Metareview: Call of Duty - Advanced Warfare

I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. As it turns out, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare isn't advanced enough to feature pre-frag life-flashing, but at least you get to respawn and run and bounce around its futuristic world, over and over and over. It stretches on forever, like an ocean of time...

According to our four-star review, Sledgehammer's Call of Duty is an American beauty. As EIC Ludwig Kietzmann put it, "Despite the familiarity, it's been years since a Call of Duty campaign was as coherent and fast-paced as this one. Within the confines of its franchise, which has yet to make much room for a mature look at the subject matter, Advanced Warfare works with aplomb and, at the very least, plays its Big Dumb Movie card wisely. If you're running out of bad guys, borrow some from Hollywood."

But what about the rest of the review universe - the reviewniverse if you will - was Advanced Warfare advanced enough for them, or did it just get lost in Spacey? Head below the break for a sampling of the early reviews.

• Polygon (9/10): "Advanced Warfare's production values and excellently paced campaign set the table, and its major additions to Call of Duty's multiplayer, from basic mechanics to its deeply addictive progression system, might be enough to chase away bad memories of Ghosts."

• Game Informer (9/10): "Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare feels like you're screening ten summer blockbuster films at the same time as you maneuver through a fantastic set of backdrops that range from Seoul, Seattle, and a futuristic Abu Ghraib. With serious tweaks to some elements of core gameplay, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare feels like its own special surge forward while maintaining the gunplay that makes the series fantastic."

• Giant Bomb (4/5): "It's the best multiplayer the game has seen in some time and the whole thing totals up to a satisfying, if familiar experience."

• GameSpot (8/10): "The huge change in player mobility is less of a paradigm shift and more of an overdue retooling for an 11-year-old FPS franchise, especially in a year of mobility-focused shooters. Yet for all its predictability, Advanced Warfare is a deluge of action-film bravado, and it's difficult to not be carried away by its tidal forces."

• USGamer (3.5/5): "Advanced Warfare executes the formula competently while adding a handful of bells and whistles like mechs, laser cannons, and double jumps; but Sledgehammer Games seems reluctant to really cut loose and push the setting to its fullest potential, making Advanced Warfare a solid but ultimately unexciting entry in the series."

[Image: Activision-Blizzard]