At E3 this year, Microsoft kicked off their press conference with a bang. The first game they showed was “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare” with a 9-minute gameplay demo showing the first level of the campaign titled ‘Induction’. The gameplay demo, which can be viewed below shows off the new gameplay features, REAL next-gen graphics and a little shred of what to expect from the story. But will SledgeHammer games bring the heat this year with Call of Duty, or is it finally time for Call of Duty to throw in the towel? Look below the video for my impressions. Note: the gameplay demo was shown running on a Xbox One. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sRUZ9p4oYQ First off, before the impressions, let’s do a little background. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is a brand new story in the COD-verse, introducing a new setting, new characters and new gameplay features. In the year 2054, you play as Mitchell (Motion captured and voiced by Troy Baker, famous for his roles as Nathan Drake in the ‘Uncharted’ series and Joel in ‘The Last of Us’) a marine private who joins the Atlas Corporation, a private military corporation lead by Jonathan Irons (Motion captured and voiced by Kevin Spacey from ‘House of Cards’). Irons begins to enact a plan to overthrow America as he realizes that he has the most powerful technology and weapons at his disposal. Now, onto the impressions. The demo starts off with three soldiers and your character, Mitchell, inside what appears to be a deployment vessel under heavy enemy fire. The first few seconds show us some of the crazy technology found in Advanced Warfare. After one of the soldiers almost gets sucked out of the vessel, they crash into a building. Waking up from the disorient, one of the solider asks you to kick down the door, showing off the strength of the new Exoskeletons.
The brand new engine looks almost photorealisticAfter dropping onto the ground, we see the first weapon, which has been a buzz on the internet recently. It appears to be an assault rifle that can actually print its own ammunition. SledgeHammer has talked about how they have researched (with the help of futurists) about future weaponry, so this could be something we see on battlefields in the future. After shooting a few enemies, the soldiers arrive at a long drop down, where it shows off a repulsor-like feature of the exoskeletons to ease on damage taken from falls. This has potential to not only shape the gameplay (unless it is a mission-contextual feature, which COD is infamous for). But potentially be a perk in multiplayer perhaps? If so, this could be quite cool at switching up the gameplay. After their descent, the player walks through the streets of Seoul, Korea, looking at the gorgeous new engine, with planes flying overhead, soldiers speaking to one another, vehicles moving through. While it sounds like typical COD-fare, whats is most striking about this small section is the new engine. Character models move so smoothly and life-like, its hard not to say SledgeHammer has definitely stepped up their game since Dead Space and Modern Warfare 3 in the graphics department. There’s even a soldier in a huge mech suit (seen in the reveal trailer as well) walking by the character. Afterwards, the soldiers (revealed as ‘Badger Squad’) are tasked with providing support to a friendly squad. Badger squad is informed of a “drone swarm” heading their way. Before the drones arrive, we see Mitchell using the repulsers on his suit to jump high on top of busses and shoot enemies. Although, it looks quite similar to the double-jump from Titanfall. We also see a hulking four-legged tank moving over their head; vehicles in multiplayer?
Will a car door really defend against them?Upon the arrival of these locust-like drones, we see another new gameplay feature: Mitchell rips the door off of a car and uses it as a shield (similar to the riot shields seen in previous installments). While a shield is not revolutionary to Call of Duty, will using the environment to your advantage be? Then we are given the typical “In the interest of time…” Badger squad is now given the task of placing a bomb inside of a giant future-like helicopter. Starting here we see a new grenade that has the ability to switch between various types of grenades. There is a flash, EMP and threat. The last of which Mitchell throws and it illuminates the battlefield in a red code-like waves revealing enemy locations. (Note: this can also be seen in the reveal trailer for Advanced Warfare). After popping a few skulls, we then see another new weapon. It appears to be some type of shotgun that shoots a sonic pulse instead of a slug (Seen below).
It may not be the best picture, but you can see the sonic pulse shot out from the gun.After using that gun once or twice, we then see a third weapon what I assume to be as the new class of weaponry in Advanced Warfare; a directed-energy weapon. In the demo, we see Mitchell linked up to a moving shield that hovers in front of him, and lets a small space down when he aims down the sight. Mitchell lowers a part of the shield to fire a directed red laser beam that appears to hurt targets in a different way than bullets. After using this, in order to clear out some enemies on top of a ledge, we see a few more types of grenades; the smart grenade, a typical frag and a contact grenade. Mitchell opts for the smart grenade to use, throws it into the air, where it hovers and seeks out a target and explodes. This was awesome, seeing a grenade that can actually seek out targets? It appears the grenades earlier were tactical grenades that can change, whereas the grenades he uses now are the lethal.
We see the firs Directed-Energy Weapon, a new class of weaponry in Advanced WarfareWe see a lot of exo-suit jumping where eventually Mitchell and a fellow squad member reach the drop ship they have to blow up. His squad mate places the charge in a side compartment where his arm gets stuck. They run out of time and his squad mate sacrifices himself and pushes Mitchell off the ship to save him. This scene showed off the impressive new motion capture for the game. SledgeHammer has stated before that they are using the same motion capture as used by James Cameron in Avatar. When the soldier pushes Mitchell off, you can really see and feel the emotion in the performance. This already shows potential for the story, for once to be really well made, whereas in the past, Call of Duty stories were not very good or felt too set-piece focused. SledgeHammer has stated that they are putting a lot of effort into the story, and GameInformer reported about how the story will be told differently than in any other Call of Duty story.
“Hey, I’ll see ya on the other side.”After the ship explodes, a piece of shrapnel flies at Mitchell, severing his left arm. A soldier comes to his aid and promises him he’ll get him home. According to reports, Mitchell’s arm being severed relates to Mitchell coming to work for Irons and the Atlas Corp in the story.
Look Ma! No arm!The demo showed a lot of new features, the new engine, and what to expect from the story side of Call of Duty this year. I was left impressed by the demo, and while yes, there was still the shooting badies, set pieces and explosions, it looked a lot better and brings some new potential game-changers to the table. The cinematics looked beautiful and created a real good tone for the story, especially when the soldier shoves Mitchell off the plane to save him. In my opinion, I think SledgeHammer can save COD this year, with a new story, new multiplayer, new weapons, the exo-suits and new engine. Call of Duty has begun to feel very stale recently, (especially with Ghosts) so, the new three year development cycle already appears to be proving itself as a great move. While many people sit there and hate on Call of Duty because it’s the same every year, people still buy it, so I commend SledgeHammer for trying to do something a little different with the franchise, and I think it will pay off when it launches November 4th, 2014 on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4 and PC with Xbox owners receiving add-on content first.
