Single Player (Spoiler Free)
The single player experience of Call of Duty Advanced Warfare (CoDAW) is still the generic linear shooter you can expect from CoD games. Though it is linear, the CoD games have always created great cinematic moments ingame and in the loading cinematics.
AW is no different but its story telling is far better than the few previous CoD games that have come out in recent time especially Ghosts, which is one of the worst in the series.
The story focuses on your character called Jack Mitchell (Troy Baker) who starts off enlisted in the Marines who are going to Seoul to push back the North Korean invasion. In the mission, your best friend, Will Irons, gets killed at the end of the mission and you're arm gets severed by metal debris. After these events, you attend Will's funeral only to find out that Jonathan Irons (Kevin Spacey) was Will's father and he insists that you join Atlas, his private non-government military, and promises to give you a prosthetic limb to replace your 'armless' arm. In Atlas you meet an English man by the name of Gideon (Gideon Emery), whom is a bit of a throwback to CoD games always having a hard English man in the team which was great.
Your time in Atlas is spent fighting the main enemy force of the KVA controlled by a man named Hades. The missions span you across the continent from Thailand to Antarctica and San Francisco. The diversity in AW mission settings is great. Showing off iconic locations in some cases but in general just getting the feel of the location correct in terms of atmosphere and design.
Every mission starts with a short video of what type of EXO suit you will be using during the mission. The abilities you have are mainly boost jump, overdrive (which slows down time for accurate shots) and riot shields just to name a few.
The addition of these type of upgrades is a nice change from going mission to mission with no change but it would've been nice to be able to change what weapons you want to bring into the field to allow for more variety in weapon usage so you can learn the ins and outs of each. Regardless of this, the game has a lot of weapons in every single mission of which can be picked off enemy corpses.
The single player itself spans across 15 missions which can take up to 7 hours to finish depending on how well you can do. Every mission is packed with action sequences so you won't find yourself missing out on action throughout the whole experience which is great.
Multiplayer
The multiplayer this time around has improved significantly from general gameplay to movement. The ability to jump boost and dash dodge adds a whole new way of playing CoD. The maps are specifically designed for you to incorporate these skills and it changes the pace of the game from a horizontal shooter to a vertical shooter most of the time.
AW spans across 13 maps inspired from the campaign and a multitude of gamemodes but most people only play TDM and/or sometimes Domination.
The stats of multiplayer: 26 primary weapons each with 17 attachments, 8 secondary weapons, 15 perks, 8 EXO abilities, 9 thrown equipment (grenades) and 12 killstreaks.
These numbers, obviously, don't even begin to explain the amount of customisation AW has instore for you. The game's pick 13 system allows you to pick 13 items to use in each of your classes.
You can customise your loadout to the way you want to play, allowing you to choose whether you want an extra perk or not perk at all. You can adjust the killstreaks and their special ability, that takes up extra points to achieve, or just adjust your weapons to have either 2 standard attachments or an extra third attachment. Same with the secondary weapon but instead allowing 1 attachment with an optional 2. The wildcards at the bottom of the screen allow you to equip extra perks or attachments if you have the right wildcard equipped and note that these wildcards to contribute to the 13 count.
The gameplay of AW is as you would know from many CoD games before it. The movement is buttery smooth from one object to another and the weapon handling feels better than the last few CoD games. With the added ability of boost jumping and boost dodging, multiplayer can play differently to what you're used to which is a good thing as you learn the ins and outs of movement as you play.
The weapons don't kill instantly compared to Ghosts or even maybe Black Ops 2 but it does feel correct in the way that you have to get a few consecutive shots in order to get a kill and sometimes boost dodging can change the outcome of some fights.
Here's a video to show how the gameplay is.
Conclusion
9/10 - Overall, AW is the CoD gamers have been waiting for. For me personally, it's the most innovative since Modern Warfare 2 and the most fun since Modern Warfare 3. The EXO abilities add a whole new level of gameplay which takes time to get used to.
The single player experience brings you back into the groove of saving the world along with a bit of battlefield bromance reminiscent of the days with Captain Price, Soap, Ghost and Gaz.
There are some balance issues but nothing that can't be fixed with patches.
If you're a fan of CoD then this is going to be the best one for you to play considering the lackluster years that preceded it.
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