Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - A Review

Earlier this year, I bought Call of Duty 3 for the PS3, the first Call of Duty game I'd ever bought, and I was simply blown away by the shear realism and intensity of the gameplay. It's no surprise then that when I heard COD 4 was on the way I was extremely excited. But not only that, COD4's developers decided to do something different. Rather than make yet another World War 2 shooter, they focused this game on 21st century warfare, and it impressed beyond all my expectations.

The game spans from the Middle East, to Chernobyl and even deep into the Motherland. The story is told mainly from the perspective of a British SAS trooper named "Soap" McTavish and for a portion of Act I it's told from the perspective of a US Marine Corp Sergeant Paul Jackson.

Rather than waffle on about the storyline, which is quite impressive for a FPS, I'll head straight into one of the game's feature stand points - its realism. All weapons in the game are based on real-life weapons, I could try to name them all but most have complex names with loads of letters and numbers in them that I'd probably make mistakes spelling them out and even more likely you wouldn't have a clue what I'm talking about. You can hold a maximum of two weapons, more often than not some kind of machine gun and a pistol sidearm, though there are weapons from all walks of life, including shotguns, sniper rifles, sub machine guns and missile launchers. This is one of the things that makes COD stand out from other FPS. You can only hold two weapons, which is about right for any kindof soldier, whereas the likes of Medal of Honour will allow you to hold 5 or 6 weapons. You're also armed with a knife for those sticky situations.

Speaking of those, one would think of a shooter game to be just shooting, but it's more than that. I tapped the faithful R3 button more times than I have fingers and toes to save my ass.

The AI in the game is superb, and adds 100% to the intensity of the gameplay. There's rarely a time when you can take a breather and give yourself a momentary lapse in concentration. Enemies come from everywhere, and when I first set foot in the Middle East setting of the game, I couldn't help but think that this was exactly what fighting in Iraq felt like. (In fact, there's one moment in the game when you see a statue of the fictional dictator collapse, much like the way a certain Iraqi dictators statue collapsed). Enemies will duck behind cover, throw grenades and even launch rockets at you. Speaking of cover, COD4's engine created a new type of cover system. In previous games of this genre and even those from other genres, simply hiding behind a chair would be enough to protect you. Not here though, wood, thin plaster walls, PVC pipes are all porous to bullets, meaning you'd want to be in some pretty good cover to protect yourself.

The game also incorporated a kindof hidden catch in the gameplay. In most of the Middle Eastern fighting, you and your comrades will be fighting through the streets with militia firing all round. You can pick them off alright, only to find that they'll be replaced shortly by someone else, all day long, but if you don't physically push forward yourself (as in YOU controlling your character) then they won't go away, so the game forces you to take an active role in the gameplay shooting.

Now enemies are armed with all kinds of weapons, but they have in their arsenal one of the most powerful weapons of war at their disposal. No its not RPG's, its attack dogs! I cannot tell you how many times I was killed by a bleeding dog! They are on you so quickly that only a timely tap of the R1 button to shoot your rifle or a punch of the R3 knife slash will get them off. Once they're on you, you're dead, end of story. It's probably also an appropriate time now to mention the health system. In COD, you don't have "health" persay. When you get hit a certain number of times (and that number of times is proportional to the level of difficulty) a red blur surrounds the screen indicating that you should get into cover. If you don't, you're dead. This red blur doesn't show up if you are bitten by an attack dog, blown up by a grenade or killed by a knife, you're just simply dead!

All that said and done, COD4 is a must for PC, PS3 or Xbox owners, the multiplayer will have you coming back for more because as we all know, human intelligence is always better than AI.

Graphics: 10

Sound: 9

Gameplay: 10

Longevity: 8

Unlockables: 8

Multiplayer: 10

Overall: 9.5

~The Damo