Parents' Guide to Call of Duty: Mobile

For years, this franchise has been the hallmark of first-person military shooters, setting the bar for others in the genre. The series has also made its way to mobile devices with Call of Duty: Mobile. The game has been designed from the ground up as an original mobile experience. Despite the smaller real estate of the phone screen, everything looks crisp and detailed, running smoothly on most modern devices. Since its initial release, Call of Duty: Mobile has continued to grow, adding more rotating game modes, a wider arsenal of weapons, and new operator skills and classes. The game also includes a slew of content and events running hand-in-hand with its bigger brothers on consoles and computers. In fact, it's almost bursting at the seams with content. Unfortunately, navigating through all of this has slowly become a more frustrating chore, as the game's menus have gotten more cluttered and cumbersome. The frequent promotion of additional content slows down action as you try to figure out the menu option you want without being subjected to a new promo.

Despite the issues with trying to navigate the menus, especially on the smaller real estate of mobile screens, Call of Duty: Mobile still plays buttery smooth once a match starts and the bullets fly. Controls have also been laid out in an efficient way, giving players instant access to all the tricks in their arsenal without seeming cramped or invading heavily into the game screen. Newcomers to the series will likely enjoy the game's Simple mode as well, which automatically fires the equipped weapon once players line up an enemy in their sights. But the Advanced controls give a much wider range of options, making it easier to sneak up on clusters of foes without giving away your position. It can take a little getting used to at first, though, as it's easy to get wrapped up in the action and accidentally slip your grip just a bit out of position, but practice takes care of that quickly. After starting a match, there's very little wait time and no noticeable lag during play. Maps feel a lot more condensed, outside of the massive Battle Royale map, of course. But that works in the game's favor by keeping the bullets flying and the matches short, perfect for pocket-sized play.