners. The bounties are actually a pretty nice addition because Skolas' Wolves spawn at certain locations around the galaxy and you don't know exactly when or where they'll show up. When they do, they're tough as nails and require a little help from at least one other player to take down most times. I won't go into spoilers on the rest of the story line, but suffice it to say the plot is significantly better than the paltry offering in the first DLC, The Dark Below, and it's a lot more clear-cut and understandable than the one from the main game. When it comes to the tale they tell, Bungie finally got it right with their new flagship title. 

The Good, The Bad, and the Downright Aggravating 

There are four portions to the House of Wolves, and Bungie has made two of them nearly completely unplayable for the solo gamer. Not only that, but without these unplayable portions, you're stuck at level 32 while the rest of the community moves up to the new cap of 34. Have fun playing PvP with first-gen gear while everybody else is running around with weapons that are 30% more powerful, you loser! Most of their other multiplayer options have come with a component called “matchmaking” that automatically hooks you up with the needed number of players (between 2 and 11, depending on the game mode) to take part in whatever multiplayer mode you choose, be it a Strike Mission where you have to face off against some of the biggest bosses in the game, or the Crucible that contains various types of team vs. team games and an every-man-for-himself option. However, for some reason known only to the programmers at Bungie known forever-onward as elitist punks, certain game modes do not offer the option of matchmaking. There is a reason that this is a major issue.

Bungie has changed the weapon upgrade system, again. The exotic weapons, which you can use in only one slot at a time for your weapons and armor, still just take an exotic shard to max out. Those can still be purchased from Xur on the weekends or by disassembling another exotic. Legendary weapons are where the changes have taken place. They require something called Etheric Light, a substance that has not appeared in the game until now, to max out. In order to level up, you have to max out your armor in order to raise your "Light" level. Therein lies the problem. 

There are only four ways to get Etheric Light: Beating the Prison of Elders on levels 34 or 35, winning the Trials of Osiris, finishing the Weekly Nightfall Strike (a level 32 mission with five enemy modifiers, which give them extreme advantages over the average alien), or reaching levels 3 and 5 in the Iron Banner. Only the fourth offers matchmaking, and it has level advantages disabled so players who have gained Etheric Light in the previous three modes are significantly more likely to win the match. 

Due to the lack of matchmaking, unless you have a Rolodex of friends who have been playing this game since it came out, you are essentially finished with it until September when the next add-on comes out. Either that or Bungie will have to add matchmaking to the parts of the game that offer Etheric Light. Sure, you can play the same Crucible and Strike missions some more, but an entire portion of one section of House of Wolves and 3/4ths of another are unplayable since Bungie, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to make the only parts of the game that allow you to level any higher than 32 impossible to reach for the solo gamer. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Even games that were designed from the ground up as multiplayers like Left 4 Dead and its sequel are playable in solo mode. 

Who Are You, My Mom? 

You Should Get Out There and Make More Friends, Brad!

Does Bungie have some investment in my virtual social life? I'm married with plenty of real friends. I honestly don't need someone to force me to meet people online. Actually, I find it pretty insulting, not to mention annoying, that they would create the game add-on in such a way that nearly half of the content is unplayable for me unless I go out and track down some strangers to play with me. Have you used your headset in an online game of Call of Duty lately? The only people you run into are 8-year-olds with mouths like a sailor, loners that somehow still think teabagging you after they kill you is funny, and people who want to quite literally come to your house and fight you. And potheads. Let's not forget the massive number of gamertags with "420" in them. It's got to be the most common three figure combination on all of Xbox Live and the Playstation Network by a 100:1 margin. I paid the same $20 that every lazy parent of the 10-year-olds online kicking my butt did. 

Should I be penalized because I'm an adult with a job and a life outside of gaming? Apparently Bungie says, "Yes," and that's why I'm finished. I'm done. I'm out. I'll freely admit that I've really enjoyed this game up until now, but I've never felt quite so screwed over by a game developer since I bought E.T. for my Atari. I'll have to think long and hard before I buy another game from Bungie unless this strange requirement to find fellow players somewhere other than inside the gamespace is ceased. I bought House of Wolves without reading too much about it. I just knew it was going to be bigger than the first DLC. However, you can bet I'll do my homework before I shell out any money for the rumored Comet: Planet of Darkness expansion in September. As much as I love being purposefully handicapped or forced into playing with some foul-mouthed kid who drops F-bombs like I take breaths, I'd better be able to play the entire package on my own or using matchmaking, or I'll be leaving Destiny alone for good. 

