The Call of Duty franchise has been running for almost 20 years. Although the franchise has had its ups and downs it is undisputed fact that it has been very prominent in gaming spaces. With newer releases coming out faster it can become tough to choose which one to dedicate your time to. Today we are looking into Call of Duty: Cold War and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). The two more recent entries have split the player base between the continuation of the series and the remake of the 2007 hit first-person shooter. Let’s see which one is more worth your time.
Graphics
First and foremost, the textures look absolutely impressive. Doubly so when compared to the middling remaster of the game from 2016. It’s not even the fact that the game has been upgraded to current standards, it managed to maintain the grit and details from the original Modern Warfare.
The gun models look much better now as do the regular character models, although the latter isn’t seen as much. The lighting got a special amount of care, making the game look even better. After all, the biggest changes since the original Modern Warfare were made in terms of lighting technology in video games so it makes sense that this will be a key change between versions.
This all goes towards giving the game a familiar feel while not lagging behind recent releases when it comes to quality. In fact, it may surpass Cold War in some aspects.
Cold War does hold a number of standard current generation staples present in its visuals. The details and fidelity are top-notch, with a lot of minute textures enhancing the visual experience of the game. However, the style of the visuals is far less impressive. There are no visuals that really pop out or an accented mood that those visuals are trying to convey. This makes the game feel lot less visually engaging than Modern Warfare with its gritty, heavy style.
Story
The story on the original Modern Warfare is still one of the most positively received stories of the franchise. It may even be considered the blueprint for all the following games. The colorful mix of different story missions, the sense of urgency from the beginning, and a twist for the ending mission all ended up being returning characteristics of the Call of Duty story modes. While some changes have been made to the campaign, for better or worse, it’s as recognizable as it always was.
Meanwhile, Cold War does try to recapture the feeling of older Call of Duty games but doesn’t quite stick the landing fully. Sure, the harrowing twist is there. The urgency is partially on point too, although it’s difficult to say it stands out from the previous fan favorites. However, the whole story feels a bit underwhelming. There are no specific factors that curb the flow of the story it’s just the overall beats that don’t ring as well as the Modern Warfare ones. There are also some questionable choices regarding the actual history of the Cold War but those moments aren’t the key to its downfall.
The game does add some puzzle elements which do break up the constant shooting and add variety. Cold War also features the franchise’s first story with multiple endings. However, while these are interesting gimmicks they don’t bring out the story to a much better light.
Multiplayer
Although campaigns are important to Call of Duty’s identity as a whole, the impact the franchise’s multiplayer has on the player base is at least doubly important. After all, when the game is done and the campaign has been beaten this is what we turn to.
Multiplayer in Modern Warfare made some changes to the original. While a lot of maps were rather small in scale to allow for more frequent skirmishes, some of the new maps are far bigger. This still maintains the hectic nature of Modern Warfare due to the map having so many connecting points. You’ll rarely have to go around something, it’s more likely you’ll end up going straight through it.
Modern Warfare is packed full of game modes to try out so it should keep you interested in many different ways for quite a long time. There are a ton of unlockables to obtain too, such as Damascus camo which you can get easier by utilizing https://lfcarry.com/cod-mw/damaskus-camos.
Cold War brings a lot tighter maps and a more arcade-like team deathmatch fighting. It gels together the map design of later Modern Warfare sequels while providing exceptionally fast gameplay of Black Ops games from the Call of Duty series.
The game felt a lot more malnourished on release with the maps but has since gotten a lot of updates.
Conclusion
Both games have something to offer but the fact is that Modern Warfare feels a lot more polished despite being the older game. The story might have been established already but the way it’s brought over still manages to bring something new to the table. Which is ironic, considering the original is rather old now. The Cold War doesn’t bring much new and even muddles the usual progression of these plots, reducing the overall impact the story has. Graphically they may be close but the added style edges Modern Warfare forward. It’s worth mentioning that the sound design in Modern Warfare is absolutely perfect, adding a lot of weight to the combat.
Multiplayer itself is probably the most important aspect and while it works great in both games, Cold War seems to be lagging behind still. It seems to emulate the time franchise has long moved on from while not bringing much of its own ideas to spice up the mix. Modern Warfare isn’t quite like its old days but it offers a nice meeting point of new and old. Despite the style of play being technically way older, it’s also far different from other games we experienced from the franchise recently. It’s safe to say that for anybody willing to hop into Call of Duty again or pick up one of the recent ones, go for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019).
