In the western society shooting games are on the up, they are becoming more and more impressive and not to mention perhaps the most popular genre of current times. The shooter games we have experienced in heavy doses so far are the likes of Medal of Honor, Halo, Battlefield and Counter strike. Call of Duty has been around a fair few years too but has been stuck in the WWII period since it started, many shooters are making the transition from WWII to the modern day battlefields and of course we still have the Sci-fi wonders that will keep us wondering. For those of you who are very grounded and enjoy your "war simulators" as they are being coined now for their unparalleled realism and up to date war tech it seems like Call of Duty 4 is the game for you.
The game takes place in the near future of 2012 and troops from several countries are at war with an unnamed terrorist organisation within the regions of Afghanistan, Russia and Iraq. For the majority of the game you play as Pvt "soap" Mctavish from the British spec-ops TF141 regiment. You start by infiltrating a cargo ship and find WMD's aboard, the ship is attacked and you attempt to escape and track down the people who are planning on using such weapons. For an opening level CoD4 does relatively well, intense shooting, a nice stealth bit at the start and a fast paced explody section at the end, however this largely resembles the whole game and as much as I love explosions and nuclear bombs it gets a little repetitive when one is going off in your face every level. The only other level that really wow'd me was a level where you have been playing as an American soldier and a nuclear bomb explodes midflight in a helicopter, the level starts in the wreckage and you can only crawl for several seconds, you exit the heli and see a giant mushroom cloud filling the sky before you see a bright light sweep the street, the next cutscene states that the soldier is K.I.A. this managed to pull at the heartstrings slightly making the war we fight in real life seem more important than we civilians may see it. But the effect quickly wore off as the next level its back to the shooty and blowing shit up routine.
Whilst the campaign will take 5 hours on average to finish the multiplayer is built to last, with 55 ranks and 10 "prestiges" where your multiplayer rank goes back to 1 and start off with basic equipment again makes it last for a long time, however after prestige 2 I couldn’t see the point anymore as I was using the same tactics, weapons and perks as i was the last prestige and it became a boring and tedious process. The maps are well designed varying from the open swaps of Bog to the enclosed offices of Vacant CoD4 offers a wide variety of tactics and playstles to suit the needs of the individual. Lots of game modes help make a change as well however some seem slightly pointless, When playing Team Tactical (objective game modes for 2 teams of 3) and it was Search and Destroy (1 life, plant the bomb) the games were over extremely quickly with next to no XP earned.
The look of the game feels old, not to mention the lack of colours used. the characters feel clunky and the hit boxes are way too big compared to the character itself. The guns look nice but sound wrong and grenades only make a small pop when exploding, it feels as if Infinity Ward and Activison ran out of money with all the big campaign set piece explosions that they didn’t have enough money for realistic gunfire or frag explosions.
Overall CoD4 is a game for the war sim fans only, with not much to offer bar some nice explosions and a long multiplayer progression system there is no other reason to buy this game as it will quickly be completed to 100% with no other reason to replay anything.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
+One of the best shooters ever made
