3/5 ★ – Madsines's review of Call of Duty: Vanguard.

This is a review of the campaign only. Call of Duty campaigns are a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. They're big, dumb blockbusters that you know exactly what you're getting with, and Call of Duty Vanguard is no different. While I wouldn't put Vanguard's campaign in the top tier of the series, it definitely falls squarely into the middle tier alongside games like WW2 and Advanced Warfare. The missions here are varied and you get all the usual Call of Duty tropes that you expect. Sniper mission? Check. Stealth mission? Check. Vehicle mission? Triple check. The list goes on. There's not much new here aside from a couple of abilities you can use depending on the character you're playing, like giving squadmates orders to attack a specific target, or slowing down time to shoot up enemies with precision. I played on veteran difficulty, and while it was definitely very frustrating at some points, that's kind of par for the course with that difficulty so I won't take points off for that. I did find however that the story fell a little flat. You're constantly switching between characters, and this makes it a little hard to get properly attacked to any of them. The story also ends super abruptly, and there's not really any standout moments that stick in my brain. Overall, if you're a fan of Call of Duty campaigns, you know exactly what you're getting here. I was satisfied with the experience I had - just don't expect anything remotely new. Playtime: 7 Hours Platform: Xbox Series X