Exo-llent

Advanced Warfare has gone to great lengths to reinvigorate Call of Duty. From the unsettling vision of powerful mercenaries run amok in 2054 America, to the cybernetically enhanced abilities, to the touch of a whole new lead development team at Sledgehammer Games, this iteration is the biggest and most successful departure from what's expected from a Call of Duty game since Modern Warfare brought the series into the 21st century. Advanced Warfare definitely hasn’t discarded the excellent, fast-paced run-and-gun shooting that made Call of Duty a household name; instead, it’s taken that strength and committed itself completely to the idea that mobility and flexibility are king, making it faster and more focused than any Call of Duty game before it.

The topics and themes of Advanced Warfare’s futuristic single-player story are lent a gravity by their reflection of contemporary real-world news: weapons of mass destruction, a dysfunctional Congress, growing private militaries, and American interventionism. It’s delivered with Call of Duty’s typical over-the-top bravado, but there’s a layer of truth beneath it all that’s genuinely scary.

Actors Troy Baker and Kevin Spacey nail their roles as player character Mitchell and Atlas Corporation President Jonathan Irons, respectively. Mitchell is gruff and reserved after a personal loss, but unquestionably dangerous and loyal to those who remain. Irons speaks with unwavering confidence; he’s the kind of charismatic bad guy I can’t help but like. These characters, and the rest of the cast, are brought to life with some of the best character models and facial animations I’ve seen. Pores, hair, and creases in skin are all rendered in great detail, to the point where I knew, just by seeing how a character’s face displayed shock and horror, that bad news was coming.

Those faces, as well as everything else, are far less detailed on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 than on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Lighting is flatter and textures are less defined, and I didn't get the same "wow" impact out of Advanced Warfare's excellent looking weapons, environments, and characters on those platforms. More importantly, though, movement and shooting feel just as fast and fluid on old-gen consoles as they do on modern machines.

The biggest hindrance to Advanced Warfare’s story is the way it fails to establish its characters’ human relationships. For instance, the earliest interaction we see is Mitchell and a fellow Marine; we’re told the two are inseparable brothers in arms who’ve served together for months, but some of their conversations seem as though they’ve just met, and come off as artificial exposition. The same thing happens when Irons gives Mitchell a tour of Atlas headquarters -- there’s no way Mitchell wouldn’t already know all about the world’s biggest mercenary army. And, like most Call of Duty campaigns, this one ends about six hours later with a confusing, cheesy moment that doesn’t quite tie off Advanced Warfare’s story threads.

Between those story bookends, Advanced Warfare admirably takes some risks with how its campaign plays, and on nearly all fronts, it succeeds. This is still a Call of Duty game, which means you can expect a handful of the tired, stereotypical missions where the guy in front of you has a big “follow me” symbol above his head. Most level designs are as tightly linear as they’ve ever been, however almost all come with a unique gadget that changes how you take on the somewhat repetitive human and drone enemies and keeps them feeling fresh. If you’re given a sonic emitter to stun enemies, you’ll be able to take on larger groups. If you’re given a grappling hook, you can play cat and mouse by darting around corners and on rooftops. One level lets you drive a hover tank, and one level takes place beneath a crumbling glacier.

A few powerful missions open up and give you some real freedom in a way that’ll surprise Call of Duty campaign veterans. In Advanced Warfare’s stealth level, for example, I grappled onto ledges, sneaked through bushes, and scouted to find unguarded paths through heavily patrolled areas. The stealth mechanics are just nuanced enough to be tough, but not so finicky that I didn’t know know why I’d failed. For once, Call of Duty made me feel like a badass without needing to blow anything up. Its main failing is that being spotted causes an automatic trip back to your checkpoint, because Call of Duty doesn’t know how to handle a transition from stealth to combat.

What’s truly impressive, though, is how Advanced Warfare occasionally pulls off what would have been a barely interactive action set piece moment in a previous game. In one level a massive airship flew into combat and fired down on me. Without a hint of a quick-time event prompt, I grappled onto a nearby building, leapt off, hooked myself into the ship, killed everyone on board, then bailed out to safety as the airship crashed. I came up with that plan, and executing it felt great. When I learned I could’ve simply shot the gunship down from the ground instead, it felt even better.

Your arsenal is impressive, too, with a variety of mostly typical but great-sounding weapons, grenades, and, gadgets to get the job done. A few stand out, like the Threat Grenades that highlight enemies through walls, directed energy weapons (or “lasers,” if you will) that burn through armor, and a wide variety of weapon attachments that can turn your conventional shotgun into a fast-firing monster of death.

