Quote:"For its next-gen debut, Infinity Ward isn't trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead it's making sure that wheel is perfectly, flawlessly round.

Perfectly round like the scope of your rifle. We're at Activision's Pre-E3 event in Santa Monica, California, and Call of Duty: Ghosts executive producer Mark Rubin is on stage comparing next-gen stills of the upcoming title with those of 2011's Modern Warfare 3.


At one point we're shown a comparison of how both games look when the player is peering down their sights. Much is made of how Ghosts' reticule is a perfect circle, so magnificently spherical you could use it to cut cookies. In contrast, MW 3's scope is jaggier, its rough edges muddied from view with some sneaky blurring and depth of field effects.

That's right - we've entered that stage of the next-generation hype machine. The murky period when the first-wave of next-gen games justify their existence by highlighting inconsequential new graphical flourishes. Remember the early Xbox 360 sports titles and their 'sweat physics'? Perfectly round reticules are this gen's equivalent. On that note, did we mention that the fish now have AI?

All posturing aside, the next-gen version of Call of Duty: Ghosts is a seriously impressive looking piece of macho shootery. Infinity Ward set the visual benchmark on the Xbox 360's launch day back in November 2005 with Call of Duty 2 and its billowing smoke effects, and the studio is poised to repeat the trick with an array of special effects that combine to give Ghosts a graphical fidelity far beyond anything capable on current gen"