Call of Duty: Challenge Mode

As I've been watching Twitch.tv streams of Call of Duty Ghosts I've been mentally planning how I'm going to enjoy those boring months between now and Titanfall.

When I played CoD 4, 5, and 6 I was very unfocused in my playing. I leveled my character, used whatever gun struck my fancy, and when I'd reach the maximum level I'd enter prestige mode to start at level 1 all over again. Prestige mode is something for people like me to enjoy the leveling process and allows them to start back at level 1 with a special emblem by their name to indicate how many times they've entered prestige mode. With Black Ops (CoD 7) I decided to do something different.

The games always have a few weapon classes. The classics are assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols, and a combat knife. With Black Ops I decided to spend an entire prestige focused on a single weapon class. That meant that my first 50 levels had me using SMGs. When I reached level 50 I entered prestige mode, and for the next 1-50 I only used assault rifles. This continued until I only had snipers and handguns left, which I combined in to the same prestige because snipers-only is VERY slow in leveling up.

Honestly, it's the most fun I've had in CoD. When Black Ops lost its appeal I returned to the previous title because it was my favorite, and that's when I started getting really competitive with CoD. When the new game hit the shelves I was running with a competitive group and started using the best equipment so that we could keep dominating the competition. When Black Ops 2 released the next year I burned out of the game very quickly because I had nothing to work toward.

This time I'm going back and enjoying a true challenge. What's neat about CoD Ghosts is that instead of having a single prestige, you get up to 10 characters that can each be leveled independently. That means that my first character can be SMGs only, and instead of losing all that progress when I hit prestige I can unlock a new character and level using only a knife or shotgun. I want to dedicate a challenge to each, so here's what I'm thinking for my 10 characters:

1. SMGs
2. Assault Rifles
3. Shotguns
4. Snipers/handguns
5. Marksman rifles
6. Knife/riot shield only
7. Anti-auto: no automatic weapons
8. Specialist only: kills give my character perks rather than things like a helicopter or radar)
9. Survival mode: start with a knife, can only use weapons I pick up from players I kill)

I have a few ideas for my final character.

"Evolution" has me making loadouts for my character starting from bad to great. Whenever I unlocked a point streak by getting kills or playing the objective I can switch to the next best loadout. It could get a bit tedious, which is why I scrapped the idea for Black Ops.

"Gun Game" is similar in that I would have a list of worst-to-best guns and make classes using them. I'd start with the worst and couldn't move to the next set of weapons until I finished a game in the top 3 players on my team.

"Barebones" has the potential to be fun or awful. I start the game with a pistol and no perks, attachments, grenades, etc. Whenever I finish a game in the top 3 I can unlock a single item and add it to my loadout, rinse and repeast for each item. This one will be a rough start, but I think eventually it would lose its luster.

Let's be honest, I'm only going to be playing Ghosts until March 11th (Titanfall) so I will probably make it through 3 or 4 of these. Still, it's a fun idea to contemplate as someone who loves stick-mounted carrots. The tentative challenge order is AR/SMG, Shotguns, AR/SMG (whichever I didn't do first), then knifing. My first prestige may even just be enjoying everything in the game, in which case I'll probably jump straight to knifing on character #2 because I love it so very much.

12 days until I get to enjoy next gen. I can't wait!

See you tomorrow!

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