Games We Play: Call of Duty 4

It’s time for another edition of our semi regular “Games We Play” series. Today Thomas and Jason jump into Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and let you know if this installment lives up to the CoD standard.

Developer: Infinity Ward
Title: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Genre: First Person Shooter
Minimum Requirements: Click Here
Gallery: Click Here
Price: $49.95

Introduction
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a tactical first person
shooter set in the crisis-rich middle east and parts Russia and
Ukraine. The eighth installment in the Call of Duty series (counting
expansions), CoD4 is the first to not take place during World War II.
After it was announced on April 25, 2007, the game was heavily touted
by early advocates for its deep gameplay, advanced rendering/lighting
engine, and brand new features. Though Crysis has pretty much killed all other game’s hopes of being the best
looking in 2007, Call of Duty 4 is one of the most visually appealing
games currently available. Can gameplay, graphics, and a reworked
multiplayer in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare make it live up to the
tremendous standard that Call of Duty 2 set for the series two years ago?

Jason: I’ll be the first to admit I
have never played any Call of Duty game competitively, and the only one
I have really played was CoD2. I really enjoyed it and my first
impressions of this game gave me a similar vibe- it was fun and smooth
gameplay and easy to jump into for anyone familiar with FPS games.
There are a few things about the multiplayer that I am not sure will
transition well in the gaming scene but we can get to that later. First
off I want to discuss the single player. On first play I felt the
single player was even more engaging than that of Call of Duty 2.
The game does a great job of making you feel “in the game” - a must in
my opinion for almost any good shooter. The single player starts off
with your typical training montage and you go from there to get an idea
on what level of skill you should play at. My recommendation: play at
least the 2nd highest level if not the highest. It adds a lot more
realism to the game and while it may be more difficult, for me it was
the better experience. The game features you playing as a British SAS
member and a member of the American 1st Force Recon group. There are
varied storylines that tie into the whole story with different missions
in different locations for each main persona. It’s an interesting take
and while it will have two “co-leads” it doesn’t pull you away from the
gameplay at all.

Thomas, what are your thoughts on the single player and graphics, sound, etc?

Thomas: Unfortunately Call of Duty
4: Modern Warfare shared a launch week with what turned out to be every
bit the graphical super power it was hyped to be, Crysis.
Whereas prior to the first week of November 2007, drawing conclusions
about the visual prowess of video games was done by comparing the
subject to a usually inferior previous benchmark, now every game that
comes out struggles to even be in the same arena as Crysis.
However, Infinity Ward’s work on the Call of Duty 4 engine is not
something that can be discredited simply on the basis of its
inferiority to CryENGINE2. While there are no “revolutionary” graphical
effects or features happening within Call of Duty 4, it makes far
better use of certain features than any of the preceding installments
int he series. For instance, I found the motion blur and depth of field
applications in Call of Duty 4 absolutely fantastic and at points even
breathtaking. What really sets CoD4 and its engine apart from other
shooters is the performance. As was the case with Call of Duty 2, the ratio between on-screen beauty and overall frame rate performance on Call of Duty 4 is nothing short of amazing. Playing Crysis on high settings is one thing; playing Call of Duty 4 on high settings while actually being able to play is quite another.

The audio work that Infinity Ward has done with CoD4 is just an
extension of the phenomenal work they have done on its predecessors.
Call of Duty games have always been right up near the top in terms of
audio realism, and CoD4 is certainly no exception. While the the entire
CoD4 single player experience is not one that really knocked my socks
off, the realism afforded by the graphics and audio in the game might
well be the very best currently available from a major first person
shooter title. But if you think I am bustling now, well, let’s just say
I cant wait ’til you ask me about gameplay.

{mospagebreak heading=Introduction&title=Grab Factor}

Jason: If the ability to stress ones
computer rig is a measuring stick then CoD4 is up there graphically.
But it isn’t all eye candy and bells and whistles here. There is a lot
of substance to go with the style. First impressions while playing were
definitely of the positive note. I was quickly impressed with the
ability of my A.I. squad mates to keep me posted on what was going
around us and giving on point commands. They are very intelligent and
they can actually shoot, (unlike all those games where your squad lets
you do all the killing). In fact a couple times I found myself trying
to push ahead of the pack just to snag a few kills before they did.
They are employees of the month at their job, that is for sure.

Per the earlier standards of other CoD games, Modern Warfare excels in
the realism department. From the way you move, to the way you carry
your weapons, the shells falling to the ground, accurate sounds of
explosions and bullets; Call of Duty 4 is right on the money. Shooting
on the run without your iron sights up? Better hope you get lucky. Your
accuracy faces a big drop off in anything by very close quarters if you
aren’t using the iron sights. All these little things add up to a
bundle of realism that even Santa Claus could enjoy.

How about you Thomas, what grabs a hold of you in this game?

