Well, as a way to enjoy my new RTX 4090, I've restarted my quest to finish playing through every campaign of every Call of Duty game I own. I gave up on COD multiplayer a long time ago.

This adventure has been stymied by Modern Warfare 2023 which, since last update, refuses to finish installing the shaders for the campaign. It just hangs at 7%. According to this Reddit thread I'm not alone: https://www.reddit.com/r/modernwarfare/comments/16phw1m/shaders_never_install_after_recent_update/
I'll try a couple of the tricks they recommend, but may have to wait for a patch. This game looked stunning with RTX on my 3080, put performance was subpar at the visual settings I want, and I'm itching to see how it runs on the 4090.

Meanwhile I returned to the COD Advanced Warfare (2014) campaign. Damn, Kevin Spacey's performance adds some serious gravitas to that game, but despite his fantastic performance, I find the cut scenes a bit tedious at times, which is why I stopped playing it for a couple of years. Rock solid capped 140fps with max eye candy. I'd forgotten how much fun Exo jumps are in that game. Played a few missions and got back into the groove.

I then spun up COD Infinite Warfare (2016), and realized I had never even started this game before. This is the COD in Space game that received poor reviews for it's multiplayer, but hot damn, I have to say the single player campaign is a blast. First off, it has a real good story, and it jumps right into the action. The weapon physics feel good. There is very much a BSG feel to the game. You're based on a Battlestar Galactica type space carrier.

You still have traditional projectile weapons, and some pulse energy weapons, and the energy weapons actually feel like they're firing something, which is hard to pull off in some games. You have to pick the best weapons for the particular mission: energy guns are best when you expect to be up against robots. The grenades are very fun to use. Some are traditional, and some are far out. One is an electric shock grenade that works against both humans and bots, but particularly effective against bots. A seeker grenade that unfolds into a small spider like robot that seeks out enemies, attaches to them and explodes (tons of fun). A black hole projector grenade that sucks enemies into a small black hole. A zero G grenade that negates gravity over an area, rendering the enemies above it helplessly floating out of cover so you can pick them off. The grenades are so much fun.

You fight in a city in the beginning, and then inside ships, facilities on various planets, and yes sometimes in space in zero G. Low grav and zero grav combat is fun, and well done. There are even missions where you pilot a fighter, and the combat for that is also well done.

Curiously it's also the first COD campaign, that I can recall, that is not linear. You choose your mission from a map table that shows current available missions. Some are side missions that just gain you intel and new skills and equipment you capture from the enemy. The intel often makes new missions available. Campaign missions are clearly indicated, and they progress the main story, and the main story is very good. The map table is the one place where the game engine fails to work properly with a wide screen monitor, which is puzzling for a fairly recent game, and they never bothered to patch it. You can't see the whole map table in wide screen. I've googled it, but there's no fix, so I've consigned myself to playing in 2560x1440 instead of 3440x1440.

Graphics are very nice, and I must say that they have really pushed the IW engine to do things it was never meant to (like space combat) and it does it well. Solid capped 140 fps with full eye candy. It's becoming one of my all time fav COD campaigns.

It's worth picking up on sale just for the single player, if the idea of Battlestar Galactica in the COD universe sounds attractive to you. It's ridiculous that they are still charging $60 for that game, when it's almost 7 years old. It's good, and maybe even worth the $60, but with newer COD games out, and the fact that multiplayer was a flop, this should be priced lower.

Edit: Ah, it's $40 for the PC standard edition DVD on Amazon.

This comment was edited on Sep 28, 2023, 12:09.