Reviews// Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare: Havoc

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has been out roughly three months now, and when I first got my hands on it I loved it. Unfortunately, my opinion changed quite drastically once I’d played through the campaign and put some solid hours into the multiplayer.

You see, I’ve always been fairly good at the multiplayer aspect of CoD – I’ve never been below a 1.5 kill to death ratio… until now. After my first few hours or so earning XP and unlocking new weapons and attachments, I realised I was dying. A lot. I can’t quite figure out what’s so different between previous Call of Duty instalments and AW. I suppose the Exo-suits are the most prominent thing, but don’t get me wrong, I like the change. Hell, I really like it. Maybe I’m just getting old and my reactions are dumbing down? Who knows!

Either way, the more I played, the shorter my temper became, and sure enough, I completely binned AW off after about a month. This lasted up until I heard about the new Havoc DLC. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I despise DLC with every bone in my body. Why should I spend £50 on HALF A GAME, and then have to fork out a further £30+ for the “new” maps? It’s fucking ridiculous! Anyway, I’m not here to rant about that. I’m here to talk about what Havoc has to offer, and first and foremost comes the new Exo-Zombies mode.

I’d like to assume that everyone has played one of the zombies modes on the previous CoD titles, but just in case, these modes basically consist of a map with locked doors leading to different rooms, each offering new weapons and perks. To unlock the doors, you have to earn points, and to earn points, you have to mow down waves of zombies – simple!

Exo-Zombies follows the same formula, but as you could probably guess, it introduces a few new features – most importantly, the exo-suit.

Don’t jump ahead here though (get it? Jump!), you won’t spawn with your exo-suit. Instead, you’ll have to work with your three teammates to unlock the relevant doors and make your way to the exo-room. Once you’ve collected your suit though, the game changes – your aim now is to get your hands on the best weapons you can.

There’s a selection of guns you can purchase at any time in different locations throughout the map as always, but these are pretty basic. Getting your hands on the pewpew layz0r guns that really cause issues for the zombie horde is a bit trickier. See, there are four 3D printers throughout the map. Paying one of these printers 1000 credits will reward you with a random weapon – and no, you don’t always get the beefy ones.

Unfortunately, only one of these printers will be online at any one time, and I haven’t quite figured out which order the cycle goes in – don’t shoot me, I’m already running from waves of undead!

So, now you have some good weapons and an exo-suit, what’s next? Well, aside from surviving, you’ll find upgrade stations as well as perk machines around the map. Each weapon can be upgraded 20 times, but each upgrade comes with a hefty price tag of 2500 credits. Perk stations are also fairly expensive, and require you to have an exo-suit equipped before you can make your purchase.

It’s worth noting that if you take enough damage, your character will become incapacitated and only be able to fire small weapons. Becoming incapacitated causes you to lose all perks that you had equipped, and starts a 30 second bleed-out timer. If your teammates aren’t able to help you back up before you bleed out, say bye-bye to your weapons and exo-suit alongside the perks you already lost.

Fortunately though, you’ll respawn at the start of the next round. Zombies drop timed buffs such as one-shot kills, multiplied points etc, and if you die you’ll have X amount of time to get back to your corpse and grab the floating green ‘RIP’ buff. You’ll still be missing your perks and exo-suit (you can buy those back and collect another suit), but at least you’ll have your weapons back!

Exo-zombies is a whole lot of fun, just as these modes always have been. It’s a welcomed break from the infuriating multiplayer, and potentially enough to keep me, for one, playing for a while longer.

Alongside Exo-zombies, the Havoc DLC pack also offers us four new multiplayer maps and a new weapon.

These maps come in the forms of Core, Urban, Sideshow and Drift, and the new weapon is named the AE4. It’s a laser-based assault rifle with a slow rate of fire, but don’t worry about that, each hit packs a punch. It plays host to an overheating system as we’ve already seen with the EM1, so essentially you won’t run out of ammo. Don’t get too trigger happy though – there’s a hefty reload time if you do fry the barrel!

Now back to those new maps, and Sideshow’s up first. As you could have guessed, it’s set in an abandoned carnival. The map itself isn’t bad as such; there are plenty of buildings to clamber up on and there's a fair bit of cover to hide behind, but personally I absolutely hate it. I guess you could blame a mixture of Stephen King for making the film IT, and my Mum for allowing me to watch the film IT as a young kid – see, there are clowns all over the shop, and every so often, you’ll hear the creepiest laughing of your life.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, let’s talk about the slightly less disturbing map; Drift. Drift is the first map in AW to be set in a snowy environment – a ski resort to be precise. It has a very realistic feel about it as you’re running through buildings playing host to gift shops. It has plenty of tight areas that you can take advantage of while waiting to ambush enemy soldiers. However, these areas have more than one entrance, so watch your back!

Urban comes next, and out of the four new battlegrounds, this one’s my favourite. It’s a close-quarters map set in a police lock-down zone with plenty of tight corridors – grab your SMGs and ready your Exo-dash, you’re gonna need them!

Core is the final map the Havoc pack has to offer, and it’s the one I had the toughest time learning. Set in what appears to be an abandoned industrial site, Core is flooded by smashed up pipes and broken turbines. It offers plenty of routes to use in order to manoeuvre your way from one side of the map to the other, which also means your enemies can easily get the jump on you if you don’t learn your way around pretty quickly!

Pros:
+ Zombies - more of the same, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it
+ Urban and Drift are both very fun maps

Cons:
- Sideshow. Clowns. Nope.
- Core is slightly too confusing to start with
- Could have taken advantage of the exo-suit better in zombies (more vertical traversal)

SPOnG Score: 8/10