GZ Roundtable: Are you excited for Call of Duty: Ghosts?

Last week, Activision's worst-kept secret, Call of Duty: Ghosts, was finally announced. The game won't officially be revealed until Microsoft's next Xbox unveiling event on May 21, but who are we kidding? The majority of gamers have already made up their minds about whether or not Call of Duty: Ghosts is a must-buy. We're at the stage where publishers just skip past the gameplay trailers and show a brief live-action trailer before making pre-orders go live. But hey, when you have the reputation that Activision's Call of Duty has, you can do that.

So this week's roundtable question was fairly easy: Are you excited for Call of Duty: Ghosts?

Matt Liebl

I have to hand it to Activision's marketing team. Every year I tell myself I won't buy into the Call of Duty hype, and every year I find myself a liar. Last year, I was determined not to get Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, but then I saw the Pick-10 system and, what do ya know, I went out and purchased the game. And I actually enjoyed it. Granted, I only played the multiplayer.

But that's exactly my point. Call of Duty is the premiere first-person shooter, and each year, Activision somehow manages to improve upon it. Last year it was the Pick-10 system, a simple addition that lets you create a class with 10 options — weapons, attachments, perks, whatever you want. That simple feature totally changed the game for me and now, with next-generation consoles on the way, I'm excited to see what Activision has planned for the future of the franchise. What will they do to take advantage of the newfound power in the PS4 and next Xbox?

Fact is, Call of Duty, for as much as people complain about it, is an entertaining game. It's fun to just pick up and play for a match or two. Sure, hitboxes may not be perfect, and there will probably be a few laughable glitches, but Activision has got this FPS thing down to a science. I'm confident Call of Duty: Ghosts will continue to live up to the hype that the franchise sets for itself year in and year out.

Verdict: Yes, and the teaser released last week was awesome!

Lance Liebl

No. I wasn’t excited for last year’s Black Ops 2. I bought it because of peer pressure, but I didn’t play a single minute of the campaign. I could care less about an all-new story with new characters. Will I buy Ghosts? Probably, because all of my friends will get it. But am I excited for it? No.

And for a trailer that talks so much about masks, I was quite disappointed that Jim Carrey as The Mask wasn’t in it.

Verdict: No, but probably going to play it anyway.

Max Baehr

Honestly? Not particularly. And it’s not Actitreyvisionarch’s fault, either. This one’s on me. You see, when the series first dropped, I didn’t pick it up. Mind, this wasn’t born of some gaming-hipster refusal to play a massively popular game — no, I’m forever scarred from getting my ass kicked all over the place in Counter-Strike back in high school. In an Internet cafe. Uphill in the snow both ways, obviously.

So here we are, 17 iterations of COD later, and I still don’t care. Because I’m simply a poor shot and a mediocre-at-best field tactician, online shooters have very little to offer me, and the single-player modes of said shooters tend to pale in comparison to their online experiences.

And look, I get that it’ll be huge, and it’ll probably be awesome. I’m sure I’ll end up burning away a number of hours watching you guys play it — it’s just a type of gaming that my (glaring lack of deathmatch) skills aren’t cut out to handle. Add it all up, and you can find me in the back room replaying Borderlands 2 for the third time instead.

Verdict: Not particularly.

Mike Splechta

As someone who is fairly excited to see the jump from current-gen to next-gen, I'm obviously intrigued to see just how different (or maybe not different at all) the next Call of Duty will look and play. It's certainly been the case that the games rarely seem to reinvent themselves, instead just sticking to what people know and love. To which I have to point out that the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" formula certainly works. However, with the technological advancements comes the necessity to advance the gameplay a little further.

With that said, I happen to be one of the few (VERY FEW) people who actually gets the Call of Duty games for their stories, and I honestly can't say that I've been disappointed thus far. Sure, the series now lacks the crazy "OMG!" moments of the first Modern Warfare, but the storytelling, combined with over-the-top epic set pieces, usually more than makes up for it. For those reasons, I'm excited to see just how CoD: Ghosts ramps up the action. Multiplayer? Oh yeah, I'll dabble in that a little bit too.

Verdict: Yes.