Thanks for the second DLC rip-off, Bungie. First they gave us half a story. Now they give us half a game. It just doesn't make sense to me at all. Most developers want to include as many players as possible, but they've managed to get rid of this one, and I suspect a few others along with me. Destiny has already caused as much controversy as Grand Theft Auto used to with its paper-thin plot and $20 mini-DLC, The Dink Below. One would think they would want to be as inclusive as possible so as to justify the game's record-setting $1 billion price tag, but apparently they don't need any more players because they've done an excellent job of turning them off and getting rid of them. Honestly, I feel like Bungie owes me ten bucks since I won't be playing half of this game, not due to a lack of desire, but because of their decisions. When I buy a bad game, I'll take the hit to my wallet. When I'm purposefully excluded from an arguably good game I've spent WAAAY too much time playing (We're talking hundreds of hours here, and I don't mean two hundred, or three, or five. Put it this way, when my wife did the math the other day, she just started laughing at me and didn't stop for several minutes), I don't feel completely out of line saying that. I don't expect it, of course, caveat emptor, but I feel like I just got ripped off by someone I'd grown to trust. It's not cool, Bungie, not cool at all. 

Sure, I have friends with Destiny. I'm a nerd, but I'm not a total loner. I have 35 friends on Xbox Live, but only seven of them bought Destiny. Two sold it back because they didn't like it. Three didn't get the House of Wolves expansion pack, and the one who did isn't enough to make up the necessary three-man team needed to play the Trials of Osiris or the Prison of Elders. We're left with one option, get on message boards and search for a third player. I've tried this several times, to no avail. I've pretty much given up on the game at this point, which is too bad. I've been playing it pretty regularly since its release, but as I can't progress any further there's not much reason to keep playing. 

I Guess I Should Talk About the Game

Since this is a review, I'll quit ranting and discuss the new additions to the game. The four new modes are:

• The story line, which I've already covered. It's tough and flushed out, but unfortunately the only major piece of House of Wolves that really shines for me. You had better have maxed out your character(s) if you want to stand a chance. I already had, so that wasn’t an issue for me, but for players who might have still been working on it in the mid-20s or lower, there’s no way they could make it through without first grinding for a month or so to hit the old level cap of 32.

• The Prison of Elders. This mode opens upon completion of the main story. It takes place in an actual prison under the Reef, home of the Awoken. It contains many wolves of the various Houses, but it also holds Fallen, Vex, and Cabal captives that have supposedly attacked the reef at one time or another. After Skolas' uprising, the Queen decided she wanted to clear it out, so you and two other players get dropped into an airlock that opens up onto the four branches of the prison. Once one of the doors opens, you have to go in and kill everything that moves. It could be any of the races, and they all have guns for some reason despite being imprisoned, or even a large Vex boss. There are level 28, 32, 34, and 35 challenges. The level 28 challenge includes matchmaking. The other three do not, and therein lies the crux of my issue with this game add-on.  

• The third new section is called Trials of Osiris. I would love to tell you about this game mode from personal experience, but unfortunately it doesn't include matchmaking so I haven't been able to play it. However, I've read up on it so at least I can tell you what it's about. It's like Skirmish, where two teams of 3 players each battle, but with several important differences. Unlike most Crucible challenges, level advantages aren't disabled, so you can get spanked by higher-leveled characters. Also, there is no re-spawning so once you're dead, you're dead. You play until you win nine rounds or lose three, whichever comes first. Reaching nine wins is one of the few ways to earn Etheric Light, and it doesn't sound easy. 

• Finally, they’ve added a Level 28 strike mission. Luckily, it has matchmaking. Sadly, it doesn’t offer you a chance at Etheric Light, either. It is fun, as strikes go. It’s somewhat similar to the Cosmodrome strike where you have to take out Sepiks Prime. That's a big, purple ball that's a lot more dangerous than it sounds. In that mission, you and two other players (who were usually combined into a team using matchmaking) have to survive several rounds of attacks from hordes of enemies, then beat a huge robotic walker that looks like a 60-foot beetle, and finally the purple ball itself. In this strike, you must face off against a Kell named Taniks in the first round, another walker in the second, and finish Taniks off in the third because he ran away from you in the first (running away seems to be a thing with these Kells). 

