Call of Duty®: Vanguard (PS5) (Exclusive to Amazon.co.uk)

I cannot comment on multiplayer as I am rubbish online, but the campaign is excellent with a bit of everything.Graphics and loading times are top notch and the missions vary a lot, which stops it from being repetitive.5 stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Great game

I'm going to break this down into Campaign, Multiplayer and Zombies so you can read dependent on what you would be buying this game for:Campaign - First thing you will notice when playing the campaign, it's graphically beautiful. Using the same engine as 2019's COD Modern Warfare, the realism is a treat for the eyes and it really is one of the high points of the entire game. The campaign focuses on a secret task force called "Vanguard", made up of the top soldiers and marksmen/women from across the globe. The idea is good, but I personally felt the execution was a little bit underwhelming. The first mission focusses on an operation that Vanguard carry out related to a secret "Project Phoenix" that the enemy are developing. This is set in 1945 and this mission signals the last bit of gameplay with all the Vanguard members together until the final mission. The main story is solely told in cutscenes (with the exception of the first and last mission) and the rest of the missions are just backstories for each member. One backstory in particular (Polina) is extremely engaging and really makes you feel emotion for the character, however the rest seem to be lacking in any enthralling story as we have seen in previous games. It almost feels like you're playing a prequel half of the time. I finished the campaign feeling like I had played Battlefield's War Stories modes from I and V. It's not an awful campaign but it's far from the best. Also seemed remarkably easier than the likes of COD 4 and MW2 which I didn't find welcoming since I like a challenging game with a captivating story but this is subjective. I would not recommend this to someone solely purchasing for the campaign.Multiplayer - This is where most of the change is seen. The maps are different in terms of layout to previous games, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, and they seem to be more varied and open in some cases. There are in my opinion, as always, good maps (Sub Pens, Numa Numa) and bad maps (Gavutu, Oasis) but this time round there seems to be a borderline unplayable map in Das Haus. The new pacing system allows for different size games on almost any map (6v6 10v10 16v16 24v24) and this applies to the smallest map in the game, Das Haus. 24v24 coupled with the severely broken spawning means that at times you are killed the second you spawn by spawning in front of an enemy, in the path of bullets or on the wrong side of the map at times. It's okay on 6v6 or 10v10 but Activision and Sledgehammer seriously need to make changes to the spawning as a whole and pacing for different maps. However, the gameplay is solid as ever and still really fun to play and the addition of 2 remastered World at War maps are a treat (although Dome suffers what I like to call the "Das Haus Syndrome" in larger games) and show us that Activision still remembers WaW (remaster anybody?). Champion Hill is also a fun Last Man Standing game mode which really shakes it up a bit from the usual CoD modes.Zombies - I am one of the few who actually likes the Zombies mode, however it won't be for everyone. There admittedly is no real story to it, just a trio of three different objectives (Blitz, Harvest and Transmit) which are repeated over and over again as you kill zombies to complete them. These get repetitive easily when playing solo but aren't too bad when online with friends. The entirety of the Der Anfang zombies game mode is set in the Red Star multiplayer map by the way so if you hate the map in multiplayer chances are you won't enjoy this. All the standard staples are there (Pack-a-Punch, Mystery Box) and it is a solid experience but certainly different to the norm. Interested to see what they do next in terms of added maps, modes to zombies and multiplayer for that matter.Personally, I really like this game and I would recommend it but it certainly isn't perfect. Hopefully with patches and the addition of "Shipment" in multiplayer, it will be onwards and upwards.

This game is absolutely fantastic, the new zombies open world is much better and I prefer it compared the rounds. The campaign is very good and the graphics are on another level playing on PS5 4K UHD. Highly recommend.

Works well

The story line and abilities of every characterTop notch 👌

This game has now been installing and updating for 8 hours. When finally you get past this you are bombarded by the usual online consent forms and either forced to sign up or sign into the developers account. Finally when this is done you discover that the campaign mode isn't included in the initial install and must be installed separately. At this point you may lose the will to live. Haven't played a call of duty game since mw3 and am beginning to remember why....

Very good game with a great story and graphics. However the campaign version is extremely short. I finished it under 10 hours. Multiplayer is the usual COD.