Call of Duty Cold War Beta Review

Hello, hello! Back again at the start of another week. I hope you had a good weekend and that you got some, probably much needed rest. For me, I got the chance to play the early access beta for the new Call of Duty Game: Cold War. Here are my thoughts on it! 

GAMEPLAY

The overall feel of the game play is good. It is head and shoulders above the current instalment of Call of Duty franchise, Modern Warfare. Where Modern Warfare tries to focus on making their game more realistic, it misses the mark by a lot. You're an immortal, elite soldier who has the ability to wield any kind of weapon available, yet can't jump over a wall if it's more than 4 feet tall. And don't even get me started on going prone. In Cold War this isn't a problem. Treyarch, the developers of Cold War, understand that this is just a video game, so being able to mantle over a wall shouldn't have to be a mission every time you want to attempt it. Running around in Cold War feels a lot better as well, as they have gone back to the way of old in just a normal sprint animation. You no longer have to worry about tactical sprinting to get to places now, as the standard sprint is good enough. While I would like it to last a little bit longer, especially on the bigger maps, I still think it is an improvement from the last game. It helps with the overall pace of the game and will hopefully eliminate the need to camp (hide in one spot to kill enemies, very taboo in the COD community) in order to get kills. 

The gunplay is good as well, despite the fact that sniping in this game is probably a little bit too easy. I am a notorious run and gun player, so I have never been good at sniping in any Call of Duty game, but I found it quite easy to get 10-15 kills a game just with a sniper. Other than that, it's good. AR and Sub machine guns feel good in the (virtual) hand. The gunsmith feature has also received a significant upgrade as well, which allows you to really focus on what kind of style you want your gunfights to be. The gunsmith feature is where you can choose differing attachments for your gun of choice, starting at sights and going through ammunition, barrels, body and stocks. What this upgraded feature does is allow you to see exactly what it is upgrading and the pros and cons of said upgrade. For example, it will break down how much higher your accuracy will get if you add a better scope on to your gun, but it will also show you how much it will affect your ADS (aim down sight) speed, your ADS walking speed, your reload speed and so on and so forth. It really is quite in-depth.

Scorestreaks are also something that has been given a new overhaul. In the past, scorestreaks were earned through getting your score up through kills or objectives and allowed you to access a plethora of extra abilities. Things like UAV's (shows enemies position on the mini map), airstrikes, supply drops and attack helicopters. To get these however, they had to be done within the same life. So if you had 4 kills and you needed one more for a supply drop and you died, you would have to start all over again. With Cold War, now you don't have to worry about that, as scorestreaks no longer reset on death. When I first heard that news, I was a bit apprehensive. Did that mean that everyone would just be able to get attack helicopters every game and I would spend it being killed any time I stepped outside? I am pleased to say that isn't the case. The devs have done a fantastic job at balancing of getting the required score with the scorestreaks so it isn't just a bombardment of scorestreaks. It often takes a decent amount of time to get to the more devastating ones, with the more support based scorestreaks happening more regularly, but not so much that it doesn't feel like you haven't really accomplished anything in getting them. Overall, I think the change to scorestreaks has been implemented well and I am excited to see how it is in the regular game.

During the beta, technically three new game modes have been introduced to us, but it's more like two. The reason I say it's only two is that the game mode Combined Arms: Domination, is really just Ground War, which is in Modern Warfare. It's still good if you like the domination game mode as it lasts longer, allowing for better scorestreak unlocks and gun level up. The only difference in Cold War is that the maps for this are smaller than the ones in Modern Warfare. 

The next game that was introduced is Combined Arms: Assault. This game mode I found actually pretty fun. It's basically just a push-em-back mode. You start off trying to capture a centre position and then once one team does that, the next position is back closer to the opposite team's spawn point, and keeps going until you can capture the last location. It can be a long game due to the back and forth captures of locations and more often than not, it goes to overtime, with whoever can capture the middle location first wins. I think this is a nice take on a domination/hardpoint game mode and will probably be a fan favourite in my eyes.

The third game mode that was introduced is VIP Escort. A new twist on the Search and Destroy game mode, it starts off with a random player on one team becoming the VIP. They are given a pistol and and some support items and it is their teams job to escort them safely to one of two extraction points. If the VIP is killed then that round is over, similarly if the VIP is extracted. Players who are attacking or defending have access to their full weapon class minus scorestreaks and must strategize the best way to achieve their objective. If players are killed in this game mode, they go into a down but not out state, which means you just crawl around, hoping your teammates can revive you. If you don't get revived then you are out completely for the rest of the round. It's a nice twist on the Search and Destroy game mode and I think it's going to be a great mode for people like me, who don't really want to play SND because of the slowness of it. VIP Escort allows for us to see some of the mechanics from that game mode but still keep up the pace and gun fights of a regular mode.

GRAPHICS

The game looks great. The early access for the beta has only been on PS4 and I have been playing it on the PS4 Pro and I can't fault the looks for it. I can't imagine what it will look like on the new generation of consoles going off of what we have now. The gameplay engine is smooth and I haven't had a single issue within the beta the entire time, no loss of frames or over saturation of colour. What was also good is the ability to change the FOV (field of view) with a dedicated slider. Usually only a PC function, it has been brought to consoles and I didn't have any issues with it. Treyarch themselves have said that it could affect frame rate but I didn't notice anything, even when maxing out the FOV to 120. It really is a testament to the developers in how good this game looks and how much extra stuff they have implemented into the PS4 and not just waited until the next gen consoles.

FINAL STATMENTS

Overall, I think the first round of the beta has gone great. The game plays great and it has shown that it can be a great game for its release. The next test they'll have is the open beta starting on the 15th in the states (so the 16th for us in Australia) where players on Xbox and PC will be able to play as well. It'll be interesting to see how the crossplay matchups work and how well the game will be optimised for those platforms, especially on PC as that is what the 2021 season of the Call of Duty League will be played on. For now, if you're a fan of Call of Duty, then definitely give the beta a download as it's free and check it out. If you have gone away from Call of Duty in the last few years, I would highly recommend jumping back into the action and checking out the newest instalment! Call of Duty: Cold War will be fully released November 13th.