Summary

While I found the story to be wholly satisfying, it wasn't worth the aggravation of being stuck unable to play the other two large portions of the game without lots of online begging and a little luck, one of which I hate and the other I totally lack, apparently. I can only hope that one of the upcoming patches solves this issue, because it's ridiculous not to have matchmaking in all the game modes. They have the technology. They can rebuild it. The question is, after spending a billion dollars making the thing, do they have six million left over? 

The Math

Objective Score: 4/10. I'll give them the benefit of calling the new strike mission a fourth section and only half the game unplayable, but it's a stretch. Therefore, I've got to take half their points away from the get-go. 

Bonuses: +1 for finally getting the whole "story thing" right.

Penalties: -1 for, well, if you don't know by now then you haven't been paying attention at all and I'm not going to repeat myself. 

Nerd coefficient: 4/10. Problematic, but has redeeming qualities.

Titanfall

[Titanfall, Respawn Entertainment, Electronic Arts, 2014]

Can it save the Xbox One?

Microsoft is banking on Titanfall, big time. This is the first truly fresh release on their new flagship console with expectations that couldn't be higher. Forza 5, Call of Duty, and Assassin's Creed are all either ports from the 360 versions and/or extensions of existing series. The next Halo won't be out until Christmas and Gears of War is at least two years out. The Xbox One has been lagging in sales compared to the PS4 of late and the kids at Bill Gates' house are REALLY hoping this game turns things around. It may not be the complete game-changer that Microsoft is looking for, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. 

What it gets right, it gets very right!

This game is REALLY fun. Don't get me wrong. I've been completely addicted to it despite some drawbacks. The gameplay is totally new, and that's tough to do in today's world of a plethora of developers and distribution companies. Everybody is looking for the next big thing...and Microsoft found it. The standard FPS portion is a bit like Call of Duty mixed with Halo and given a healthy dose of steroids. Your character's ability to wall-walk combined with his or her mini-jetpack help create entirely ways to move around the map. Add to that the Titans and this is clearly different from anything that has come before it. 

For the uninitiated, Titanfall is a first-person shooter that takes place in the future. The IMC is the government entity being challenged by rebels called the Militia. First, you play through the campaign from the side of the IMC. There are nine maps. Once you've finished those, you switch and play the same nine maps from the Militia side. The only real difference between the "campaign" and "classic" multiplayer game types are voiceovers that precede each mission and some short cutscenes. As an IMC pilot, you are fighting for Vice Admiral Graves. He's your standard military man looking to put down the rebellion whose control is taken over early on in the game by former IMC mutineer James MacAllen. He and Graves used to fight side-by-side before he went rogue. There really wasn't much to the story, to be honest. That's pretty much it. They had little bylines for each map, like taking down a fuel depot or destroying a spaceship while it was in dock, but the gist of the plot line can be summed up in a few sentences.

Gameplay

The best part of Titanfall is easy to identify...it's the gameplay. Movement is like a combination of parkour with jetpacks. You can run on walls, jump off, land and run on opposing walls, then fly through the air using your booster pack to get 30-40 feet up in the air. It's an entirely new type of mechanic unlike anything I've ever played before. Then there are the Titans... 

There are three types: the Atlas being a middle-of-the-road mech, the Stryder that is more nimble but can take less damage, and the Ogre that serves as a tank with massive protection. Every three minutes you are blessed from above with one of these giant killing machines, literally. The are deployed from space and come falling down from the sky, thus the game's name. You can climb into the huge robot and take personal control or choose "follow" or "guard" mode where AI takes over for the Titan and it will either follow and protect you or engage the enemy on its own, garnering you substantial XP as long as it survives. Personally, I've played about half the game each way. Sometimes I'm on a hot streak with my pilot and I just let my Titan wander off on its own to kill at will. Other times I prefer to climb in and put my personal touch on the giant's attacks. 

