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Better Late Than Never Review: Call of Duty Advanced Warfare



This will be the oldest game we've covered yet being a title from 2014 but:
1. It's super cheap now
2. It's still a current gen game
3. I want to preface the next game and complain about this one a bit.

As I said this game debuted in 2014 and I remember being intrigued at the concept. A near future shooter with technology like something out of Deus Ex?  Count me in.  I was all ready to give out bonus points for the inversion of having the player character working for a PMC rather than just being another special forces soldier. PMC's being on everyone's mind since the recent conflicts and what a change it would be for a series with "duty" in the name. Not exactly duty to fight for a paycheck alone.

I'll start with the good. The game does near future well. The setting is plausible, scary, cool, and most importantly fun. The idea of soldiers having powered exoskeleton suits has been explored in other mediums but it really shines when the audience is in control and for all intents an purposes is in the EXO.  The other future technology all seems just plausible enough. Smart grenades, robotic walker tanks, drop pods. Again, it's fun and not too out there.

Now let me talk about the problem with this game. It's the plot. I know I shouldn't expect Henry V from an FPS but it's all over the place.  The characters actions and motivation don't make sense.  There's pretentious dialogue all over that doesn't connect to the scene. Characters reach conclusions or act only for the connivence of the plot rather than a motivation we can see.

Once SPOILERS! the PMC becomes the bad guy time is spent making them as evil as possible. Why?  Our character worked for them and didn't see anything evil going on before so why did they start when he left? Why is it a surprise? Did it not occur to him that an army for hire might be only out to make money? And why does he care?  He was on missions where they rescued people but only because they got paid to do it. Why should his boss having done something bad seem irredeemable?

Even at the end of the game the villain doesn't kill you when he could. Rather than something sensible however Immediately you button mash your way to an awkward chase then then cut off your (fake) arm to kill the villain.  What. The. Fuck.  You have no moral high ground by going out of your way to kill the villain when he just spared you.

There's even a spy movie level doomsday weapon the PMC is going to unleash.  The amount of potential in this plot is immense and almost none of it is used.

There's other problems. Sometimes your not standing in the exact right place for your future tech to activate. There are plenty of cool items or ideas used exactly once. I won't parrot the "press X to pay respects" bashing but I will say that several times I was stuck in a long quick time event section that not only killed the pacing, but my desire to continue as well.

The good:
-the EXO suit offers new, exciting options for gameplay
-the near future setting is exciting and fun.

The bad:
-the plot and writing are truly awful
-all of the problems present in other titles in the series persist.

The writing in this game is a crime against the English language. Even Kevin Spacey couldn't save it and that's saying something. That aside the game is functional and I did enjoy it enough to play it again on Veteran.

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