Well, another year, another Call of Duty, and this year's offering largely lives up to the "good but not great" expectations modern Call of Duty has been achieving.
On a campaign front, we see a general improvement of the formula from previous games. Cold War's campaign is easily better than Modern Warfare's (the 2019 one, because we have to distinguish that now because people can't make up snappy subtitles for their games), but it doesn't reach the heights of some of the heavy-hitter campaigns of the Black Ops lineage let alone other campaigns made from Infinity Ward. As keeping with my tradition, I finished the campaign on Veteran difficulty, and this one was remarkably easy to complete, even compared to Modern Warfare 2019, which was pretty easy, already.
Anyway, the story is pretty fun, has a lot of cool moments, and sees some original and fun twists on the formula that the series has really needed for years. Again, the campaign isn't a masterpiece by any means, but it's still really good.
Multiplayer is another story. While I've been one to be rather lukewarm on CoD multiplayer despite playing way too much of it, Cold War feels largely the same as Modern Warfare's multiplayer, which works, but it's nothing fantastic. I have my complaints about weapon balancing and so forth, but my largest issue comes from crossplay, which greatly puts PC players at a severe disadvantage compared to console players. Balancing between the different versions of the game is an expected feature, but Cold War throws the scales in a direction that's extremely frustrating, since console players are given auto-aim so generous, it's simultaneously hilarious and frustrating. Even if you're someone like me and has gotten used to playing all your shooter games with a mouse and keyboard, you'll probably just want to pick up the console versions of these games going forward if you want to play a more "balanced" multiplayer experience.
Lastly, there's zombies, which is a general small evolution from what was before; nothing amazing, but fun. I'm yet to play with friends, but with the few matches I've had, the first map for the mode is pretty fun to play around with, while retaining a lot of the wacky charm and crushing difficulty one expects from the mode.
Overall, Cold War is a decent game package. It will not revolutionalize CoD going forward, but will increasingly take the series in the baby-steps fashion of possibly getting back up there with some of the franchise's stapled entries. If we see that day come to pass, it would be extraordinarily refreshing, but I'm not holding out any hope that the series will evolve passed this point. CoD has stagnated in quality for a long while, now; floundering from absolutely terrible to a decent time, with little in-between, and Cold War takes the later approach, overall. Just like last year's Modern Warfare, though, I'm doubtful that I'll retain interest in this game for long even with free expansion content coming down the line.
On a campaign front, we see a general improvement of the formula from previous games. Cold War's campaign is easily better than Modern Warfare's (the 2019 one, because we have to distinguish that now because people can't make up snappy subtitles for their games), but it doesn't reach the heights of some of the heavy-hitter campaigns of the Black Ops lineage let alone other campaigns made from Infinity Ward. As keeping with my tradition, I finished the campaign on Veteran difficulty, and this one was remarkably easy to complete, even compared to Modern Warfare 2019, which was pretty easy, already.
Anyway, the story is pretty fun, has a lot of cool moments, and sees some original and fun twists on the formula that the series has really needed for years. Again, the campaign isn't a masterpiece by any means, but it's still really good.
Multiplayer is another story. While I've been one to be rather lukewarm on CoD multiplayer despite playing way too much of it, Cold War feels largely the same as Modern Warfare's multiplayer, which works, but it's nothing fantastic. I have my complaints about weapon balancing and so forth, but my largest issue comes from crossplay, which greatly puts PC players at a severe disadvantage compared to console players. Balancing between the different versions of the game is an expected feature, but Cold War throws the scales in a direction that's extremely frustrating, since console players are given auto-aim so generous, it's simultaneously hilarious and frustrating. Even if you're someone like me and has gotten used to playing all your shooter games with a mouse and keyboard, you'll probably just want to pick up the console versions of these games going forward if you want to play a more "balanced" multiplayer experience.
Lastly, there's zombies, which is a general small evolution from what was before; nothing amazing, but fun. I'm yet to play with friends, but with the few matches I've had, the first map for the mode is pretty fun to play around with, while retaining a lot of the wacky charm and crushing difficulty one expects from the mode.
Overall, Cold War is a decent game package. It will not revolutionalize CoD going forward, but will increasingly take the series in the baby-steps fashion of possibly getting back up there with some of the franchise's stapled entries. If we see that day come to pass, it would be extraordinarily refreshing, but I'm not holding out any hope that the series will evolve passed this point. CoD has stagnated in quality for a long while, now; floundering from absolutely terrible to a decent time, with little in-between, and Cold War takes the later approach, overall. Just like last year's Modern Warfare, though, I'm doubtful that I'll retain interest in this game for long even with free expansion content coming down the line.