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I keep playing Call of Duty 4. The more I do, the more I’m certain there must be something distinctly wrong here. After all, Infinity Ward has spent so much of their brief life tinkering around in the World War II era. When it came to Axis, Allies, Thompsons, and Garands, they were the pinnacle. So when the company announced that Call of Duty 4 would be subtitled Modern Warfare and take place in recent times, the game shouldn’t have been this good.
I keep playing Call of Duty 4. Now that I’ve finished the Campaign, and reached the 40th level in multiplayer, I keep wondering when in the hell I’m going to get the bum’s rush. Since I had experience in the multiplayer beta, I immediately jumped into the single player campaign when I bought the game, to find out how lacking it was. I was uniquely surprised when it was anything but. And when I tried the full multiplayer modes, I was even more surprised to see them so richly detailed.
I keep playing Call of Duty 4, wondering when the other foot is going to fall, curious when I’m going to see the bad side about this game. And after two weeks, I am convinced. This is it. This is the shooter to end all shooters. Call me biased. Call me a fanboy. It makes no difference. Call of Duty 4 is like a warm blanket in a cold night, wrapping you up in its cozy and welcoming arms and never letting you go. It’s not without its share of silly problems (and one big, absurd problem). But in the end, Call of Duty 4 sets standards. It’s a crowning moment in the FPS genre because it’s so polished in so many areas. And surprisingly, in 2007, we have a game that’s going to give Halo 3 a serious run for its money.
Hit the jump. We’ve got details galore. There are a few bumps in the ride, but this is one hell of a roller coaster.
As previously mentioned, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the first foray into recent times for Infinity Ward. The game focuses on a two separate threads in a single storyline. One storyline places you in the role of Soap MacTavish, a member of the 22nd Special Air Services Regiment, with the other placing you in the role of USMC 1st Force Recon member Paul Jackson. The two stories intersect midway through the game, courtesy of a Joint Operation that links the two forces together in a quest to stop three of the most evil villains out there. Some would call them patriots. Others would call them terrorists intent upon overthrowing entire governments, destroying the peace between Russia and the United States, causing political and social strife in the Middle East, and returning Russia to its status as Communist Central. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.
At first, you might not give a crap about the story. But you will. Modern Warfare deals with some very mature and current themes. Concepts like nuclear terrorism, shadow governments, Middle East invasions, and assassination missions would send a lot of developers running for the hills in fear of the P.C. police. Infinity Ward throws them all into the bubbling soup that is Call of Duty 4, mixing these concepts together for a narrative that isn’t just entertaining, but gripping as well. By the time the last three missions have come up, you’re invested in the overall well being of not just one, but two characters.
It’s a cinematic story. At times, action moves slowly. In others, it’s so fast and dramatic that it might have you holding your breath without realizing it. The game starts with a mission aboard a cargo ship that’s actually swaying as the ocean churns around it, then moves you into a war torn Middle East, then into a politically conflicted Russia.
The overall first person shooter mechanic can’t really be completely overhauled, so Infinity Ward doesn’t go to great lengths to reinvent the wheel with Call of Duty 4. Everything handles in the manner you’d expect it to, and gamers that played Call of Duty 2 will be able to jump right into the game with almost no instruction required. The button layout for the Xbox 360 controller is comfortable, so much so that I wish other games would go ahead and start ripping off the layout for the sake of comfort in future FPS games. Modern Warfare does tighten up the controls, though… after user feedback was submitted during the beta period for the game, Infinity Ward wisely introduced a customizable Sensitivity option to allow users to better tweak their turning speed. A huge bonus, considering that the original plan was to have three total options for turn sensitivity.
Some of the mechanics are improved over past iterations of Call of Duty, too. The most notable of these is bullet penetration. Modern Warfare’s gameplay engine takes a bullet’s speed and power into account when it hits an object. In some cases, the bullet stops. In others, it penetrates the object (or person) it hits. It adds a new element to a shooter, a genre where most gamers know that turning a corner and hiding behind a wall means safety. Instead of providing sanctuary, those walls are just slowing down the bullets. Cars explode when you shoot them enough, pieces of the environment break away as you shoot them. It’s this attention to realism that makes the game.
