They began with a trailer of a bunch of features, while a brand new Eminem song played in the background. It is apparently a world premier from his new album. So, some new multi player stuff. It's going to be a bit jumbled, because a lot of the information they provided was back and forth and integrated into all other new announcements
Complete soldier customization - appearance, clothing, faces, gender, camouflage. Approximately 20,000 combinations possible.
Classes are now your Squad - Instead of 10 classes, you get a squad. Essentially tailoring each soldier to what you want them to be. If you want a ghillied LMG expert, have fun, and so on and so forth.
Squads - Compete across all modes. Squad v squad puts you and your AI squad against another player and their squad, war game - which you hand pick 5 squad mates against 5 AI opponents, and safeguard - a wave based squad game mode
The AI will be refined and attempt to play like humans, ala like douchey kids who like to drop shot, jump shot, etc. I understand this is part of the game, but when you say that your game is realistic, this stuff tends to take away from the experience, as it's a cheap way to take advantage of the shooting system and mechanics. What makes it worse is that Infinity Ward is actually supporting this form of game play.
Dynamic maps - Set pieces and scripted events you can trigger, like moving locations, falling debris/buildings, map specific kill streaks, and some destructible cover.
Kill streaks - 20 new kill streaks have been added, and they're also removing a lot of air based streaks to minimize the necessity to carry around specific equipment to neutralize them. Care packages, UAV, mini gun, sentry guns, juggernaut, choppers, are all returning, plus more. Also Riley, the campaign dog will be a kill streak. He will follow you around, help with CQC, and act as a personal UAV. Death streaks have also been removed.
The idea behind removing holding certain equipment for game play takes away even more of the strategy element of the game. I understand that some kill streaks were very overpowered in past iterations, but now making them ground based might even make it worse.
Weapons - 30 new weapons have been added, they didn't go into specifics, other than a new gun class called marksmen rifles that looked to be like the FAL-DSW, M21, etc. Essentially single/burst/full auto high powered weapons that can have high powered scopes or normal red dot, etc.
Again this is something I don't like. Giving weapons full customization is an awesome thing. But the power of some of these weapons is great enough, and the whole quick/no scoping, and rapid firing semi auto rifles with no recoil give the game an annoying touch to it. This is another piece of annoying community fanfare they're embracing that I personally don't agree with.
Second screen - They're embracing second screen a lot. Seems like just enhanced stats, customization on the fly. There's also a lot more second screen options like touch screen emblem creators, clan operations, etc.
Weapon Overhaul - The system to building your squad (class) has been overhauled. For the first time since modern warfare 1 the new system is considered "most flexible." They've adopted the "pick 10" system from Treyarch, but is slightly redesigned with new/more perks. Every perk has a set point value from 1-5. The maximum quantity of picked perks is set to 8, without weapons it goes to 11. Now, XP gives squad points to unlock the usual - difference is pick what you want to unlock at any point, in any order. So, instead of classes, you singly level 10 different soldiers. Each soldier has 1 prestige, equaling the usual 10 prestige levels.
Strike Packages - Are back. They didn't go too much into it though. I'm assuming because it's the same as MW3, with assault, support, and specialist.
Game Modes -
Cranked -It's TDM with faster pace. Every kill gives you faster movement, like reload speed, ADS, but with a timer. If you don't get a kill in the timer, you die. It's a similar idea to the movie Crank where he has to keep moving with adrenaline or he dies.
Search and Rescue - This is similar to Search and Destroy, but after your death, instead of being done, you can be revived. When you die, your tag drops. If you grab a teammates tag they respawn. If you grab an enemy tag they stay dead until the next round.
Squads - Is explained above. These are also considered in the new game modes.
Movement - Now the movement system has been more streamlined, so moving over cover, or mantling, is now easier and you don't lost momentum. They have also added in a leaning cover system where you don't need to press any more buttons, it will do it intuitively, and a knee slide to slide into cover, obviously.
Redefined Sound - The new system sounds good. Depending on where you are on the map, say a metal warehouse, or a carpeted room, the fire fights, and explosions will sound differently. They have also added in combat chatter which will help with locating enemies, and other things around the map without any prompt.
Field Orders - In the live demo, while they were playing a game of Cranked, the first player killed dropped a briefcase, the briefcase contains an order from anywhere to humiliate your opponent to a certain number of kills. If the player holding the orders dies, someone else can pick it up and try to complete it Upon completing this gets you a care package that could be anything. Now I don't know if this is across all game types or just cranked, but it's actually a cool idea.
Clans - Integrated clan support and in game challenging, as well as 2 week long Clan Wars involving maps, and challenges to determine a winner, all in game. Winning events will earn you exclusive gear, emblems, camo, etc.
Prestige edition - They had a really dumb video of the two guys from college humor showing off the prestige edition of the game, with a helmet cam that resembled a Go-Pro, and how it is shock and water proof. I don't know, I didn't get it. But there's obviously other goodies in it. Also, the season pass is back.
So, Eric Hirshberg stood on stage and said that there is a holiday every year in November called Call of Duty time, and referenced pop culture like how when the franchise was born Pierce Brosnan was 007, Ironman was only a comic, and the Avengers wer
In my honest opinion, as someone who's been in love with the brand, Call of Duty is heading in the wrong direction. I get it, they want to keep making the billion they make every year. I'm all for companies doing their thing. I just don't really like how they're trying to market the annoyances of the game, like drop shots, and quick scoping, and upping the speed of the game, but still have the audacity to talk about the realism it portrays. They have actual US soldiers playing the game, yet none of the soldiers would ever do anything in the game. Again, let me reiterate, I understand the franchise is essentially a hero's idea of war, and supposed to be arcade-like super speed action. I just don't think they should be advertising it as realistic for anything other than their attempt at graphics.
The series is a mainstream thing, which is no problem at all, but it seems like they're having problems staying humble as well.The issue there, is that they're talking about game features that have been present in their biggest nemesis, the Battlefield series, for a little while now.
In the end, there are a lot of things I like about the idea of the new Ghosts entry. Enhanced customization, interactive maps, new game modes, bigger emphasis on clans, and a complete class overhaul. These are the things that need to push the soon to become boring FPS genre forward. Embracing the social media space, new generations of gamers and consoles, different styles of game play are all great ideas, and I hope they succeed in attempt to make the franchise seem fresh again. I just hope they don't lose site of what made Call of Duty a multi-billion dollar franchise in the process.
Call of Duty Ghosts releases on all major platforms, including next gen on November 5th, 2013
Rich
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