Day 320, Game 320 - Call of DUTY: Ghosts

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"[BLEEP] you and your stupid dog, [BLEEP]!!!"

This is how my thirteen year old son and I were welcomed to the fabulous online community after our first match we played together. Oh, Call of Duty ... how I missed you and your ignorant, childish, bigoted and bullying ways. Or not. 

One of the several games I picked up for my PlayStation 4 on launch was Call of Duty: Ghosts. I was going back and forth on which system to pick it up for, either the PS4 or the upcoming Xbox One, or whether I was even going to get it at all. For some reason, however, I really wanted to play it, after skipping out on the last couple of Call of Duty games. Yeah, I had bought them for my son, but I have't spent very much time at all with the series in a few years, and quite frankly, that itch was back. 

So on a whim, and because my buddy James was getting it for the PS4, I decided to pull the trigger and go for it. Did I want to play it for the single player campaign, the new extinction mode, or for online multiplayer? Well, you'll be pleasantly surprised to find out that I actually did get the game for the multiplayer mode, because it's Call of Duty - why else would I want to play it?

Okay, to be fair, I actually do want to play the single player campaign, mainly so I can play the mission in space. But for the most part, the multiplayer mode was calling me. And with my son over for the weekend, who has been playing Ghosts on the 360 since I bought it for him when it first came out a few weeks ago, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to jump in and experience the definitive version of the game first hand. 

Sorry, Microsoft fans, but the PS4 does boast true 1080p for Ghosts, while the X1 only has 720 scaled up to 1080. In reality, this doesn't really matter that much at all, and you could only really tell if you had both versions running side-by-side simultaneously, or so I here. For the normal gamer who isn't looking to find minor flaws in things, it's all the same. 

Playing the game, I ran into the same problems I always do when I jump into a new Call of Duty, or any multiplayer FPS for that matter. I have no knowledge of the maps when I start, and I spend most of the match running around like a maniac, spending more time trying to figure out the lay of the land and my way around then actually killing people and participating in the team activity. For what it's worth, I'm just not that good at these types of games, and usually end up on the losing team because my kill/death ratio is horrendous. Every once in a while I'll accidentally have a good match, but it's more of a fluke than anything. I always have fun playing though, despite my shortcomings on the battlefield, and that's what's important. 

My boy, on the other hand, is awesome. Of course, these are the only type of games he really plays, but still, he is good at them. He knows all the weapons, all the maps and best places to rack up the kills, and best load outs for the maps. Watching him play is really cool, but playing along side him is fun and frustrating at the same time. I mean, he's 13 and I'm almost 30, and have been playing video games for twice as long as he has been alive. I shouldn't be relying on him to give me advice on playing a game!

Well, long story short, during our first match, he was talking about the guard dogs in the game, and how much he liked using them. He was talking with excitement and youthful joy in his voice. I didn't think about it before hand, but with my PS4 Camera that I had set up, it was acting as a microphone as well, thus picking up our conversation the whole match. My daughter was even singing the song "Radioactive" throughout the apartment, as she listened to it on my iPad, so I'm assuming everyone heard that as well. And honestly, I don't care, because that's why they include the option to mute people you don't want to listen to. 

So because of my son going on about the dogs, it apparently rubbed someone else in the game the wrong way, and he felt the need to go on a profanity-laced tirade after the match. Was he mad we lost? Was he mad that a 13 year old was the top scorer of the team anyway? Was he just annoyed by the talk of how cool the guard dogs are coupled with a five year old girl singing "Radioactive" in the background? Who knows, and I certainly never will find out. 

But one thing's for certain. I didn't really miss the online multiplayer community of Call of Duty at all. 

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