Advanced Warfare, Advanced Storytelling

Editor's Note: Activision hosted a review event for this game and provided lodging, transportation, and food for the event.  This review is based on playing the game at the event and then a some multiplayer with the final retail version of the game.

"It's that time of year again," I hear a lot of people saying. Some with a snicker and others with enthusiasm. But no matter which way you look at it another Call of Duty has dropped and the franchise continues its annual trend of splitting opinion and offering a home for the corridor shooter heroes...

With a strong campaign and multiplayer that rejuvenates the fun of a tiring formula, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is everything Ghosts should have been. Made with the now current-gen consoles in mind, it's technically much more sound, with a campaign and characters that are actually interesting,...

+ Campaign is interesting; + Kevin Spacey; + Exo movement; + Pick 13 system; + Amazing sound

+ Some level design issues; + Co-op isn't anything special

The moment I realised that Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was still a Call of Duty game at its core came when I opened a Supply Drop to find a pair of pants. That's right, a single pair of pants to customise my character with.

"Ideas don't determine who's right," says Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare 's Jonathan Irons, in defense of his ruthless, genocidal solution to war. "Power does." But while it's true that simply throwing vast budgets at a first-person shooter can make it commercially, if not critically, successful...

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare continues the series' tradition of a campaign filled with fast-paced, over-the-top encounters along with a customization-heavy multiplayer component, but some of the changes feel like a step back.

Glad I ordered this only to get the "standard edition" way to go amazon next payday i have to go get my son a $15 playstation card so he can have the dlc that was supposed to be included with the "gold edition"

The multiplayer maps need work, but otherwise this is the best Call Of Duty game in years.

The audacity; promoting extravagance over seriousness; Multiplayer is exhaustive; with modes to satisfy everyone

Visuals; while nice; don't live up to the new-gen benchmark; Maps lack diversity and make it difficult for online snipers

…Or not. As the case may be with Advanced Warfare. There are two ways to look at Activision's (and Sledgehammer's) latest Call of Duty. They either know that the series needed a bit of a facelift and something different to the usual, or it has seen Titanfall and wanted some of that action.