Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016)

When you get past how ridiculous having space Call of Duty is, considering where this series started, Infinite Warfare is a surprisingly strong advancement of this franchise. Infinite Warfare has an extremely solid campaign, attempts to allow for more non-linear storytelling through optional extra missions, and tells a decent story with some memorable characters. And most importantly, it's a lot of fun, with missions never feeling too similar, and with a nice mixture of flight missions that are a nice addition to this series.

As I work my way through this series, I find myself drawn in by the games that are attempting to do something new and succeeding on that front. This is a strange evolution for the series, and there are certain things that don't work (Kit Harrington's villain is sort of a nothing), but overall, I really admire the franchise making this wild leap into something truly enjoyable. As much as I appreciate this game in space and how well it works, I did find that the game really picked up for me once we return to Earth and find on the homefront. I don't know what this says about this series, but I found it odd that this series takes off when it gets back to where it started.

All in all, this is one of the rare Call of Duty games that I've been excited to return to every time I quit playing, and that's rare for this series. Sometimes I feel like I'm forcing myself through, but Infinite Warfare really found a nice mixture of what I already love about this series, with new ideas that played out effectively.

FPS - Captain Nick Reyes must lead his crew against the ruthless Settlement Defense Front, led by Admiral Salen Kotch, to secure humanity's survival and control over the Solar System's resources.

PROS:

++ Stellar campaign. Arguably the best and most full campaign in the series so far. All of the main missions were quite lengthy, each being quite exciting. There were a handful of side missions to do (9) that rewarded the players with perks, upgrades, and new weapons so they were worth doing. Gameplay was divided into standard firefights and space dogfights. Dogfighting was really simple and wasn't too complex, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it thrilling. There were also moments that you fight in zero-gravity and that was also quite neat. There were tons of memorable moments: introduction of Kotch, when Ethan protects Reyes in space, invasion of the SDF, the annihilation of Tigris, and the deaths of Omar, Raines, Kashima, Mac, Ethan and especially Reyes made for some sad moments. All in all, it was a fantastic campaign that I greatly enjoyed! I also really appreciated the story's central theme of sacrifice.

++ Smooth gameplay. Although I still have BO3 as the best in terms of gameplay, Infinite Warfare is no slouch in this department. Sliding, double jumps, and wall-running make a return and they feel as good as ever. Contextual peeking makes a return from Advanced Warfare which was nice. And the combat, both the standard firefights and also the dogfights, were fun and exhilarating. My only complaint is that the ADS lock-on to enemies was not as effective as previous entries.

++ Arsenal. Because of the setting, we got a lot of cool new toys to play with. All the laser and energy weapons felt great to use. Seeker grenades, Anti-Grav grenades, EMP grenades, Hacking Devices, Deployable Drones, Foam Walls, etc. were all great and useful in firefights. My favorite gun was the pistol "Eraser" that does exactly what the name says: erases enemies and turns them into red mist.

++ Solid cast. The characters were very likeable. Reyes was a solid protagonist, and I liked how much he cared for each individual under his command. Salter, Ethan, and Omar were great allies. Salter and Ethan especially. Kotch was also a solid villain and had lots of potential. And all the other side characters in the crew like Kashima and Mac, I grew to really like even if they didn't have pivotal roles in the story. I just really liked the dynamic of the cast and the variety in personalities. It also helped that they were voice-acted well.

++ Zombies mode. I think they hit a homerun with "Zombies in Spaceland". Everything that makes a Treyarch map great, Infinity Ward was able to replicate for this map. Simple to get started, but has a layer of depth and complexity. I absolutely loved the retro theme and the theme park setting. It was well-designed visually and mechanically. And all of their new additions were welcome: fate and fortune cards, the token system, the lost and found, the self-revive system, sharing points via ATMs, etc. Clowns were a good replacement for dogs. And the big Alien boss was a good way of mixing it up and prevents the player from being too complacent. Also, I really appreciated the tutorial that teaches the player all of the different mechanics and features of this mode.

++ Phenomenal visuals. From the very first level, the game stunned me with its visuals. Europa looked phenomenal. Operation Dark Quarry looked great. Matter of fact, most of the environments were gorgeous to me. The way they portrayed space and other planets was beautiful. The CGI cutscenes also looked great. And all the different visual effects were done well. Homerun in this department.

CONS:

-- Loss of identity. The far future setting was incredibly divisive, and left most of the fans disappointed in this entry. And although I actually love the setting, I can still acknowledge that this entry was so far away from what the series was originally about.

-- Missed potential. Although I really enjoyed the campaign, I still felt that more could have been done with the story. More development for the main cast and way more development for Admiral Kotch and the SDF. I also found the villain's death to be quite underwhelming. It's one of the few COD campaigns that I think would have greatly benefited from an even longer campaign.

-- Rise of microtransactions. First entry where I noticed microtransactions having a more prominent role in the menus and gameplay loop.

Almost finished replaying this and wow...you can make an argument that this has the best campaign in the entire series.

Definition of "great game, poor timing". At this point in the COD series, most people were tired of the futuristic settings so no matter how good this game actually was, people still unfairly criticized it.

Definitely doesn't feel like a COD game though. Depending on who you ask, that might be a good or bad thing lol

One of the worst rated call of duty games, yet the one I've played the most from the current gen. I'm not going to pretend it's a masterpiece or anything but damn guys, harsh as fuck on this game for no good reason.

The campaign is actually one of the better one's in CoD's catalogue. The narrative itself isn't anything groundbreaking, and they completely waste Kit Harrington, but it works well enough for the missions. The missions themselves are pretty great though, with tons of excellent moments and setpieces, plus enough variety to keep players from getting too bored with it.

It actually has a pretty similar setup to Mass Effect, where you go from mission to mission in your star ship, having different encounters along the way. It has a non-linearity to it that other CoDs don't, which really made it stand out to me. There's a few notable side missions in the mix as well, namely some exploring abandoned areas around the different planets, and space battles that are a TON of fun despite how shallow they are.

The multiplayer isn't great though, I will acknowledge that. It has a pretty promising base game, and operator abilities are an interesting idea. However, it quickly can become unfair when certain skins from lootboxes give you an advantage, and laser weapons pretty much single-handedly ruin any semblance of balance. It's not as bad as say, black ops 3, but it still is on the low end of CoD multiplayers.

But the crowning achievement is the Zombies mode. This is the definitive zombies experience. Even if you don't own the DLC, Zombies in Spaceland is a good enough map to carry the entire mode on its own. Each map (with the exception of the alien one) is well-paced, and full of secrets, and plays with the decades theme in a fun way. I've spent countless hours with friends with this mode, and rarely does it feel repetitive thanks to the fun dynamics with the cards and special rounds.

Overall, it's a pretty damn good CoD. I guess I can understand why you'd be pissed if you play CoD only for the multiplayer, but as an entire package? This is only a step below the Modern Warfare trilogy imo.

At least the Advanced warfare is good in story and fun to play, this game is even worse and too much focused on features and explosions that I didn't even play after 3 missions. The really bad cod game I play till now. This game is not having a good storyline and the actors they hired are big ones but didn't do any justice to the fans of those actors.

In my opinion, instead of having those big actors and music artists, should have hired more story writers and game designers that could have made this game way better in my opinion.

Suggestion: Don't buy or play this game.