Call of Duty: Ghosts is the latest Call of Duty title to be announced and the latest CoD to look forward to when it launches later this year on the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

This time around we get a new storyline, new characters and new experiences including an appearance from Riley, the team's dog.

In the run up to the pre-Christmas launch Pocket-lint was invited behind closed doors to see how the game is shaping up.

The E3 Call of Duty: Ghosts demo involved glimpses of three of the games levels: No Man's Land, Federation Day, and Into the Deep.

Sadly the demo walkthrough was a very much hands-off affair - a standard for the annual gaming show for many behind closed doors previews - but it still gave us plenty of insight into what to expect.

Technical aspects

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Before being treated to seeing what the gameplay was like, Activision where keen to highlight some of the changes that the move to next-gen consoles can deliver. The main takeaways here are more enhanced graphics that make surfaces more realistic and that lighting has been improved so if you come out of a dark tunnel into the sunlight your eyes have to take get accustomed to it, just like in the real world.

No Man's Land

This level sees you returning back to your home to find it virtually destroyed and bad guys everywhere. The key focus here in the demo from Activision was the use of Riley, the team dog - yes there is a dog in Call of Duty: Ghosts. The level sees you able to play as the dog when needed, attacking the enemy and using the pooch to distract others so you can nail them with your machine gun.

Federation Day

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Only being shown behind closed doors (the things we do for you dear reader) this level had our character abseiling down a skyscraper taking out the enemy one by one on the orders of the team principle through the window. At one point our lead jumped through the window, ducked into a server room, released a bit of code into the server and then sneaked out again - not before silently taking down an enemy soldier (see image above). The gameplay is slow, but timing is everything - something we where shown when the final element of the abseil saw our character remove and knife and stab someone before they knew what was happening.

A quick "in the interest of time" and the pace had quickened with the building collapsing while you're still in it. Yes Battlefield has collapsing skyscrapers and so does Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Into the deep

Call of Duty has had underwater levels before and Call of Duty: Ghosts will to. This level saw our lead character swimming underwater in scuba gear steering clear of the enemy but still managing to take out a huge warship, something which then causes you problems when it starts to land all around you.

First impressions

The graphics are stunning and the gameplay creative, but we get the feeling that it is still very much more of the same as we've seen before from Activision. For many, that's no bad thing, but it is clear that the single player elements, based on what we've seen, won't allow for much roaming away from the mission objectives. The Federation Day level highlighted this specifically.

Call of Duty fan's won't be disappointed, unless they are looking for something new. Call of Duty: Ghosts will release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on November 5Call of Duty: Ghosts will also release on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 later this year.