Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War & Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - THE HEAT (THE ENERGY)

 

Available to everyone with applicable hardware this weekend, the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Beta builds on the snappy Alpha by allowing players to experience the doldrums of being lumbered with set weapon loadouts - never particularly helpful - and, when they finally unlock the Create A Class option, underpowered weaponry with occlusive iron sights. 

Still, I'm enjoying Treyarch (Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, High Moon Studios, Demonware, Beenox and Activision Shanghai)'s hot war simulator, mainly because the multiplayer levels aren't staggered into a series of irritating head-glitch locations. Action is, thankfully, a little more free-flowing than last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (currently attempting to steal its little brother's limelight by resurrecting a fan favourite shotgun from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2). I've barely scratched the surface but, if I were to lodge a complaint, it'd be that there's precious little detail or visual cues separating the character models assigned to my team and the enemy's. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - PUMP OR AUTO

Response to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's alpha seems to be mixed, with many disappointed that this year's title delivers less of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's audio-visual luxury. Absolutely Treyarch (and Activision Shanghai, Beenox, High Moon Studios and Raven Software)'s game is less interested in gun club fidelity but Cold War's overall sound design is much more readable. Foot steps in particular were superb in this Alpha, allowing players to make quick decisions based on reliable, actionable, audio feedback. That's something that Modern Warfare, particularly Call of Duty: Warzone, has never quite achieved.

My personal complaints are the latency issues that always seem to plague the Treyarch releases - opposition players and their weapons pointing in completely different directions to the way they're actually firing or the broken camera angles that mean what you're seeing and what your opponent are seeing never quite synchronise. The latter most often expressed in killcam watching that sees your character bounding into frame and taking hits, following a confrontation were you never even saw a pixel of your assassin. Balance wise, scorestreaks are heavily weighted towards the end of matches, when the dune snipers have finally amassed enough points to unleash Huey helicopters, meaning otherwise sedate games can become meat grinders in their dying seconds. Still the classic run-and-gun gameplay is obviously there and, thankfully, weighted towards players who seek confrontation rather than vertical power positions.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - SCAVENGE

Still plugging away at Call of Duty: Warzone when I can. After a couple of weeks spent banging my head against the wall playing opposite PC players who, I'm sure, have acquired their tremor-free gunfire and impeccable situational skills through heavy lifting (rather than, say, running cheat scripts), I decided to limit matchmaking to PS4 only. Immediately seeing a lot less clairvoyance, it has to be said. Click the video above for a particularly hot post-Gulag drop.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - HEAVILY MEDICATED

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's basic multiplayer hasn't really clicked with me. Although it hasn't particularly stopped me playing, I haven't enjoyed that lobbies revolve around a matchmaking algorithm that seems to want players to feel like they're constantly underachieving. If, like me, you labour under delusions of adequacy, the constant fight to keep a neutral kill to death ratio saps the fun out of the game. Which is why I'm probably enjoying Warzone so much. Instead of three-lane maps stacked with nesting opportunities, the massive battle royale map allows players to move around in ways that pleasantly mix cautious creeping with explosive, momentary, daring.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - GULAG

Menu turnaround can be pretty brutal in battle royale games. One poorly judged landing spot and you can be bounced out of a game as quickly as you arrived. With this in mind, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's Warzone modes have introduced a nifty safety net feature - The Gulag. After your eliminated for the first time, rather than be dumped straight to a results menu, Warzone plays a short cutscene that sees your player character dragged off to a Soviet era prison (with an interior modelled after The Rock's shower room shoot-out) for a short, twitchy chance to battle your way back to the main game.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - WARZONE

Out today is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's battle royale mode / free-to-play launcher, Warzone. Despite a truly titanic download - especially if you haven't forked out for the full game - I managed to squeeze a game in before bed, choking it up in the final circle. Like Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII's Blackout mode, Warzone manages (despite an absolutely enormous playing area) to retain the snappy, run-and-gun feel that made the franchise's name.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - SHOOTERS IN THE SHOOT HOUSE

It's been around for a week or so now, but here's my first game on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's freebie map Shoot House. Compared to the arenas that shipped with the game, Shoot House is snappy, barely allowing players the space or time to hunker down in some dark, foreboding corner and wait for foot traffic. While I'm very aware that the PS4's capture feature can never fully represent the actual calculations and results generated by this kind of online game, it's nice to know it can snatch footage of the general weirdness players encounter. 09:10 in this clip is a good example of the strange anti-auto aim I sometimes come across in Call of Duty games. Rather than allow you to track with an enemy character, you feel like you're constantly correcting an effort to force your aim off your target. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - THE META

Caution is the name of the game in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Ideally, you want to position your in-game character against a peekaboo surface with claymores at your back, guarding you from ambush. Even better if you can post up in a pitch black room, overlooking high traffic movement channels. Running about is discouraged - levels are a nightmare of distracting details and long, overlapping sight-lines; meaning the slightest movement could leave you hopelessly imperilled. Unfortunately, I don't have the patience for any of that shit, so I'm just loading up with whichever weapons are currently tanking the meta.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - GROUND WARRING

It's the second weekend of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare beta, time for Infinity Ward to serve up their take on Battlefield's Conquest mode. Ground War has graduated from everyone's favourite, overstuffed kill-streak chaser to, well, pretty much the exact same thing, only with a larger play area and more capture points-cum-hot spots. Time-to-kill remains unaltered (so short), there are no new revival mechanics, and player counts are pretty high for the map size, meaning the mode is a meat grinder. Stability is out the window too, with my Pro kicking me out to menus mid-match or even, in one instance, core dumping. God help those stuck on a Base system. If Call of Duty's USP is total mayhem, then Ground War adds a whole new layer of pandemonium.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - Still BETA TESTING

One last clip before the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare beta becomes a dead boot, hogging valuable space on the HDD. Since this game is pitching itself as more of a tactical shooter, I decided to play tactically; holding down a nice set of stairs that were, apparently, of great interest to the enemy team. It's a shame that FAMAS could not be used outside of the default class set-ups. Still it was good to have Le Clairon back in any form - filling the same precise, burst-fire niche that made it a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 fav.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - BETA TESTING

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's beta test has been running this weekend. First for people who had pre-ordered the game then, when all the big spenders had suitably levelled up, the preview event was opened up for myself and all the other cheapskates. In terms of gameplay, it pays to sneak around or plant yourself somewhere with lots of cover. Interiors are extremely dark when viewed at distance, meaning window camping is a frequent tactic. I myself am having a little trouble adjusting how I aim the guns, bad habits mainly. I tend to start firing before I'm properly zeroed in then adjust along the subsequent kick. Given this game's negligible health, short time-to-kill, and wild (possibly largely cosmetic) recoil, this is an absolutely awful approach to gunfights.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - 2 UP 2 DOWN

A slow start on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's new Gunfight mode but I get there in the end. The decision to preview Infinity Ward's big money reboot with this small, stop-start, cage match style mode is unusual. Rather than prowl around looking for backs to ventilate, players are immediately confronted with short but intense bouts where victory hinges on their ability to read their opponents then react accordingly. In this way it is somewhat similar to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout mode - death as a real, meaningful loss condition rather than just a minor setback on your path to scoring sky-filling killstreaks.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - SNAP-TO

Jackfrags with a snappy gameplay clip for Infinity Ward's upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Mr Frags' approach to games-casting is a little different in that he takes some time to focus on options browsing and mechanical interaction. For instance, if this video is indicative of final gameplay balance, then at least some gun recoil is superficial - animation traits and ostentation designed to evoke a sense of reality rather than offer a true representation of the path you can expect your in-game bullets to follow.