Advanced Warfare: Bal-27 Inferno Review

Hi guys,

One of the amazing new features in AW are the weapon variants, there are two elite variants for each weapon, and they usually are better in some way than the base version of the weapon. As you may know the Bal-27 is the best assault rifle in the game, so obviously the elite variants of the Bal are very good. I have been lucky enough to get both Elite variants for the Bal from supply drops, and today I will be doing a review/class guide for you all! If you would like a review for the Obsidian Steed(the other elite variant, then just tweet me!).

The Bal-27 base weapon is available from level one, so don't worry about not having the base variant unlocked when you earn this. The tweaks that make this weapon so good are, 10% increase to rate of fire(quite common in variants, but nearly always with a damage reduction!), 20% tighter hip fire spread(a smaller area that your bullets can go when not aiming down sights), and the only penalty with this weapon is a whopping 30% reduction in ADS(Aim Down Sights) time, but I don't really notice the difference much, but if you want to reverse the affects of this then you can use the Quick Draw grip(earned after 10 Headshots). This may not strike you as overly amazing, but just that little 10% increase in RoF(Rate of Fire) produces a massive change in the time-to-kill. Meaning that if you take this weapon into a gun fight with a normal Bal-27 you are going to be winning more of those fights, just because of the weapon you are using. 

      You should think of this weapon as a SMG(Sub Machine Gun-eg ASM1) variant of the Bal-27, while still holding onto the damage stats of an Assault Rifle(AR). You probably already knew this but never delete this weapon if you get it from a Supply Drop!

Now looking at the attachments for this weapon that I use, the Stock I like to use on all ARs, though sometimes I replace it with something like Quick Draw Grip, especially with this weapon. Then we have the Foregrip, I find this invaluable for the Inferno, especially with that increased fire rate, it may be the way I think of the weapon but it may have slightly increased recoil, which this counters beautifully. Lastly there is the Suppressor, or silencer, this is the first stage a many that I employ to not let the enemies know where I am as much of the time as possible. For a player like me, who doesn't play TDM much the Parabolic Microphone isn't used by players too often, so by and large I can always stay of the enemies mini-map! I nearly always run three attachments on my weapons, so that third attachment costs me two slots(one for the attachment, and one for the Wild Card).

Moving onto my Perk selection, in the Perk 1 slot I always run Low Profile, as it shields you from appearing on the enemies mini-map when they have a UAV active. This is another part of my stealth build, as I mentioned previously staying of the enemies mini-map is one of my highest prioritys when creating my class, and Low Profile helps be immensly.

Peripherals, is a perk I run on literally every class I use, it extends the size of the mini-map so you can see further away from you, it also doesn't show the death icons above enemies you have killed, which is very useful, again to not let the enemies know where you are!

Moving onto Perk 3, this is where I employ the use of my second Wild Card and get a second perk from the third tier. Blast Suppressor is beyond essential in AW, I personally am exo-boosting all over the map, so for non of these movements to show up as pulsing red icons on the enemy mini-map is incredibly useful. Unlike previous CoDs Hardline only takes 100 points off your score streak, rather than a percentage like some games before. I swap Hardline out for Scavenger depending of what I am looking to achieve, whether it be long killstreaks with the same weapon, or my streaks faster!

Next looking at my scorestreaks, these are the thing that change the most in my classes. As you can see above when ever I run with the Care Package, I always put Support, Better Odds and Double Tap on, to almost guarantee that I get a good result, I always earn one per match sometimes two, despite the high cost! I have also run with the Bombing Run, with no modules attached, this is partly because there is nothing good to attach in my opinion, and partly because it bumps up the price of it! Other than these two I run various other scorestreaks, so look out for another post in the future where I give my suggestions about what modules to run of what scorestreaks!

Lastly there is my Exo Ability, which is always Overclock, no matter the class. I use this to suit my play style, which is quite objective based, so I can race to the OBJ as quickly as possible, both from spawn and from around the map! Occasionally I run the tier 1 perk, Overcharge to give me more time overclocked, but I feel you get enough time with the normal counter!

