For gamers, our festive celebrations typically begin a month earlier, as developers release an abundance of new games within an exciting, yet albeit frustratingly short period of time. This November events are certainly no different, as Activision and Microsoft Studios unveil two of the biggest and most anticipated titles of the year; Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Halo: The Master Chief Collection. It's a good time to be a gamer.
Within Advanced Warfare, loyal fans of the franchise will witness what is arguably the largest overhaul of any first person shooter to date, as Sledgehammer Games implement the revolutionary exo-movement into the campaign as well as multiplayer. With the new mechanics, maps have been designed with an unfamiliar element of "verticality", meaning players will now be able to scale buildings and dash quickly from one place to another, as they harness the potential of their characters exo-skeleton.
Due to this new and innovative form of movement, one can understandably be sceptical of the latest instalment in the Call of Duty franchise and the drastic alterations made within its iconic multiplayer features and game modes. As a result, @MrJonno_95has spent the last week grinding multiplayer in an attempt to gain an insightful, yet early, opinion on how the game plays.
Uplink:
One of the contenders to be a potential competitive mode is Uplink. The aim of the game is to score points by either throwing a ball into the opposition's goal, or jumping directly into the goal itself. If you throw the ball into the goal, you score a single point, however, if you jump into the goal while holding the ball, you score 2 points.
After seeing it in action during the Gfinity Day Zero Cup, the fast and frantic nature of Uplink makes it a very enjoyable game mode to watch. However, for it to become a mode used within CoD eSports a few tweaks would need to be implemented.
For instance, whilst watching and playing the game mode myself, it swiftly became apparent to me that some teams would intentionally throw the ball off the map in order to prevent the opposing team from creating an opportunity to score. As a rule for the future, points should be deducted to the offending team to prevent this scenario benefitting them and therefore making it less likely to occur. As well as this, a spawn delay (2 secs max.) should also be added, to make it easier for players to score without hindering the high speed action.
The Return of Favourites:
At Gamescom, Michael Condrey announced that both Hardpoint and Capture the Flag will be making a welcome return to Call of Duty. With both of these modes being in the competitive rotation in the past, one question that plagued the minds of the community was how would they fit in with the new movement mechanics?
Having played both game modes, I can gladly say that I believe they both hold the potential to make a reappearance within the competitive circuit. Personally, after playing each mode for several hours, I believe the map Detroit epitomises how and why these two modes work well with the added exo-skeleton. For CTF, this map is ideal, as it retains the typical 3 lane map setup with various cut-off points, while in hardpoint the hills are varied in size and still maintain some ability to manipulate spawns.
Could Momentum be a mode for competitive CoD?
For the majority of CoD players, Momentum was known as War from Call of Duty: World at War. The objective of War was to capture the initial neutral flag and then progressively push your opponent further back by securing additional flags deeper in their base.
With its return to AW, the objective remains the same but when your team builds "momentum" you capture the flags at a faster speed. I've played this and it's really fun! However, unfortunately I can' see it becoming a mode for competitive Call of Duty.
The Dream Rotation
With several pro players testing the new features of the game and experimenting with the new modes, what game modes would you choose to be in the competitive rotation? Share your thoughts in the comments below! My personal favourite would be HP, S&D (with exo abilities off), Uplink, CTF and S&D for a game 5.
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Modern Warfare