Review Roundup: Call of Duty Infinite Warfare
Welcome to our first Pixels Weekly Review Roundup. When notable games are hitting store shelves we create a big ol' post that assembles highlights of reviews from all sorts of publications, so you can just check one place to see everything.
Polygon - 8.5 (Provisional)
Russ Frushtick is reviewing this one, and even though he dragged COD Ghosts through the mud, he seems to quite like this years iteration. Noting the campaign as a high point. The review is still provisional, however, meaning they're taking a wait-and-see approach with online server performance.
“I realize that many people skip right past the Call of Duty campaign, only playing a mission here and there while waiting for friends to hop online to play multiplayer. Don’t make that mistake with Infinite Warfare. It’s an exceptional single-player experience, and the strongest part of what this package has to offer.”
IGN - 7.7 (Not Final)
Job Gilroy's review is more of a mixed bag, though not unflattering. Contrasting the game this yer to Black Ops III from last year. Noting now being a great time for people to try out Zombie mode if they haven't before. It's a review in progress, so the score may change.
“If you’ve been skipping the Zombies (and Zombie-like) modes in prior games in favour of the multiplayer, or if you’re new to Call of Duty, Infinite Warfare is the best place to start. Zombies in Spaceland dumps you and three other players into an abandoned theme park – its single map location – and then challenges you to live for as long as possible as it throws waves of undead park-goers, exploding zombie clowns, and fast-moving mutant boss zombies at you.”
Gamespot - 8
Miguel Concepcion talks about how going to outer space has affected the drama and gameplay of Call of Duty, and says the 5-7 hour single player outshines this year's multiplayer modes with solid storytelling.
“By venturing beyond Earth—and not just to other planets, but to space itself—Call of Duty found a canvas to produce its best story in years. It reinforces the notion that a game’s narrative is only as good as its characters.”
Destructoid - 7
Chris Carter felt that the sci-fi dressing ultimately doesn't add much to the series, calling some of the new features gimmicks, and mentions the story doesn't fair well when compared to other more epic science fiction tales in gaming.
“Throwing an anti-gravity grenade or a spider seeking mine is only novel for so long, and gimmicks like that work far better within the context of multiplayer — especially when a ton of different concepts are coming together at once. If you really dig Mass Effect and other sci-fi tales you’ll probably be swayed, and the AI construct named Ethan who sounds kind of like a wisecracking Tommy Lee Jones did his part to sway me a tad as well. The Specialist (body-specific damage) or permadeath modes didn’t entice me to play the campaign a second time though.”