Let’s start things off with a video to perk your interest, shall we?
[dropcap size=small]I[/dropcap]n the midst of the Advanced Warfare chaos, the Call of Duty franchise has launched a new breed of game in China, and it looks awesome. This adventure is titled Call of Duty: Online and it’s a significant departure from the normal CoD games we’ve come to expect, in all the best ways. CoD: Online plays more like Counter-Strike or Brink (had it been successful).
As the name suggests, the game is entirely online; a mix of Co-Op and standard Multiplayer. Co-Op follows the story of Soap, Ghost, and Price… you’re not reading that wrong. The narrative is entirely new and utilizes everyone’s favorite characters from MW 2. CoDOL brings enough excitement with that announcement alone that it is getting a fair amount of buzz, but the rest of the game stands up as well, with a few minor hiccups.
You can expect the fast-paced gunslinging action the CoD franchise has built it’s name upon. The game really has a CoD feel that some say may have been lost in iterations since Modern Warfare 2. As far as the graphics go, it looks clean, but it’s not the eye-popping visuals current gen equipment is capable of. This scaling back of system requirements was done in the name of mass adoption, nothing new in the industry (see Counter-Strike). While voice acting isn’t stellar, it is serviceable, and other than a few bugs that have been found in the Beta released in China, the game runs well as-is, and is still far from a finished product.
Some new multiplayer aspects CoDOL is introducing is two new game modes called Team Rescue and Team Boss Fight. Team Rescue requires players fight against AI opponents while trying to rescue computer controlled NPC’s. Team Boss Fight pits players together against an alien invasion, similar to zombies, but with a giant spaceship and Alien Boss at the end of the stage, which looks awesome.
Activision and Tencent Studios are in charge of Call of Duty: Online and seem to be doing a fine job with it. While the title is only slated to release in China at this point, I don’t see it out of the realm of possibility that popular demand will bring the game Stateside and the rest of the Western World. We can only hope…
