Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
November 9,2007 - World War II shooters are a dime a dozen these days. In fact, World War II games in general are. When Infinity Ward first released Call of Duty back in 2003, they were hot off the success of games like Medal of Honor: Frontline and Allied Assault, but with COD the WWII genre was taken a large step further. The scripted sequences and authenticity of the gameplay was top notch and made it feel as if you were playing Saving Private Ryan on your computer. As time went on, however, the genre really started to stagnate and even the best WWII games were relatively redundant. After a two year break from their work on Call of Duty 2, Infinity Ward is back with a drastic change to Activision’s annual Call of Duty franchise. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare sports the franchise’s first subtitle and rightfully so. The title speaks for itself. Call of Duty 4 is no longer taking place during World War II, rather than a fictional conflict that is set in modern day Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Call of Duty 4 is an excellent departure from the series past; whether it’s the stellar single player or the ridiculously deep and addicting multiplayer, you’ll find Call of Duty 4 to be, without a doubt, the greatest entry in the series yet.

The story takes place between a couple of vantage points. The large majority of it is through an English soldier named Soap and another American Marine named Jackson. It’s an intense story that plays out like a movie. It’s one of the most cinematic, tightly told stories seen in any shooter of this kind. You don’t really want to know what happens in the campaign by risk of it being spoiled, but it has some of the most jaw dropping scripted sequences seen in any FPS other than Half-Life 2 in years. From the gorgeous locales to the furious, intense battles, Call of Duty 4’s single player is an absolute delight.

The campaign is a little short in COD 4. Spanning over three acts, the game should take you no more than 6-8 hours depending on the difficulty you play on. Anyone who is seasoned with the Call of Duty series should certainly play on at least the regular difficulty setting, because the easiest one is far too easy and you’ll fly through the game in a lot shorter time. The veteran difficulty is unusually hard, even by standard high difficulty standards, but it’s actually more satisfying and in many ways the best way to be playing the campaign. Since the battles are so intense and action packed you’ll find yourself truly immersed in the fight, and on the highest difficulty you’ll be more involved and attached to what’s going on around you and thusly find yourself playing a little better. It’s strange, but it really does happen. If you take it slowly and play it right, you’ll get a lot more out of the firefights in the campaign than you would have otherwise.

The action itself in Call of Duty 4 is as good as the weaponry. The arsenal you’ll have at your disposal is really quite good; the weapons and equipment are realistic and much more engaging than your average shooter for that reason alone. As a game based in modern time you expect the weapons to be up to date but possibly pushing the boundaries of what we’ve seen before, and that’s exactly what they give us. Many of the weapons are more sophisticated than almost anything else we’ve seen. Not just the weaponry, but things like your night vision goggles work seamlessly into the gameplay. Taking down a house full of hostiles after your comrades cut the power is unbelievably satisfying and puts other games that have used it as a gimmick to shame. The guns all feel and perform realistically. The trajectory and impact of your arsenal is going to directly impact your performance on the battlefield both online and off. You need to stock the correct gun for the situation, because if you don’t, expect to lose.

Though the campaign is stellar it’s very short as we mentioned before. To some this may be a problem, but the real value of Call of Duty 4 comes from its rich and involving multiplayer options. There are loads of maps and several different gameplay types that you can unlock the more you play and the more you rank up (think Halo 2 and Halo 3), but the real cool stuff about it is how you can upgrade your character with class differences and perks. You will receive perks by accomplishing specific things. Basically everything you can do in the multiplayer will in some way affect the way your character will be. The more you level up the more things you can unlock. The first thing will be a custom class. As any class based shooter is you’ll have specific types of characters to play as; classes like snipers, heavy gunners, etc. are all pretty standard, but as you get further and create your first custom class you’ll get to decide what your first gun is, your secondary gun is, and then also all of your special equipment—things like grenades, C4, night vision, etc. Perks are a little different. As you kill people, complete goals, win matches, and do other things of that nature, you’ll start earning the ability to upgrade your character’s performance. Things like deeper impact bullets, longer sprinting time, and the like will be at your disposal the better you get. It doesn’t exactly make the game unbalanced for newcomers who haven’t had the opportunity to fix up their characters; it just gives veterans a little incentive to keep playing.

Technically speaking, Call of Duty 4 is one of, if not the greatest looking and sounding games on the market. Everything from the character models to the particle effects are remarkable, and elements like the lighting effects and death animations are the best we’ve seen in any shooter yet. The locations in the campaign are particularly breathtaking. It’s so photorealistic that in some situations it’s almost frightening to think this is what combat could potentially be like in similar situations. The level design in both the single and multiplayer portions are equally as impressive. Particularly in the single player you’ll find many points of attack that you can lay down on your enemy, and though it’s linear, it gives you more options than any of the previous installments in the franchise. Audibly, it’s top notch as well. The franchise has always been known for having some of the best audio work in gaming, and this is no exception, in fact, it’s probably the best yet. The devastating gun effects and explosions are heart pounding and accurate, not to mention the voice acting and fitting music. It all comes together perfectly. If you’re looking for a game to show off that new 1080p HDTV or that nice PC rig, this is it; it really doesn’t get better.

Call of Duty 4 is, without a doubt, one of the finest games of the year so far. In a year crammed to the brim with first-class shooting games, Call of Duty 4 manages to hit towards the top of the pile with its incredible, though brief, single player campaign and its deep multiplayer component. If you’re a fan of real-life war-themed shooters, there isn’t a better one so far this year. It’s the best Call of Duty game so far and hopefully will spark other developers to follow suit by breaking out of the redundant World War II genre. It doesn’t matter what platform you get Call of Duty 4, all that matters is it deserves a spot in any action fan’s collection.

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