There are some missing components

My main complaint with Titanfall is the lack of a single player campaign. I guess I'm stuck expecting the standard format like Call of Duty and Mass Effect 3 where there are both single player campaign and multiplayer choices for the gamer. Here, there's not much difference between the two except for the voiceovers before you start a mission. The voiceovers could have used a little help from Bioware because they leave a lot to be desired. They aren't terrible, but they aren't as good as they should be, especially considering the relatively small number required for the so-called "campaign" mode. 

Not only that, but your success or failure in a mission has no bearing on the outcome of the game. Win or lose the match, the game continues on with the missions as if you were successful. I guess that taking into account the fact that the whole campaign is just a modified multiplayer game this makes sense because it could take a while to finish the campaign if you were dependent upon your teammates' abilities to clear a level, but it draws away from the sense of accomplishment you get when normally finishing a level.

Break it on down!

Despite my complaints, this really is a treat to play. I tend to lean toward story-driven games so the bare bones campaign left me feeling somewhat empty, but the fantastic mechanics and graphics more than make up for it. I hope that this, like many series before it, grow into a full-fledged, multiple-game epic in the same vein as Halo or Metal Gear. I absolutely love playing it. I was just looking for a bit more, to be honest. Maybe all of the hype and buildup led me to believe this would be the next Gears (or God) of War. It certainly has the potential to become everything those games are and more, but it needs a bigger, better backstory. One of the reasons Halo has been so successful is the completeness of the universe. I hope that Titanfall 2 builds on the skeleton of a plot that this game provides. It already has the gameplay down perfectly. Now it just needs a universe to inhabit. 

The Math

Objective Score: 8/10. It would've been a 9 if it just had even the most slightly serviceable story. 

Bonuses: +1 for the biggest improvement in unique and fluid gameplay mechanics I've seen since Nintendo went from a two-button layout to the six-button SNES controller.

Penalties: -1 for a nearly complete lack of plot. I almost would have preferred they simply leave out the Graves/MacAllen story and just include a few more multiplayer modes. 

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10. Well worth your time and attention. 

Forza Motorsport 5

Forza Motorsport 5 [Turn 10, Microsoft Studios, 2013]

I did a short blurb about Forza Motorsport 5 in my Xbox One post, but I've enjoyed the game so much I felt it deserved its own review.  Forza is one of those games that hasn't changed much from version to version. I can understand why. You don't want to mess with success. There are a few minor changes from 4 to 5 that I didn't especially care for, but plenty of positives that make this game clearly the best of the series. 

Pros

Let's get right to it. This game is beautiful! The graphics are gorgeous. Turn 10 really put forth some effort to get everything to look right. Even the reflections of buildings on the cars is spot-on. Several times I found myself mesmerized by the reflection in the rear window or trunk, only to find my car sliding off onto the dirt track. It is just as easy to get lost in the surroundings. I had a friend who went to the Indianapolis 500 and said the experience was re-created down to the last detail. My uncle raced at Sebring and was shocked at the accuracy of the job they did at building the race track in virtual space. 

My only knock on that part of the game was the seemingly small amount of tracks. While you were required to tackle each track in a number of different ways, both in direction and layout, there were only twelve original tracks in the game. Thirteen if you count the Top Gear Test Track, which was used for game-like challenges that included knocking over a certain number of bowling pins or navigating between barrels. There are 587 races (If I did my addition correctly), and you don't need a mathematician to tell you that you've got to stretch twelve tracks pretty far to cover that much ground. However, it was a nice round number that allowed you to learn all the tracks, backwards and forwards. 

Among the many aspects of realism in Forza 5 that I liked was the fact that they no longer just give you cars as a reward for leveling up. In Forzas 2 and 4, you were given a new ride each time your driver level was raised. Not so in Forza 5. In this game, you have to earn your cars. You could do this by either winning races, leveling up, or completing "series." There are six groups of races with between three and six series per group and around eight races in each series. Completing a race nabs you between three and ten thousand dollars, depending on the race and your finishing spot. If you finish a series, you get twelve grand and some bonus tracks. A new level gets you thirty-five thousand dollars. This may sound like a lot of money, but when you're trying to buy a million-dollar Ferrari, it takes some time to put together a big enough nest egg to purchase that dream car.

