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At the Call of Duty: Ghosts launch

Last night saw the local launch of Call of Duty: Ghosts, the latest game in the highly successful first-person shooter franchise that has been making Activision a boatload of money every year since 2007. A launch party was thrown by the game’s distributors, Megarom, at a trendy venue in Bryanston called Café Culture, and I was there soaking up the atmosphere with a large number of COD enthusiasts, made up of everyone from local gaming industry types to journalists from other publications to seriously-amped COD fans lucky enough to have caught wind of the event.

The party got underway at the promised time of 8pm sharp with an announcement from Megarom’s PR guy, Devon Stanton: COD: Ghosts would not be on show until midnight as Activision had placed it under strict embargo, and under no circumstances was it to be shown before then. While the crowd was palpably disappointed, the drinks, snacks and loud music quickly got everyone into a party-while-you-wait mood.

I spoke to a few of the attendees while we waited, all of whom expressed considerable enthusiasm for the game. They cited the many trailers, previews, screenshots and gameplay videos that have inundated the internet since the game’s announcement back in May as reasons for their excitement, and when I asked whether it was the single or multiplayer they were most interested in, to my surprise I heard “Both!” more often than I was expecting, but it was still drowned out amidst the enthusiasm for the game’s multiplayer portion.

To make up for the lack of Ghosts right from the get-go, Megarom set up ten Xbox 360 consoles running Call of Duty: Black Ops II in a room off to the side of the venue. People were invited to take part in multiplayer bouts in an elimination process that would ultimately result in a final list of ten players, who would, on the stroke of midnight, be the first to play the new Call of Duty’s multiplayer.

The atmosphere at the over-18s-only event was rather chilled, becoming even more chilled as the evening wore on thanks to the steady flow of drinks from the bar. Finally, just after midnight, it was go time: once all of the consoles were ready, the two teams of five battled it out in the first COD: Ghosts multiplayer match played in South Africa. From my vantage point as a spectator, I saw the Call of Duty Dog being deployed on several occasions as a reward for a kill streak, I noticed the levels were more destructible than in previous COD games and I saw the new loadout selection screen. The impression I was left with was that this new Call of Duty – the multiplayer portion, at least –  offers a good mix of what’s expected by longtime fans, with enough new additions to keep both old and new players alike engaged. That remains to be seen in the final review, of course.

After a rather intense five minutes or so of virtual combat, one team emerged victorious, trouncing their rivals with a convincing 148 – 92 victory. All that was left of the event was to congratulate the winners, give the top player a prize and then it was over, and time to head on home.

We’ll have more coverage of Call of Duty: Ghosts later this week.

Call of Duty: Ghosts, is now available on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation from all game retailers. The PC version can be picked up for R499, and the console versions go for R699 each.

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