But if you want to talk realism, look no further than what Infinity Ward has done to the graphics. While Call of Duty 2, the last entry from Infinity Ward, was a groundbreaking game for the Xbox 360 launch period, Call of Duty 4 makes it look like a piece of child’s artwork by comparison. Hell, even comparing them seems futile. The difference between the graphic styles on CoD2 and CoD4 is like night and day. Modern Warfare sets an impressive, gorgeous, and in some cases awe-inspiring level of visuals that simply hasn’t been matched in any other shooter out there on the 360 right now. Bioshock came close, but it’s not quite there. In Modern Warfare, the environments aren’t just detailed, they come to life. Grass flutters in the wind. Leaves and snow gently fall to the ground. There’s just a certain Life to these levels that turns them from battlegrounds into locations that actually feel like they exist nearby.
The single player campaign will take the average person 6 - 10 hours to complete on Regular or Hardened, with substantially more time taken for most people that willingly tackle the Veteran difficulty level. The last half of the game is an absolute treat, and almost makes you reluctant to pause it or turn it off. Yes, it’s that good. There are a few vehicle missions for you to play, as well. One of them places you in the role of an unnamed turret gunner aboard an AC-130 gunship during a night mission, and it’s a shame that you only get one level in that particular seat. Vehicle missions are added for the sake of the story, not for the sake of having them in there to say they have them.
Once you’ve beaten the game, an Arcade Mode becomes available. In it, you’re given a limited number of lives and a short amount of time to complete levels. It’s an absolute treat, too.
But enough about the single player. Let’s talk multiplayer, because that’s where the meat’s at.
Multiplayer supports up to 18 players in a single match, with the multiplayer side taking no graphical hits in comparison to what you see in single player. The multiplayer modes work on a party structure similar to that seen in Halo. You’ll form the party beforehand, then move into the game lobbies, in a very simple and direct fashion. There are two flavors to multiplayer matches: Ranked, and Private.
In Ranked matches, parties of up to 9 people can play against others in a series of game modes. As you kill enemies, perform certain tasks, or pass certain thresholds of kills/headshots, your character obtains XP to level up. There are 55 levels overall, with each level unlocking either new challenges (think of them as FPS ‘quests’ to gain XP), new weapons, improved weapon upgrades, or Perks. At the fourth level, you’ll unlock Create a Class, which offers five character templates to create to your liking, allowing you to customize your character with the weapons, perks, and explosives you prefer. Once you reach level 55, you’re given the option to enter Prestige Mode. In Prestige Mode, you reset your character’s XP and level, starting over from the first level and re-doing all of the challenges and recollecting XP. In return, you get a special icon denoting your uber l33tness.
There are six different game types overall, consisting of Deathmatch (dubbed Free-for-All here), Team Deathmatch, Search & Destroy, Sabotage, Headquarters, and Domination. The game also includes several variants for these, titled Old School and Hardcore. The two modes do their best to seriously up the ante, by removing character classes in place of letting players find their weapons/perks on the map, increasing run speed, boosting health, and activating friendly fire.
The Perks system is probably the most interesting introduction into Call of Duty multiplayer. Perks give you a variety of bonuses. Some of them increase your overall gun power, some double the number of bullets you carry, some allow you to fire your weapons at twice the speed, others allow you to reload your gun in half the time. But you’re only allowed to choose three total Perks, with each perk assigned a certain category, preventing you from mixing/matching too much at your leisure. It’s an amazing system that’s simple on the surface, but adds a unique level of depth to multiplayer. Expect this to get ripped off in the next year or two.
The Perks and unlockable weapons both introduce an interesting pro/con situation. On the one hand, Perks are really damn cool. A player could spend hours tinkering with their Perk layout to find just the right settings that work with their character and style of gameplay. In fact, it’s very easy to see that by having Perks and a series of progressively more awesome weapons, it forces a player to invest in their success in multiplayer matches, which dramatically increases the longevity of multiplayer.
