Recent reviews by CheckForAPulse_

Not the greatest in the series but it's honestly not that bad. Luckily i never really tran into any performance issues as even some friends i know with more powerful PC's than mine did.

There's a few kinda woke sidequest story lines in the game, but there's also a few that are intentionally written that way to poke a bit of fun at some of them too so kinda balances out.

Main story isn't the greatest, but does the job, characters are okay but i still feel like the original and second were worlds above this.

Definitely more playable than the last few.

Footsteps can be kind of annoying due to the volume being kind of inconsistent, but all in all this is definitely one i've enjoyed more out of the last 5-6 titles probably

Well optimised, fun if you enjoy the gameplay loop.

Pretty awesome level design, music and story are kinda cool.

I like it.

These guys seem to put a lot of work into improving the game and fixing bugs/introducing new things. One of the few early access games that still continuously gets improvement instead of being updated for a few months until they've made a bit of cash then leave it to die.

Seems a bit like they try to lure you in with a story, which was kind of boring so far and then attempt to empty your wallet. Stamina to change map or 20+ minute waits etc, 1 stamina per hour with a cap etc, typical mobile game type stuff.

Games with money grabbing micros like these need to stop popping on PC its getting super annoying, but i guess they keep appearing because people do pay for things.

If you enjoyed Titan Quest would recommend, is similar but i enjoy the darker grittier world a bit more.

The skills and classes feel well thought out and the new combat system is nice.

Just to point out. The half an hour is only so i could post the review, though I've played through the single player on PS4 and it wasnt bad, its the first that i've bothered to finish since cod4, but I feel that I have more than enough hours logged in multi between the two consoles to post the review.

I really wanted to like this game, and tried so hard not to hate on it after ghosts. I felt that sledgehammer would bring something new to the table and feel they tried as hard as they could to rrevive the series after the failure of ghosts. Personally, I believe that a lot of the really rubbish implementations/design flaws (like the tuning of the lag compensation and fact there is no numeric ping values) would have been imposed on the developers by Activision rather than the developers themselves making such poor decisions.

I honestly tried so hard not to be negative about this game and had an open mind in regards to this title since its their first title in the new 3-year cycle, but after uninstalling around 4-5 days after release due to how rubbish it was, recently reinstalling after the couple of patches and still experiencing most of the same issues and the horrendous lag, this is beyond a joke for a AAA title which nets the kind of profits this series does.

My MAIN issues with this game and why I personally wouldn't recommend it to anybody are as follows;

• Firstly, the lag compensation is still brutally punishing (similar to he past few titles which it's so brutal you seem to be punished for having a decent wired connection) and this turns any firefight into nothing more than a coin toss for who gets hit registration rather than being based on skill/weapon/positioning. It feels more like the lag compensation is tuned for and catered to consoles connected via wifi with 150-200ms pings rather than a wired connection (on both the playstation and PC versions).
  
  
• Toughness is STILL a must have perk in this game, even though the developers said it wouldnt be. It's absurd at the difference it makes to the flinch when you are hit with/without it. The hand holding needs to be toned right down or just removed, the game would be much more enjoyable if idiotic perks like this weren't in-game at all.
  
  
• There is no numerical ping values, which make it nearly impossible to tell whether the weak link is your own personal connection or whether it's just a messed up host. While having the ping bars back is a step up from ghosts (which had them removed in a blatant and extremely foolish attempt to hide the fact it lagged ridiculously bad) the ping bars are still incredibly inaccurate at best and don't indicate any real kind of connection quality whatsoever.
  
  Some lobbies which I've only had 2-3 bars for the whole round generally feel like they have much more consistent hit detection than most of the lobbies which I've had solid 4-bar connections (some of which I've experienced rubber-banding and having people teleport all over the place).
  
  I can NOT understand why any developer would remove or attempt to change a simple, highly functional and (fairly) essential tool in online gaming, especially one which has been pretty much standard for ~20 years. Ping bars are absolute rubbish and dont really indicate anything, especially when there's no mention of what the intervals are set, at so for all we know it could be 100-150ms per bar. I would bet on this being a decision handed down straight from Activision themselves, but it's a rubbish one.
  
  
• In addition to my last point, I refuse to believe there are dedicated servers (at least in my country/area anyway) due to the consistently poor connection quality, even a terrible dedicated server wouldn't perform as badly as most of the lobbies i've been connected stuck in. Until there's actual verifiable evidence of their existance outside of the US I refuse to believe they were implemented.
  
  
• A lot of the weapon classes don't really feel like they have a purpose in-game. They don't feel like they have their own strengths and weaknesses which make them far more effective than the others in the right situations in this game (I've felt this has been a trend since post mw2 and the MLG scene began to influence heavily). The SMGs outclass pretty much everything in most CoD games post MW2, especially when you factor in the mobility and reload times rather than just damage outputs alone, if it weren't true people wouldn't gravitate to them like they do in every release.
  
  
• In addition to my last point, the hipfire spread is far too tight and makes hipfire FAR too viable at range. Hipfire should really only be effective as a last resort and getting lucky hits or at close range.
  
  
• The engine still feels extremely dated and regardless of how much they change it and try to dress it up, it was still originally made back in the days of dial up. Perhaps its time to actually re-invest some of those enormous profits into making a new purpose built engine and focusing on gameplay before graphics/gimmicks, or porting to a different engine (like the unreal engine?) which is more current. No matter how hard they try to hide it, the engine is dated and it definitely shows. New graphics and sound components on a dated engine that doesn't play well to begin with doesn't make for an enjoyable experience AT ALL.
  
  People still shoot out of their eyeballs, headglitching still exists and no the maps are cluttered with crap to make this a highly effective cheap tactic. The delay between the player camera and their model moving is also still present. They're all flaws with no potential to be rectified while they continue to use this same hacked up iD Tech engine and no amount of rebranding will change this.
  
  Also while on this note, in the past ~6 years, the engine should have become more refined and less buggy rather than more noticably broken, no?
  
  
• While the exo suit is a good idea in theory, the double jump feels a bit excessive and removes the ability to play tactically. It also changes the flow of the maps, and not for the better IMO. Every time I play, I'm endlessly being shot in the back by people jumping over any obstacle in the maps with ease. It also seems common practice for people to just start mashing the jump button as soon as they see another player, double jumping while spraying and praying, all while the host tosses a coin to decide whos hit detection works until someone finally gets a kill.
  
  The double jump is also so high theres very few things you cant get onto or over in a single leap, also there's no cooldown (even though there is with other exo abilities e.g exo dash). This whole mechanic could have been implemented FAR better if jumping high objects (buildings etc) took a couple of well placed jumps and a little bit of platforming, or a cooldown on the use of the ability, perhaps both.
  
  
• The climbing animation is pretty messed up and generally leads to deaths. When you jump at about waist height it plays a few frames of you falling to the ground and then you're instantly running on top. It's a bit offputting and is really clunky.

Honestly the CoD series is picking up momentum while it snowballs out of control on a downhill spiral, mostly due to a lot of foolish, counter-productive and player unfriendly design ideas/implementations most likely imposed on the developers by the publisher. It's not even 2 months post-release and it's already been on steam on sale for -50% off, this clearly shows the sales are lacking and they are in serious damage control.

I refuse to believe any developer would/could be happy with the final product in regards to the last few iterations of this series and until the community are genuinely listened to the primary focus is on gameplay rather than graphics/sound/marketing gimmicks this series doesn't deserve money from anyone.