Postmodern Warfare
Although Infinite Warfare's single-player campaign takes place hundreds of years in the future, its story won't be entirely alien to Call of Duty fans. With the Earth overpopulated and low on resources, humanity has joined together as the United Nations Space Alliance (UNSA) and begun colonizing other worlds. Peace is threatened by the ironically-named Settlement Defense Front (SDF), a sizable group of radicals who seek to eradicate freedom and unite the galaxy under an authoritarian regime.
The first mission begins as your squad of three soldiers dives down from their ship to the icy surface of Europa. The team is tasked with recovering an experimental weapon from a UNSA base and then destroying the facility. Unfortunately, they soon run afoul of the cartoonishly evil Admiral Kotch, played by Kit Harrington (you might recognize him as Jon Snow from Game of Thrones).
For the remainder of the game, you play as UNSA soldier Nick Reyes, who closely resembles a young Scott Bakula. He meets up with Lieutenant Nora Salter ("Salt"), a strong female character, and the lovable E3N ("Ethan"), a newly-developed robotic soldier who Reyes and Salt instantly treat like a fellow soldier — unlike the less-welcoming Staff Sergeant Usef Omar (played by David Harewood, Martian Manhunter on TV's Supergirl).
After the SDF ambushes and wipes out most of the UNSA fleet, Reyes becomes Commander of one of two remaining UNSA ships. A few missions in, our protagonist gains the ability to pick missions from a map of the solar system. Players can take on a variety of side missions, eliminating "Most Wanted" members of the SDF and unlocking permanent upgrades for Reyes and his Jackal fighter ship.
Piloting the Jackal as part of larger missions or Jackal-specific side missions do much to keep this installment feeling fresh. You generally fly around a space or land-based environment, taking out small fighters or larger ships with guns and missiles. It's fun and intuitive, although a better indicator of out-of-sight enemies would reduce the need to spin around, scanning for evasive targets. Jackal missions aren't too hard even on Veteran difficulty – a smart move, given that FPS fans aren't necessarily experienced fighter pilots.
The campaign is filled with beautiful sci-fi landscapes like the icy surface of Europa, decimated colonies that closely resemble modern cities, and numerous ship interiors. Along with numerous impressive set pieces, one of the more memorable missions has players sneaking into an SDF ship during a big meeting, turning off life support, and then fighting the remaining soldiers to escape. Space-suit missions in which you grapple around ship hulls and debris (complete with satisfying 1-hit grappling hook kills) also provide welcome breaks from running and gunning.
My only complaint about the campaign is that the SDF are too absurdly evil. They truly want nothing more than to eradicate freedom from the solar system. Real-life evil leaders and governments seek to amass wealth for the ruling elite, distract the population from their problems with scapegoats, and eliminate or demonize groups different from themselves. Infinite Warfare's narrative would have a greater impact if the villains had recognizably human motivations.
Competitive Multiplayer
Infinite Warfare provides two distinct multiplayer modes: competitive Multiplayer and cooperative Zombies. Both support 2-player split-screen, and split-screen players can join online games.
This year's multiplayer mode is closest to that of Black Ops III, with players able to wall run (but only in specific locations), double jump, and slide around at will. The actual pace has been slowed down slightly, making it more approachable.
Players still die with just one or two shots for the most part, so firefights often come down to which person sees the other first. Scorestreaks remain an inherently imbalanced mechanic, rewarding the player who is doing best anyway and making it harder for struggling players to catch up. But admittedly, it feels good when you get to unleash one yourself.
Taking advantage of the science fiction setting, the customizable Specialists of Black Ops III have become Combat Rigs. Each of the six rigs has inherent strengths and traits (persistent perks), making some better suited to varying situations and combat distances. Rigs unlock as you gain multiplayer levels, so it takes quite a while to have them all at your disposal. Casual fans won't feel too disadvantaged with the standard Warfighter rig, at least.
Even as a novice, I enjoyed Infinite Warfare's multiplayer mode – especially the Gun Game mode in which your weapon changes with every kill. But I've experienced two problems so far: spawn killing happens too often, and sometimes the game won't allow friends to join each other (which hasn't been a problem in this year's other big shooters). Infinity Ward patches the game frequently, so hopefully these issues will be addressed before long.
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