The one design decision seemingly made in the name of variety that I felt harmed my enjoyment of Advanced Warfare is that we don’t get access to the full range of Exo movement abilities in every campaign level. You won’t always be able to zip around freely whenever you want, and sometimes your speed is sacrificed for other gadgets. Though they’re all fun and useful in different ways, but having a liberating mobility power taken away feels crippling.

The Exo suit is the kind of change I was looking for in Call of Duty multiplayer. It’s intuitive, fun, and it affects everything you do.

From the first moments I was boosting and dodging in firefights to make myself a harder target. After just a few matches, I started using my mobility to my advantage before the next fight even started. If I saw a ledge, roof, or open window, I knew I could probably leap to it quickly and get the jump on enemies below. If someone started shooting me first, I was able to “creatively retreat” in ways that weren’t possible in a Call of Duty game until now. And that’s just in the context of killing. Modes like Capture the Flag feel way more intense now that the carrier can boost 40 feet in the air and disappear with a flash. I felt like I had to be on top of my game, and when I scored a kill, it felt hard-earned and well deserved.

My first hours were filled with satisfying new experiences as I augmented my old tactics with new abilities. Is a fortified sniper taking shots at you from across the map? Take a safe approach toward it and just use your dash to pass through the open areas with minimal risk. Does your shotgun have crazy power but no range? Boost up into an opponent’s face before pulling the trigger.

Suits also come with power slots on top of their innate boost and dash abilities in which you can equip invisibility, enhanced speed, a health boost, a grenade deflector, and more. They’re all fun and useful in different ways, but I often found myself never using the powers that took a second to activate. When you take a fast shooter and make it even faster, that second is the difference between life and death. The powers often felt like they were going to waste. However, since the Exo is an excellent multi-purpose tool, I can’t wait to see how some of the best Call of Duty players will use it.

Since Modern Warfare, Call of Duty has excelled at giving you rewards to earn in multiplayer. Advanced Warfare follows that tradition, but greatly accelerates the pace. I quickly earned supply drops full of cosmetic items, new weapons, and temporary perks, like a double XP boost. Finding a gun I liked was great; finding another version of that gun with better stats and a cool weapon skin is even better. There are also more attachments than ever before, and each one I unlocked did distinct things that changed how I played. One weapon sight highlights enemies through walls, essentially enabling a wall hack. These unlocks complement the traditional XP system and challenges for each specific weapon, which offer new camo patterns as you score more kills and headshots. Despite the wealth of items and skins to earn, it never feels overwhelming, and I never felt compelled to use anything I didn’t want to.

The Pick 13 system, which expands on Black Ops 2’s Pick 10, gave me all the flexibility I could ask for. For example: lots of people aren’t good enough to make use of some of the higher-level kills streaks, so why have them? Just get rid of the streak option all together, and use that extra slot to give your primary weapon an extra attachment or a second perk. “Play how you want” isn’t just an ideal; it’s baked into Advanced Warfare at a fundamental level.

One of my favorite new features complements the constant stream of unlocked weapons, perks, and cosmetic items. From the lobby, one button drops you into a virtual firing range where you can safely test your new gear without fear of learning the weaknesses of a new loadout the hard way. It’s convenient and extremely useful, and it should absolutely become standard in any loadout-based multiplayer shooter from here on out.

The new collection of maps and modes make great use of the Exo suit by enabling vertical movement. Most maps have a mixture of wide-open areas where Exo movements are useful, and close-quarters areas that enable more traditional Call of Duty action. Modes like Uplink and CTF benefit from the hectic, fast-paced Exo movements, and others, like the one-life-only Search and Destroy, rein you back and make you question jumping around wildly. I was constantly shifting between totally free motion and the careful “check your corners” style I’ve used for years, which was demanding but ensured I never felt safe simply falling into my old Call of Duty habits.

If you’re rusty, you can jump into the Combat Readiness Program before trying out true multiplayer. It’s a noob-friendly environment where there are no kill cams, no post-game scoreboards, and a mixture of nameless bots and players. Anyone who racks up too high a body count gets locked out to avoid discouraging new players, making it a much more casual-friendly zone where you can kick back and enjoy yourself without pressure.

The third mode in Advanced Warfare is a wave-based cooperative mode called “Exo Survival,” where the fun comes from never knowing what’s going to happen next. One moment you’re fighting attack dogs, then you’re collecting intel, then you’re fending off giant robots, then you’re shooting invisible enemies. It’s a nice mixture of defensive and offensive objectives, and working together with up to three friends and picking complementary Exos is crucial as the waves become more difficult. The difficulty doesn’t ramp up quite as quickly as it should, though, so after you spend your unlock points on upgraded suits and weapons within a round, you’ll do a fair bit of waiting for the challenge to kick in.