Call of Duty Vanguard Campaign

Being off work over Christmas gave me time to get some gaming in. I spent some of my gaming time playing the Call of Duty Vanguard campaign and having now finished it, I thought I'd put a post together with my thoughts.

I've been a fan of the series since the early days, if I remember correctly I first played Call of Duty 3 on my Playstation 2 and then ended up playing the original 2 when they came out on Xbox 360, since then I've kept up with the sometimes hectic release schedule and played each of the main games in the series. It's crazy how Vanguard is the 18th instalment!  

I'm one of the (maybe?) rare people that mainly buys Call of Duty for the campaign. I do dabble in Zombies and I usually play Multiplayer until I hit 1st Prestige but I'd say the campaign is where my focus is with each game.

I usually run through the campaign on Regular difficulty first, to get a feel of it and also not get too stressed out whilst playing it. I then do a 2nd playthrough on Veteran.

The Vanguard campaign is about 6-7 hours, which I'd say is about average these days for a campaign and is made up of 9 missions, each one bridged by incredible cutscenes.

Many different game styles are offered too, from stealth missions to dogfighting and of course the classic run and gun style we're all familiar with.

Along with your average enemies, the game also features a harder type of enemy. Remember the Juggernaut from Modern Warfare 2? Well, Vanguard has Jägermörder, who serve as the bodyguards of the main antagonist of the game but also appear throughout the campaign.

Armed with smoke bombs, you never quite know when these elite soldiers are going to pop up and make the fight a little tougher!

Throughout the campaign, you play as 4 different characters, all with vastly different backgrounds. Special skills have been added that can be used, these are:

• Ability to command your squad to attack certain enemies, such as focusing fire on a Jägermörder when they spawn.
• Quickly navigate tight spaces to get around enemies and make surprise attacks much more fun
• Slow down time to give yourself a little more time to focus in on an enemy that's far away

I feel the missions were well paced, had plenty of action but as I mentioned, some had stealth elements which are probably my favourite. The destructible environments also encouraged you to try different methods of passing a certain section.  

The NPC's in the game seemed a lot more responsive too. Your squad actually helped out in disposing of enemies and weren't afraid to get stuck in, rather than hiding behind a box waiting for you to get to the next checkpoint before they advance. The enemy NPC's also seemed better in this game and actually provided some challenge. They seemed to throw a lot more grenades your way, but my favourite element of them was occasionally you would get charged by an enemy with a bayonet and if you're too slow to react, you die. I felt this added a surprise element to the game as most of the time, you actually never expected it.

One criticism I do have, is with the controls of the plane you fly in one of the missions. It makes the mission a bit tricker as they aren't the most responsive and I often found myself accidentally leaving the mission area. When I wanted to go right, I'd often go left and vice-versa. I'm sure if you play the level enough you get used to the controls but as a first time player, it definitely required a lot of reloading the last checkpoint!

Overall, I enjoyed the Vanguard campaign. The soundtrack really tied in well with the campaign too. There was some very tense scenes especially when you were on your own without your squad, the music made those moments very intense.

I'm looking forward to jumping into Multiplayer and Zombies!