That wraps up my review/class guide for the Inferno variant of the Bal-27, all in all, this is an absolute monster weapon, and certainly in my top three best Elite Variants in the game! So I am giving the Bal-27 Inferno a rating of 9.5/10!
Thank you very much for reading, have you checked out my first vlog on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moyMhq2GBlA 
Ed 

Advanced Warfare Impressions

Hi guys,

I have now had Advanced Warfare(or AW as I will be referring to it as) for a few days now, and have put a good number of hours into the game, so I thought it was time for me to bring my initial reaction of the game to you, though I will only be talking about the multiplayer side of the game today, you will learn about what I think of the rest of the game in my full review later this month! Also I have played AW on the PS4 so that is what I will be referring to. Let's start with the most obvious change in the CoD series history, the exo suite, for from reading about it or watching some footage of the multiplyer you will not fully understand what a difference that the exo makes. I know going into playing for the first time I was quite anxouis that the movement would be hard to control, and I wouldn't be using it much, however within a few matches I came to the realisation that this game really is the comeback year for CoD. The movement, I find, is pretty easy to pick up, as long as you remember that you can only exo boost every 3 seconds, and you have 2 boosts, so you can boost twice, but then wait 3 seconds for one to regenerate, and another 3 seconds for the other boost to regenerate. Any time you are in the air(quite  alot) you can press sprint in any direction and you will boost in that direction. While you are on the ground you can boost any where in the 180 degrees behind you, so left, right and behind.
       With all of the new movement, how are the maps? Well, they are just as amazing as the movement, you never feel like you are to far from the action, this feeling is amplified by the fact that you can traverse the map very quickly. There is alot of verticality to all of the maps, but I haven't come across many if any people camping in hard to reach spots. The rate of progression is very nice, and though I have played in 2XP I am already at level 30! There are the new supply drops, which though very fun when you earn one, they are too random to be anything more that a side fancy. Which is a real shame because the system of random loot, is a very appealing one, especially as you can do just as well, with the standard weapons, they just maybe aren't quite right for you, but there is probably a variation out there to suit you!
     Moving on to the weapons, they are all highly satisfying to use, from the 12 hours or so I played of Ghosts, all the weapons had no personality to them. Where as in AW there are so many weapons which feel like they do something different from the rest, you have the BAL-27(OP? Yes!) which shoots the first 5 or so bullets at a slower rate of fire. You have the AK-12 which is a nice all round weapon, but doesn't exceed at any one thing. You have the HBRA3, which has a rather slow rate of fire, but you feel like each bullet is packing a noticeable punch, but don't try to take it into a close range engagement. Moving on the the SMGs, I have only really used the KF5 and the ASM1 a little, the KF5 really does feel like a pole apart from the ARs, and though all SMGs need a buff they are still usable in the right scenario now. With the increased rate of fire and approximately 10% increase movement speed while holding an SMG, you feel totally different from when you are using an AR. And the ASM1 is a modern take on the Tommy Gun, which is an absolute blast to use.
      You then have the most diverse create-a-class system to date, the Pick 13 system, it is the same as BOII's pick 10 system, but this time score streaks count as one point, so for me(someone who doesn't go on many kill streaks) I am running with a UAV and Carepackage, and going into the fray with one more perk. Speaking of score streaks, you can now tweak your streak to how you want it to be, there are about 6-7 modules you can attach to a score streak, each of which adds to the score you must earn before you earn said streak, so for me I am running UAV with player direction and support(progress towards the streak carries on after death) and a Care Package with Better Odds and Support. This means that I am guaranteed to earn at least 2 score streaks per match. The depth with which you can customise your streaks to be how you want them to be is really amazing, and don't worry, you can only add support to a hand full of streaks, and non of the high streaks!
      Now we have talked about all the awesome things in the game, let's talk about the very low number of things that I don't like with AW. It really boils down to two things, firstly there are some pretty bad spawns, I have spawned in the line of sight of enemy players, I have spawned on the exact spot on which I just died, though this hasn't annoyed me as much as I thought it would. The game is just so fun to play that these occasional free deaths don't really bug me. The other annoying thing I have found(though you should note again that all my thoughts are before any patches have been released) is occasional severe frame rate drops and extreme lag, these session last for between 10-20 seconds, in which time I reckon I was getting about 5 frames per second! Such instances occur too often for me to dismiss them as nothing, but it is possible that the issue was fixed in the patch on 11/11/14. One last note, the reason I haven't spoken about the new game modes in AW, I due to the fact that I have only been playing Hardpoint, so you will know my thoughts on Uplink and Momentum in my full review!
That just about wraps us my impressions of Advanced Warfare, it is very very good, I would highly recommend anyone picking it up, whether you are a CoD veteran or new to the series, this is the time to get into it!
Thanks for reading,
Ed
P.S I'm back!