Drivatars

One of the welcome new additions to the Forza line-up are the Drivatars. These are, as I'm sure you've surmised, driving avatars. The game takes three races to learn your personal style, then refines that style over the remainder of your career. Any time one of your friends races, your Drivatar takes part in their race. The game keeps track of when you make a "Good Turn" and a "Perfect Turn" in order to allow your avatar to perform to a similar level in the same situation. Not only is it fun to pretend you're playing against your friends and, in a way, you are, but your Drivatar makes money when it takes part in other races. I don't have a ton of friends with this game, but I still get daily updates with regard to my Drivatar's earnings. 

Cons

There was very little about this game I didn't like, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention a few things. The first is the tendency for Drivatars and online gamers to treat an Audi R8 like a bumper car. The multiplayer was especially bad, although the problem existed in single player, as well. Let's be honest, nobody is going to enter a race with their $4 million Bugatti Veyron Super Sport and act like they're in a demolition derby. I was as guilty as the rest in single player, but I tried to show a little respect when playing against other live gamers. They weren't offering the same olive branch, unfortunately. 

Aside from the opposing players' attempts to painfully crush you, there was very little else that bothered me about this game. Although at times this had more in common with Burnout than Gran Turismo, I suppose it isn't up to Microsoft to decide how you use their simulator. They were tasked with making a believable physics engine with realistic sound and response, which they did quite well. At first I didn't care for the removal of the "Car Ahead" and "Car Behind" times that were frequently flashed across the screen in Forza 4, but I eventually got used to the new style of play and simply kept an eye on my mini-map to ensure I was keeping other players at a safe distance. 

Did you know it's pronounced like "Pizza?" Fort-za. 

I didn't until I watched some reviews of Forza 4. We established in my last choral performance that Italian is not one of my stronger languages. Anyway, I got this game on Day One and I've been playing it ever since. I only have six series to go out of forty-one, so I'm not doing too badly. If you're a fan of racing simulators, you can't go wrong with Forza 5, especially since Gran Turismo 7 isn't coming out for another year-and-a-half. It's the perfect mix of enough tuning and upgrades to satisfy a gear-head while not turning off a know-nothing like myself. Heck, any game you can play almost daily for nearly three months without starting over or losing pathetically is a quality title. 

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Penalties: -1 for taking away the "Car Behind" notification. I relied heavily on that to know where the competition was in relation to my vehicle.

Bonuses: +1 for the most realistic driving game I've ever played. The graphics, sound, and controls are superb!

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10. Well worth your time and attention.

See here for our scoring system. 

POSTED BY: Brad Epperley - Guy who REALLY wants a Bugatti Super Sport. Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012. 

Call of Duty: Ghosts - Multiplayer

Call of Duty: Ghosts [Infiniti Ward, Activision, 2013]

Another One? How many of these are they going to make?

Yes, it's another Call of Duty game. I know it seems like every time you turn around there's a new one, but that's probably because three of the top ten selling games of all time come from this franchise. For the purposes of this review, I've decided to focus on the multiplayer aspects and leave the campaign for another day. When it comes to online play, I'm something of a loner. 90% of the time I play with friends online or I don't play at all. The last game that got me to spend a significant amount of time playing online with strangers was Mass Effect 3, and it came out in March of 2012. I'm not exactly the world's biggest multiplayer buff, so that's why it's something of an event when a game rolls around that grabs me like this one has. 

There are three types of online play in Ghosts. The third is called Extinction and only allows one or two player games. Infiniti Ward and Activision have planned four downloadable content packages. Each will come with one of four parts of the Extinction campaign. I gave the online portion a try, both alone and with a friend, and was summarily annihilated. I may give the campaign a shot if I decide to purchase the Season Pass, which gives access to all multiplayer maps along with the Extinction story line, but for now this game is simply above my head and won't get much attention here. Sorry. 

Instead, I've decided to focus on the two main multiplayer modes, regular and squads. The regular multiplayer mode includes thirteen game types. I will cover each in detail and let you know how I fared. New to the franchise is Squads, a game mode that motivates players to create multiple playable characters instead of focusing on a single multiplayer avatar. First, I'll go through the multiplayer game modes and then get to Squads. Suffice it to say I believe Squads is a fantastic addition to an already full multiplayer palette. 

