Call of Duty: Mobile – Review

Name: Call of Duty: Mobile
Developer: Tencent Games, Timi Studios
Publisher: Activision
Platforms: iOS and Android
Reviewed on: Android (Huawei Mate 20 Pro)
Released: 01.10.2019
Acquired: Free to Play

When I first think of playing Call of Duty on a mobile device, I think of games such as Call of Duty: Strike Team or Call of Duty: Heroes. Never did I think that Call of Duty would arrive on the mobile devices on such a scale as it did.

Tencent Games begins to have a broad amount of diverse mobile games in their roster, such as PUBG Mobile, Ring of Elysium (PC game), Arena of Valor, FIFA online 3, Assault Fire and Crossfire: Legends just to mention some. And now they can also be proud of becoming a part of the Call of Duty family with their own title (Yes Tencent had a finger in Asia only free-to-play title Call of Duty Online, but only as a distributor part). Is it any good?

The Good

The very first thing I’ve noticed is how good the game looks, the graphics are impressive for a mobile game. If I had to compare it, I would say the graphics might look like a 1080p with metallic colors of PlayStation 3’s Modern Warfare 2. Not only does the overall graphics look great, but veterans of the series will get a wall of flashbacks once they enter Call of Duty: Mobile’s available multiplayer maps. There is a vast amount of previous maps from diverse Call of Duty’s that will hit you right in the nostalgia, you will revisit the good old Nuketown, Crash, Raid, Firing Range, Crossfire, Hijacked, Killhouse, Takeoff, and Standoff.

But isn’t it difficult to play first-person shooters on a mobile device without any sort of a controller?
Actually no, Call of Duty: Mobile offers the best controls schematic for this type of genre for mobile devices. The controls are incredibly easy to learn and use, you can either use the simple mode where the gun automatically fires once the enemy is in your sight, or you can use advanced or custom mode to find your playstyle and control “schematic liking”.

Like in all other Call of Duty games, you level up and progress to unlock even more equipment, weapons, perks and more. But once you reach level seven, you can enter a map named Isolated, which is this title’s very own Battle Royale mode. As in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, you can play solo, duo or squad, but both in third-person and first-person. 100 players enter the island to defeat AI bosses for better loot and enemy players to gain that number one spot to earn rank points.

The Bad

Let’s talk about the most obvious thing first, it’s not always a good thing that games are free to play, there is a big but, especially when it comes to the big companies. The biggest elephant in the room is the microtransactions, I can accept microtransactions to a certain level, it all depends on how much each pack costs and what I get in return. And in true Call of Duty style, the loot boxes and CP (COD Points) can be used to purchase weapons and weapon upgrades.

Which can provide a benefit for the paying player than the non-paying player, luckily there isn’t that big of a change as the controls itself is a challenge to master even with great weapons. But that isn’t the thing that bothers me, no, it’s all the duplicates you can receive, and COD points aren’t cheap either. Almost 90% are cosmetics, Weapon XP cards or emotes, the rest is various weapon camos and upgrades. In these price ranges, the amount of what I get in return isn’t big enough or interesting enough to receive. You can buy a Battle Pass to get even more rewards by completing challenges, but the rewards aren’t isn’t interesting enough to push forward to get it.

I won’t say that the graphics are bad because it’s great. There are only a few bugs/glitches in animations such as when soldiers die they fall through walls etc, and some textures that are blurry, but besides that, it’s pretty impressive for a mobile game.

There is only one last thing that is a HUGE downside with this title, and that is the official Android emulator on PC by Tencent itself! Gameloop was released on the PC as an Android emulator in July this year so PC players could enjoy mobile games on their PC. As with other popular games such as PUBG, Call of Duty: Mobile has also received it’s fully supported control system in this software. And it works just fine with a decent PC, it’s a huge benefit to play with keyboard and mouse, on the bright side, the PC players only have a downscaled graphics and performance version of this game so far. We took it to a test with a private match, mobile vs PC, and the mobile version won the match. (Let’s just say that the PC player was inexperienced vs an experienced mobile gamer, to justify it.)

Denne bildekrusellen krever javaskript.

• Free to Play model 6
  6/10
• Graphics 10
  10/10
• Gameplay 10
  10/10
• Controls 9
  9/10
• Replay Value 10
  10/10

Verdict

Call of Duty: Mobile is – surprisingly – very good executed, even for a free-to-play-game. You will encounter a lot of pop-ups pushing you to buy CP points for Battle Passes etc, but not buying them will not affect the gameplay experience. The microtransactions are almost only cosmetics, and if you’re a Call of Duty fan who can’t wait until the next main title to release, just dive into this nostalgic Call of Duty heaven.

Overall

9/10

9/10

Sending

User Review

0 (0 votes)

Pros

• Nostalgia
• Controls
• Replay Value

Cons

• Microtransactions
• Official PC Emulator
• Addictive (is this even a con?)