The caveat to this is the unfortunate wall it puts between seasoned players and new ones. And it’s a big gap. While it’s not insurmountable, it’s regrettable that this divide is only going to put off more and more new gamers as time goes on. I’ve been in multiplayer matches where a player with a properly specced out weapon has literally slaughtered a new player over a dozen times in a row, while the newbie just keeps trying to get their first few kills in as they try to reach a higher rank.
It doesn’t help that, right now, the matchmaking isn’t doing a lot to pair up new players with new players. I’ve seen many games where an entire party of level 40+ people is pitted against a group of lowbies. It never ends well for the newer players. Theoretically speaking, the matchmaking could (and should) be pitting the low people against one another. The failure to do so will only sow frustration amongst many fledgling players wanting to get their feet wet, only to be met by the Ultimate BadAss of CoD4 and their pimped out P90 with ACOG and the Double Tap perk. Dying because of a difference in skill is one thing. Dying because of imbalance is another.
Then there are the Private matches, which are just a mixed bag right now.
In Private matches, you can invite up to 17 other players. You don’t earn any XP in Private matches, but you can set many of the game modes to your preference. And there are quite a few settings to tweak to your liking. Do you have snipers that find the Killcam to be anathema? Turn it off. Is a single round of Sabotage too short? Crank up the number of rounds and decrease the overall time per round. Turn off headshots, turn off aerial assaults… you can even disable all perks. It’s a nice, customizable setup for private matches. Unfortunately, your settings aren’t automatically saved for each gametype, meaning you have to re-configure your matches as you switch between them.
But there’s just one little problem. Although you don’t earn XP in Private matches, your XP from Ranked matches carries over. This means that, when you’re playing a Private match, the only perks/weapons available to you will be what you’ve unlocked in Ranked matches.
Ok, so it’s not a little problem. It’s one big, absurd problem. If a player isn’t earning XP in Private matches, then don’t tie them to the very system you’re preventing them from accessing. It’s understandable that Private matches are set up to prevent cheating. Otherwise, players would just set up Private matches with a bunch of stationary friends and quickly rank themselves up to level 55, and bypass the point of the XP system altogether. But if you can’t collect XP in a Private match, then why should you be locked out of the weapons that aren’t available to you because of your XP in Ranked mode? It makes absolutely no sense.
It also doesn’t help that Private matches… aren’t. If you invite a friend to a Private match, any friend of that friend can join without requiring an invite. And then, any friend of that friend can join. The fact that you can’t easily configure a Private match which functions on an Invite Only basis is puzzling, and you’ll be surprised how many hops it takes from one friend in your list to that friend’s friend before you’re dealing with a smart mouthed, trash talking kid, the same type you were trying to avoid by going private.
But when you look at the overall picture, Call of Duty 4 delivers on so many fronts. It offers a single player campaign that is rich, detailed, exciting, energetic, and enjoyable. When you’re done with that, you unlock the Arcade mode, giving you added incentive to play through the campaign again. Once you get bored with Single Player, there’s an amazingly deep multiplayer experience that manages to pick up Halo 3, bend it over its knee, and ask who its Daddy is. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the whole shebang, and gamers will find that their $60 investment will return in spades. Modern Warfare more than merits that $60 entry fee, and pays back what you put into it. The little nitpicks are just that, and they shouldn’t stop anyone from playing this game.
Other shooter titles, consider yourselves on notice. Call of Duty 4 has raised the bar. First Person Shooter fans will be hard placed not to find space for this on their shelves, and gamers will wonder why Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare didn’t come with pre-printed “Game of the Year 2007” stickers inside the box, just to save them time. Halo 3 fans will have a hard time not taking a serious look at this game. Shooter fans will find themselves right at home with it. And Call of Duty fans will see this as the shining gem in the series, which is then followed by the temporary letdown of how horribly difficult it will be for futre entries in the Call of Duty series to top a game as well rounded as this. There’s something for everyone here.
And through it all, I keep playing Call of Duty 4. I wish I could stop.
Final Score: A
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