Multiplayer

Dogs

Let's just get this one out of the way here. There have been a lot of people online complaining about the addition of dogs to the multiplayer games. If you get a killstreak of five (or four with the right perk) you get a canine companion. The dog warns you of nearby enemies with a fearsome growl. It can take out bad guys that are in your vicinity who are focused on you, to the detriment of their throats. It can even avenge your death by killing your murderer after you die. I can't argue that it unbalances the game a bit, making the player with a dog much more dangerous than one without. That said, it's no more random than the helicopter or missile strike, raining down death from on high without so much as a button mash from the player who earned the killstreak. 

If you don't like it, shoot the dog first. The owner may get you, but at least that smelly mutt won't be there to save him the next time you meet. In short, I like the dogs. They're the first killstreak reward that I've felt has a real impact on the game. They may not be 100% fair, but what in life is? Get used to it and earn your own puppy if they irk you so much. You'll find life is a lot easier with a dog around. 

Team Deathmatch

Ah, the old classic. This game pits between eight and twelve players against one another in a team competition. Each team is placed on opposing sides of the map and you do your best to end up with the most kills. For anyone that has played Call of Duty multiplayer before, this one doesn't require much explanation. If memory serves, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the first to feature online multiplayer and Team Deathmatch was included in the game types. 

Gun Game

Gun game is a recent addition to the list of multiplayer options along with Hunted: Free-for-All. In it, you are rewarded for each weapon kill with a gun upgrade. Each melee kill will earn you a gun demotion. What I particularly liked about this game mode was that you don't lose your promotion once earned. I was killed within milliseconds of offing an enemy and retained the shotgun I'd earned before death after re-spawning. I fully expected to be returned to the handgun I'd started the game using, but luckily someone at Infiniti Ward had their thinking cap on and I held onto the twelve gauge. Like its fellow new game, this mode is a free-for-all fight where everyone is your enemy. No team play here. It supports between four and eight players.

Cranked

This is one of the more heart-pounding games included in the multiplayer oeuvre. Cranked is essentially Team Deathmatch with a twist. Teams of four to six players are pitted against each other, but once you achieve a kill you have thirty seconds to get another one or you will explode. Once you've killed an opponent, you are blessed with various perks including faster reloads and movement. What you end up with is a bunch of people covering the map at a dead sprint trying to find someone else to off before they detonate. Initially I found this game mode to be a bit annoying, especially when I was unable to find anyone to shoot at, but once I got used to it I felt it was the best way to get your heart rate up that I can think of while remaining firmly planted with your butt on the couch.

Blitz

This is essentially capture the flag with guns. Each team has an orange flag circle like the one pictured above. It's near the spawn point for the team. After you've captured the flag (reached the orange circle) eight times, the teams switch sides. You have to start from the opposite side of the map and capture the flag that used to be yours. This is a pretty basic game, but still one of my favorites. It deters camping. Campers are people who find a single spot on the map and don't move, usually sniping enemies without being detectable due to their out-of-the-way positions. They are among the most despised of multiplayer gamers.

Octane

Search and Rescue

In this game mode, two teams of four to six players are pitted against each other in a battle to either protect or destroy a target. One team member picks up a bomb and must carry it to the target, place it, then wait thirty seconds for it to detonate. If the bomb carrier is killed or the bomb is defused, the destroying team loses and the protectors win. If the bomb goes off, the protectors lose and the destroyers win. If a team member is killed, they may be revived by other team members. Dog tags appear where you died and can be retrieved by your teammates in order to bring on your re-spawn. If the opposing team gets to them first, you have to wait until the next round before re-joining the game. Whichever team wins the best five out of eight rounds wins the game.

Search and Destroy

This game mode is the same as Search and Rescue without the option to re-spawn. Once you've been killed, you have to wait for the next round to start before you can play again. This is definitely an interesting game mode. I didn't spend a ton of time on it, but what I did was enjoyable. You also either play as the destroyers or the defenders in a best of eight matchup. There are two bombs on the map. As destroyers, your job is to find and destroy one of these bombs with a small explosive device before it can be disarmed by the other team. Defenders/protectors must try their darndest to keep the bombs from going off. The one problem I found with this game is that nobody uses their headsets and it requires coordination. You need to protect the bomb once it's been armed, but some guys just took off like they were in a plain, old deathmatch. When that happened, we lost. When my team worked together and all guarded the target, we won. This is definitely one of the games that requires more strategy than the rest.

