Call of Duty®: Vanguard (PS5) (Exclusive to Amazon.co.uk)

Call of Duty Vanguard is in my opinion the prime example of a game that should be classed as a ‘diamond in the rough’.

So the yearly drop comes and we’ve been fished out a World War II title by Sledgehammer and co, the final product that CoDWWII ended up being is again in my opinion one of the better Call of Duty titles.

The campaign is the usual mash up of stealth and action based levels with very little innovation or effort really directed towards really bringing out a nice juicy story or developing characters for you to get to know. This being the attempt AT doing exactly that according to the creators as CoD has no memorable characters apparently.? Really? Soap and Price would like a word.

The levels are well detailed and so are the guns, the graphics possibly being the best Call of Duty has had to date for the most part, though I still hand it to MW19 for weapon aesthetics and sounds.
The characters posses unique abilities, none are overly interesting or feel fun to use, rather a mechanic that is simply there to flesh it out a bit.

Polinka (the Russian sniper) arguably sports the more fun missions as you get to scale roof tops and the such, it feels more personal, than the rest at least.

But let’s be honest, you’re probably reading this for the multiplayer.
So far I’ve got to admit Multiplayer is where the fun is at, don’t fall for the usual band wagon hate, it’s a good laugh and the movement, weapon mechanics all feel great. TTK (time to kill) is quick, so take that for your own decision.
Maps are plentiful and I have to say I enjoy all of them to different degrees.

Plenty of guns to level and attachments to unlock – though I strongly believe the attachments themselves could have done with a bit more though and customisation to playstyle, beyond a certain point all you’re unlocking is new sights for a gun. This is World War II era for crying out loud.

Touching on this – if you’re after any form of authenticity, can’t stand the idea of CoD chucking some red dot sights on WWII guns, then this probably isn’t the title for youbut as above, I’m having a lot of fun, the pace per match is brilliant.

Usual CoD pass is back, as expected, MVP at the end of the match picks three players who excelled at certain feats, you can vote who is the ‘true’
MVP though in my experience most just vote for the most multikills.

SBMM isn’t to aggressive in my experience and for the vast majority I bought it because I enjoy CoD Multiplayer, as much as I hate to admit it, this stale old formula I’ve been playing since CoD4 is still as addictive to me because simply put.no one else offers it.

Zombies is a bit of a mixed bag at the minute, I’m not a huge zombies nut, thoroughly enjoyed Outbreak and Cold Wars iteration though. This one takes your usual zombies round based combat, with perks that can be upgraded and pack a punch, then chucks the outbreak style, defend, collect and so on. Rinse repeat to earn dosh, upgrade, zap hordes of zombies with a laser gun. What’s not to love?

So take it for what it’s worth and make your own decision, do I think it’s worth 60? For me yes as I’ll be playing it till the next drop, the hours per quid just make sense to me.

TLDR
So why 8/10? Why diamond in the rough?
With some good patching and buffs/nerfs I can’t see why this wouldn’t be a solid title, it’s fun, hectic and offers a nice solid CoD paced multiplayer. It’s changed a few things here and there, but ultimately this is a CoD title so don’t expect any real innovation – expect a season pass, because it’s got one.

Great story-telling and characterisation in campaign mode. Beats the pants off Battlefield 2042

I had no intention of buying COD this year as Cold War was poor in my opinion but when I learnt it was WWII based I was willing to give it a try. I’m really glad I did! It feels like a good old classic Call of Duty game. Lots of maps which are mostly up to standard and visually the game is fantastic especially on next gen. It’s actually fun to play which is the most important thing. Game of the year for me.

Bought this for a Christmas present but I am sure they will love it. Looks really good.
Fast delivery also

I was very hesitant about this one, the multiplayer alpha was pretty awful and the beta not much better, so I waited until very near the release date and decided on the basis of a campaign and zombies I’d give it a go.

I found the campaign really entertaining, the story had a proper start, middle and end. Which with call of duty franchise makes a change, in previous call of duty campaigns especially black ops they’ve tried to get too clever, dream sequences, on drugs, double and triple crosses and even in someone’s head playing an inception like level as the battlefield folds in on its self! It’s nice to play a campaign where you don’t need to Google it afterwards for an explanation. Harked back to world at war a little bit in my opinion.

The campaign I estimate to be about 8-10 hours, I played through on veteran and there were a few challenging moments, graphically it looks stunning on the PS5, load times very quick as well. If you are a trophy hunter there are a handful of challenging trophies, I’m still 3 or 4 away from the platinum – no spoilers though.

As for zombies I quite like it, I think it’s growing on me the more I play. Rather than the previous complex Easter eggs that take hours to complete it has more of a quick play element to it. You can now now collectively agree to evacuate after 5 rounds which can encourage quicker games.

In zombies you start in an area surrounded by different portals, the portal have primarily three different modes – Blitz: time based survival, Harvest: collect certain number of items to complete level and lastly Transport: you guide and object around a map getting points for being close to it, when it reaches destination round ends.

These levels change constantly and will be different after each zombies round, with harvest and transport you can choose not to do the objective for infinite zombies, people do this early on to get more points for weapons upgrades.

After doing the initial ports in the starting area the starting map is opened up and different zombies ranging in difficult will spawn in to the start area after each round. The packer punch is immediately available, perks exposed as you do more portals.

Each perk initially is free and you don’t lose the free one when you go down and get revived, but you can buy each perk four times, these additional purchases can be lost, the quicker you are revived the less you lose like previous zombies games.

You also have operators, some are characters from the campaign, others you just unlock through achievements and battle pass. If you have a favourite weapon try to pick the operator that uses it as a preferred weapon, this grants extra weapon and operator xp if you want to level up quickly.

I can see over time they will add a lot more maps, currently some of the portal levels take you to zombies maps from cod world at war and cod ww2.

Some abilities seen in Cold War zombies are still present in this version too, a shrine like area also provides additional power ups, using hearts you are awarded after each level.

Multiplayer – tried it a few times and honestly I still don’t like it, spawn and get killed seems to be the mantra here, too many try hards with op load outs/weapons at the moment, I’ll try it in a few months when they’ve had chance to patch it and make it more balanced.

Marked down a star for multiplayer, otherwise really enjoying itlet me know if you found this helpful and I’ll update over time as the game gets updated!

Multiplayer is so much fun and I havent played COD for years, Campain and zombies I havent tried but for the multiplayer alone its worth it IMO!

It’s a proper call of duty. A little cartoonish but action packed fun, great maps, great guns, some nice features to make things more rewarding.

I HATE how they have changed it from a “kill” to an elimination though.

I’d recommend