The Invasion DLC pack is now available for Call of Duty: Ghosts, featuring 3 new maps, one remake, and a new episode for the Extinction mode.
The new maps are Departed, which is set in a rural Mexican town in the middle of the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations, Pharoah in an Egyptian archeological dig, and Mutiny, which is a pirate hideout on a remote Caribbean island.
The Departed map for CoD: Ghosts
The remake is Favela, the Brazilian multi-level map familiar to anyone who played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Meanwhile Extinction Episode 3: Awakening will take players into an alien underworld with a range of new hi-tech weapons and equipment. You’ll need to penetrate a series of defensive barriers to reach the Ark and retrieve ‘The Cortex; which will unlock the Ancestors psychic powers. There are also 3 new enemies with airborne Gargoyles, explosive Bombers, and massive Mammoths.
There appears to be another ‘Egg-stra XP!’ bonus available for the Invasion DLC, which involves locating Hive eggs and completing a task in Extinction Mode to get an XP boost. This also delivers an achievement ‘Egg-stra Awakening’, along with 4 additional DLC related achievements for the Extinction Episode worth a total of 140 points.
CoD: Ghosts Mutiny Map
Although this DLC pack doesn’t contain any new weapons, at the same time a title update for Call of Duty: Ghosts has made a gold knife available at Prestige Level 5, and a gold PDW pistol available at Prestige Level 10. Both are freely available – the gold knife has a faster melee time and the gold PDW is fully automatic compared to the standard gun.
The Call of Duty: Ghosts Invasion pack is a 1.52GB download, and costs £8.06 or $14.99 as a standalone, or is free as part of the season pass.
CoD Ghosts: Invasion First Impressions:
The new maps are medium-sized multiplayer environments, and all of them definitely look good. Mutiny is particularly atmospheric with docked pirate ships, taverns and the whispers of the ghosts triggered by successfully completing field orders. A number of the pirate inhabitants remain with skeletons around the map, including one still hanging from the gallows.
Departed is nice and colourful, which makes a change for an Infinity Ward production – usually it’s Black Ops which has the colour. And even Favela looks noticeably improved in terms of graphics, which is nice considering I played it on the same Xbox 360 hardware as the earlier game. Although the map itself is identical, it’s become more topical with football highlights being played on the TV screens you can find around the map, and a number of footballs you can ricochet around the 5-a-side pitch and the rest f the map.
CoD: Ghosts Favela Map
But….
As nice as it is to revisit Favela again, it definitely undermines the impact of the new maps. As much fun as it is to trigger undeed Mariachis on Departed or unlock all perks for a 3-life limit on Pharoah, the fact that only Favela gives 3 levels of elevation to play in makes the others feel rather flat.
That’s not helped by inconsistencies in what you can climb on – boxes which get you to a rooftop in Favela are unclimbable in the other maps, which is a little frustrating. Particularly when they appear to have been arranged for that purpose. Being able to get up above the gallows in Mutiny, or onto a rooftop in Departed would make things much more interesting, and anyone attempting to camp would still be vulnerable.
As much as new maps are always appreciated, it feels like more though went into the themes and gimmicks than the level design, which is a bit of a shame.
The Pharaoh map for CoD: Ghosts
Overall the maps are OK, but feel like a bit of a step back from the wider variety of the previous Devastation map pack, which should finally now go into general playlist rotation. And again with that map pack, Unearthed was a highlight, which was a remake of Dome from Modern Warfare 3.
We’ve yet to really get into the new Extinction episode, but it seems OK. As a side mode, it still isn’t as personally appealing as the Spec Ops and Survival modes in previous games – particularly as ‘Chaos’ mode is a constant onslaught of aliens that is too overwhelming to be enjoyable.
Most Call of Duty fans will probably already have the Season Pass, but if you’re looking for individual map packs, the Onslaught and Devastation Packs offered more for the money with new weapons and achievements.
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