Infected

This was one of the more fascinating game types. A team of up to 16 players all starts together. One player is chosen at random to become "The Infected." It is their job to infect other players, who then become infected and take on the remaining Ghost soldiers. The game ends when either all the infected are killed or all of the soldiers are infected. It's certainly morbid, but was a blast to play. The only game with more suspense was Cranked. Hiding from infected soldiers is one thing. Knowing you're about to explode is a bit more stress-inducing.

Kill Confirmed

This was my favorite new game type. Two teams of four to six players face off in a team deathmatch, but again, with a twist. Once you kill an enemy, dog tags appear above their corpse. You only get half of the points for killing the enemy. You gain the other half by picking up the dog tags before anyone else can. When you (or a teammate) pick up the dog tags, you get an extra +50 points and an infinitely pleasing, "Kill Confirmed," message. If you are killed before you can get the tags or if an enemy player picks them up first, you miss out on the fifty XP and are informed that you've had your "Kill Denied." I don't know if it was the endorphin rush I got from having my kill confirmed or just the extra spin on the old standard deathmatch, but this was easily my favorite of the game modes.

Overlord

Domination

Blitz is fairly similar to this game mode, but instead of having a single flag for each team to protect, there are three flags (see map above) and neither team can claim ownership of any of them without a little work. Flags A, B, and C have to be earned by standing within a few feet of them for ten seconds without getting killed. Possession can change hands multiple times during the game. The team that racks up the most time of possession eventually wins, but not before a plethora of carnage and death-dealing takes place. 

Hunted: Free-for-All

This game mode is exactly the same as its original "free-for-all" namesake, with a minor alteration. Instead of choosing your loadout, you're forced to start with a pistol and work your way up to more sophisticated weapons, either by catching them in weapon drops or taking them off the corpses of your enemies. This makes for a frightening first few seconds as you wait for a decent gun to fall from the sky, pray you can take out a better-prepared foe, or accept death's cold embrace. As the name suggests, it's every man (or woman) for himself. This game mode was added after the release along with Gun Game and I, for one, am REALLY glad that it was.

Free for All

This is one of the original game types and the name says it all. Up to eight players at a time are dropped into a map and the one that racks up the most kills wins. It sounds simple enough, and it is probably the easiest of the game modes to master. Even in Team Deathmatch I often find myself firing off a few rounds at a teammate from time to time before I realize they're an ally. In Free for All, if it moves, kill it! Thankfully they've made it so people can't come into this game in a party. In earlier versions people could turn this game into Team Deathmatch by bringing their pre-generated party into the game, giving those who were playing on their own a severe disadvantage.

Tremor

Team Tactical

This game mode is designed for small groups of up to four friends to play together. You can play nearly any of the other game modes with your party including Blitz, Domination, Kill Confirmed, and both Search games. If you aren't allowed to play a game type with your party in normal mode, then this is the place to do it. 

Ground War

Large matches are the name of the game in Ground War. Teams of between six and nine players each take part in various game modes in much larger battles. The maps are still the same, so expect a lot of death in this somewhat cramped mode. A full game consists of eighteen players where most are limited to twelve, so things can get a bit tight. However, if non-stop action is what you're looking for, then look no further. I got a bit annoyed at the fact that none of my lives seemed to last more than ten seconds, but on the flip side, I certainly didn't lack for targets or enemies. With that many people populating a map you don't have to wander very far to find someone to kill, or that wants to kill you. 

Squads

The Squads game modes are a new addition to the Call of Duty franchise and probably my favorite part of the entire game. Whereas previous CoD games rewarded focus on a single multiplayer character, giving bonuses to those who "prestige" or maximize one character's XP, Squads mode encourages building multiple character types and learning how to play in different ways. You create your own squad of up to ten different players. It would behoove you to create varying types, e.g. a tank, a sniper, a stealth fighter, etc. That way, when your squad is facing off against another, you don't have six of the same exact character. 

