Call of Duty 4 sets the series in the modern day for the first time. It
departs from the beaches of Normandy of World War II and heads to the
Middle East and Eastern Europe of modern day. The game sets a new
standard for the military first person shooter. It has a very dense and
intense, although short, single player campaign that will have you
coming back for more with its deep multi-player component.
The presentation is very well done, the graphics and overall feel of
the game is amazing. The level of detail within the environments and
character models are impressive, from each blade of grass on the ground
to the stitching on your gloves there is a lot eye candy to look at.
The
game play is what you would come to expect from the Call of Duty
series. It’s very intense with bullets firing and whizzing past you.
There’s a lot going on in the battlefield. With constant radio chatter,
soldiers and enemies yelling at each other, the game does a good job
pulling you into the experience and making you feel like a soldier part
of something bigger and not some lone hero. You still need to push a
button to bring your gun up to aim it, you can try to shoot from the
hip but it won’t do you much good. Aiming your weapon will cause you to
slow down so you don’t want to do it out in the open, only when
necessary. You will find yourself taking cover behind walls or a car so
slowing down isn’t a bad thing. But you will need to keep moving.
The enemies in the game are not very tough but the sheer number can
make them seem challenging and sometimes a little cheap. They seem to
throw an endless amount of grenades right at your feet no matter how
far they seem to be especially on the higher difficulties. Also they
seem to keep coming until you move ahead, which forces you to leave you
precious wall your using for cover and face the wall of bullets coming
your way.
This doesn’t hinder the single player experience
though. The campaign is very short but also very dense. There’s a lot
of ground the game covers, you will be raiding a ship, sneaking past
guards in a ghillie suit and chasing a terrorist’s son on foot. This
leaves you satisfied in the end of the campaign even though you will
probably complete it within one or two sittings.
The story is a
very dark and gritty look at modern day warfare, which mostly is told
through real-time cut scenes, along with briefings during the loading
screen. Some of the cut scenes will have you saying “wow.” Because of
not only how the game looks but also what happens in it as well. The
game does a very good job at telling you who the bad guys are as well
as making you hate them. You will not have any question as to why you
are on a mission to stop them.
The multi-player is very deep.
The perk system is a good way of customizing the game to your play
style. The perks are separated into three categories, which you can
choose one from each. The first deals with explosives like grenades,
claymores and C4. The second has to do with your gun, how much damage
you can give or take, the speed of reloading, etc. The third category
is basically power ups like the last stand perk, which has you pull out
your pistol after you die so you can get a quick revenge.
The
game types are what you would expect from an online game. There is team
death match, free-for-all, domination, which is basically control
points, Sabotage which is a mixture between capture the flag and
demolition, headquarters, which is basically king of the hill and
search and destroy which has you defend and destroy an objective with
no respawns. Those of you familiar with the Socom series will feel at
home with search and destroy.
Overall Call of Duty 4 is a
game that does not disappoint. The campaign may be short but the amount
of things you do within the campaign along with the quality of the
multi-player make this a must have for fans of both first-person
shooter and action games alike.