Thomas: Thanks to my slow college
internet, my Steam download of Call of Duty 4: Modern warfare did not
finish until well into the evening. Though I suppose that does not
matter, because I didn’t sleep that night. I started playing the game
at about 1AM and was done at 7, at which point I noticed it was light
outside and that my fluids class was going to start soon. First I was
verbally assaulted by a foul-mouthed Briton. Next, I was looking for a
nuclear device on a tanker ship infested with bad guys. Before I knew
it, I was reliving the excitement of the infamous AC-130 Spectre
gunship footage from the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh,
and then I died in a nuclear explosion. Oh and then before that I was
launching grenades from a helicopter.

The depth of gameplay in CoD4 is simply amazing. Infinity Ward seems to
have taken a page out of the Battlefield playbook and incorporated some
absolutely amazing and dynamic experiences in Call of Duty 4. The story
was also pretty enthralling, especially considering how the present
situation in the middle-east makes it all too realistic. Despite my
overall applaud of the gameplay, I have two major complaints. First,
the ability to drop and pick up different weapon classes is very cool,
but it is difficult to use these weapons as tactically as you might
desire, because the same position-based progress is still present in
this latest version of CoD. This can be tremendously frustrating when
you are just sitting back as a sniper, picking people off and ignoring
that nagging British chump. Also, the game was over as quickly as it
began. Granted, I had a great time playing, but I don’t know if $50.00
is worth it for a run-through time of about 6.5 hours. For comparison, Bioshock also costs $50.00, and that was genuinely 17 hours of gameplay.

Then again, Bioshock doesn’t have multiplayer. I haven’t had a chance to get online to get my frag on just yet, but I hear you have, Jason?

{mospagebreak title=Multiplayer and Conclusion}

Jason:
The bit of online play I have had time for lately has been very
enjoyable. The diverse weapons and classes, around a dozen battle modes
online and xp all add depth to the online experience. Wait did I just
say xp? That I did. In a interesting twist weapons and upgrades are now
unlocked via xp which you receive for various achievements online, as
you move up in levels you can swap out your rank for a special icon by
your name and start over back at level 1. It adds a lot of meat to the
online game play but it also brings in balance questions and ramps up
the difficulty for new people to get started, beyond the normal
learning the game curve, as there is now a weapons and outfit curve
also. While not so bad for public play this leads us to interesting
questions for online leagues and competitive CoD4 play. Do we use the
leveled up players and weapons, or stick with the base configurations
team wise to create a more fair and balanced game play? Questions,
questions.

Infinity Ward should have a winner on its hands. This game is available
on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 which is only going to help their name brand
and popularity. The only complaint on this front is lack of cross
platform play. Can someone get this done? Hopefully someday much like
online play, cross platform play will become a standard. The realism,
great graphics and sound, and engrossing single and multiplayer puts
CoD4 in the cream of the crop of this years games.

Thomas: Hmm, I don’t know if this departure from traditional Call of Duty
multiplayer will pan out well for the competitive side of the game, but
I guarantee you it will attract more casual gamers. For evidence check
out NEXON’s KartRider. People who race more have more money,
can buy upgrades, and have higher ranking than those starting out. That
doesn’t necessarily mean they’re better, either; it just means that
they play a lot more. Millions of people play KartRider, as they did GunBound
before it, to be a part of this ranked community and get better gear
than their counterparts. While CoD4 differs in that it is not a
cartoon, I imagine the effect will be quite similar. I agree with you
about cross-platform play. I had heard some rumors a while back that Halo 2
for Windows Vista was going to allow gamers to play against people
using Xbox. I was pretty stoked about that considering it would be easy
as cake to smoke everyone with a mouse and keyboard. Then it didn’t
happen. That sucked. Cross platform play, though decidedly tricky to
implement, will introduce a whole new level of unity in the video game
space. And when a game finally has this functionality, you can rest
assured that it will be tremendously successful.

I actually went back into CoD4 today to replay some of the levels that
I particularly enjoyed the first time around. Destroying ant-like bad
guys from the AC-130 was just as fun in round two, and even more so was
the Chernobyl sniping mission. After giving it some thought, I believe
the latter to be the defining mission in this game from a tactical
standpoint.

Conclusion
Call of Duty 4 is certainly not a perfect game. It still has some of
the old irritating problems we have had in previous Call of Duty games,
and the multiplayer side appears to have changed significantly as well.
However, the graphical and gameplay updates more than make up for
whatever deficiencies these problems cause. Perhaps the fact that
Infinity Ward was no longer required to adhere to the limits of history
with their story telling (CoD4 is based on the unwritten present/near
future) has allowed them to pull out all of the stops necessary to turn
the Call of Duty
franchise into something truly phenomenal. Whatever the case, Call of
Duty 4: Modern Warfare is not a game that you will want to skip if you
have any interest in first person shooters. This title must be
considered for a place in the top five video games of 2007 - probably
the most competitive year the market has ever seen.