The thing is, you have to actually play with each of the character types in order to level them up. It does you little good to have a level 60 badass if the rest of your squad are lowly level ones. I usually play a run-and-gun style where my action of choice is to spray-and-pray. This works best with a tank or a well-rounded character with an accurate automatic rifle. Due to the need for a sniper and a stealthish fighter, I had to expand my personal style of play to build a decent squad. In the past, I never really learned any of the maps well enough to know the good sniping spots. In Squads mode, I didn't have a choice. If I wanted a halfway decent sniper on my team, I had to create one myself. 

Once you've created a respectable squad, you can take it online and face off against friends or other random online adversaries to test your mettle. This is when having a complete and well-rounded team is vital. If you have nothing but tanks, a team with a quality sniper will lay waste to your tough guys one after the other as they cross the map in a vain attempt to reach a target. While you can only control one of your squad members at a time, Infiniti Ward has done a fantastic job with the artificial intelligence, making Squads mode the most enjoyable experience of all the CoD: Ghosts offerings. 

Squad Assault

This mode can be played alone or with friends. You take your squad (and as many as five friends if they want to join) up against the squad of another online player. Any remaining slots are filled out with AI. The game modes vary and can include Team Deathmatch, Cranked, Blitz, Kill Confirmed, and Domination. As was stated above, the more complete your squad, the better you'll do. If you've been focusing on a single character in multiplayer you probably won't stand a chance. If, however, you've got five or six characters with decent levels, you might just win this thing. 

Squad vs. Squad

As the name implies, this game mode is a single player's squad versus another's. You take your squad up against another player's squad and may the best person win. As mentioned before, you'll want a well-rounded squad to counter what the other guy is going to throw at you. Filling up your team with only snipers or tanks is the surest way to guarantee a loss. 

Safeguard

Horde mode from Gears of War is the closest thing I can think of to Safeguard. Hordes of increasing size and difficulty are sent at your squad until they manage to kill off all six members in a single round. You can choose to play 20, 40, or an infinite number of rounds. I was only able to make it to Round 9 when I tried this mode, but that was pretty good, in my opinion. Once they busted out the riot shields and dogs I didn't stand much of a chance. Of course, I played this before I'd built up much of a squad. I'd like to try it again now that five of my six characters are leveled in the double digits. 

Wargame

And finally, there's Wargame. This teams the character of your choice up with five other gamers against a team of six AI. You are able to vary the difficulty, which is good for an old fart like myself who seems to run into nothing but ninjas and actual Spec Ops warriors when he plays regular multiplayer. On Recruit level the AI will actually run right by you on occasion. It was a bit too easy, even for me. However, Regular level presented a decent challenge without my dying every four seconds and always ending up at the bottom of the leaderboard. It's a nice way to hone your skills in a cooperative environment without having to learn to swim by simply being dropped into the deep end of the pool. I highly recommend that anyone new to Call of Duty multiplayer start here for a bit of practice before venturing out into the real world of Team Deathmatch or Free-for-All. 

So, In Summation...

Wow! That was a long post, wasn't it? Sorry about that. I had to cover all 17 game types so I won't bore you further with a huge summary. Let's just say I'm hooked. For all the complaining that fanboys have done about the addition of dogs to the multiplayer, I'm loving this iteration of Call of Duty. I normally stick to the campaign, but this multiplayer is so good I haven't even finished it yet. I usually get massacred when I put my toe into the pool of CoD or Halo multiplayer matches, but with the ability to practice in Squad mode I've managed to get good enough to actually live longer than ten seconds on occasion. If you, like me, have mostly avoided online multiplayer because those darn eight-year-olds are just too good, maybe it's time to give them another try. With so many options, you're bound to find something you like here in Call of Duty: Ghosts. 

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for the addition of Squads mode. Not only does it encourage learning multiple types of gameplay strategies, but it allows us old timers to catch up to the young'uns if we're willing to put in the time to build a decent squad. 

Penalties: -1 for making me spend half as much again as the game costs for all the multiplayer maps and Extinction. I'm glad they've added a new story line to the DLC, but it irks me that I have to spend close to $100 in order to get the entire game. 

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10. Well worth your time and attention. 

See here for our scoring system. 

POSTED BY: Brad Epperley--Video game addict who recognizes that the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem, Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.