Every year I'm interested in picking up Call of Duty, and every year, for one reason or another, I do. I have to admit, though, my purchases usually go toward the games' single player story. Call me a sucker, sure, but I enjoy CoD's lavish set pieces and over-the-top action.
If there is one mode I dread to play, it's the multiplayer. Year after year, I constantly get wrecked, and while there are outlier games where I perform unreliastically well, those are very few and far between. Competitive FPS just isn't really my thing. It's why I didn't really participate in the Crucible in Destiny, and it's usually why I play very little of it in Call of Duty. Aside from just not being very good at multiplayer, I generally don't like the toxic players that spawn from it. Being called racial slurs by a raging 12-year-old doesn't isnt' a good time. But that all changed with Advanced Warfare.
Hiding away in the game's multiplayer menu is an option called Combat Readiness Program, a multiplayer mode that allows players, like myself, who aren't confident in their skills to hone them without the toxicity usually found during real online matches. There are a few things this mode does right, which make it accessible for players like me.
Here are a few key features of the Combat Readiness Program:
- Gamertags or PSN IDs are not shown, and everyone is marked as either Friendly or Enemy
- Voice Chat is disabled, making sure no one's dropping F-bombs because you just died five times in a row
- The game gets populated with a hybrid of players and bots, allowing those players to not only practice against fellow players, but also rack up some killstreaks that might have otherwise been unattainable at their skill level.
- Loadouts are aptly named like 'Run and Gun' and don't allow any sort of customization, not bogging down players in any unnecessary downtime
- The score cards at the end of the match don't tell you how many players or bots you've killed, nor how much you died
While many might look at this mode as baby-ing players too much, keep in mind it's not meant to be a mode where players stay forever. It's a mode that will allow players to get used to the different loadouts and the general controls.
So what's stopping CoD veterans from going into the Combat Readiness Program and stomping poor unsuspecting players? Well, nothing really. Except that CRP doesn't have any sort of leveling process, or any unlocks whatsoever. Hardcore CoD players will likely want to stick with their standard multiplayer modes since it offers advancement as well as new weapons and equipment to customize their character with. They'd essentially be wasting their time with CRP, not to mention making the learning process for new players a nightmare.
I have to praise Sledgehammer Games for including a mode like this. It ensures that even players like me, who might not have what it takes to go up against the pro 12-year-olds who spend their days and nights honing their skills, can still find solace in a mode that will not only allow me to get better over time, but also provide an environment that does away with all the toxicity usually found in games like this.
While we're still working on our official review of the game, I wanted to share my personal favorite feature of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
