Hello everyone. Recently I started the campaign in COD4 and finished it today. I can't recall if I've played the campaign in its entirety before now, but the experience was very moving in some places. I don't want to give too much away, but the sniper mission really made an impact on me, and will probably stick with me for quite some time. The gunplay was spot on and I liked the different variety of weapons to use against attackers. I'm really enjoying the recent FPS run I've been on (Bioshock earlier) and I think I'll look at playing another one at some point soon.

So what do you folks remember/like about the campaign? Are there any memories you would like to share?

Thanks.

Out of plain curiosity, are you on some retro kick or is there a more intricate reason for playing COD4 and Bioshock 1 for the first time in 2016? Both are pretty excellent games in their own right, although it's been so long that I can't quite recall any specific moments apart from the Ghillied Up mission and the big Bioshock plot twist.

Ah yes, back to the days when CoD wasn't completely f***ing ridiculous. Pripyat was awesome. Also, while the effort is appreciated, I'm not sure you really have to worry about spoilers on one of the most popular shooters ever that's now nearly a decade old. I'm pretty certain most of us know what you're talking about. This was a great game.

@humanity: In answer to your question, I decided at the end of last year that I wouldn't purchase a new game for 6 months in 2016. So I decided to play some games that I've either tried before and never finished, or played some games again that I haven't played in years. The FPS genre has grown on me over the years, and since I have access to many of these games, I thought that would be a good place to start.

@ccffbb: Well hey man, if you're just now getting into the FPS genre then there is a wealth of amazing titles ahead of you and you've chosen a pretty good place to start!

Flashbang through the door!

I remember running that training course at the beginning waaaay too many times.

I played CoD a few years after it had come out. As, I recall it was probably the best of the new CoD stories. The funny thing is that FPS shooters hold up fairly well game play wise, they are at least playable because they are so simple in movement. Games like Uncharted or Assassins Creed are always changing up so much that the old games often play worse than the modern ones...but shooters are fairly stable - point & shoot.

Modern Warfare is one of two COD games I finished to completion (the other being World at War). I was really impressed with the game at the time. I'd say that was one of the main Xbox 360 games that blew me away from a technical perspective when it first came out (along with Gears of War and BioShock). The shooting felt good, especially when you compare it to its contemporaries. Like BioShock is a great game, but it's funner to aim and pull a trigger in Modern Warfare, no?

This might sound like crazy talk, but I never got into COD multiplayer. I played literally one match of Modern Warfare and that's it. So a lot of my reference for COD is playing the campaigns. From how that game is structured, it was really captivating. I think the training mission and the boat at the beginning are a good combination of a straightforward tutorial and having a nice "Holy shit, that was a cool set piece" moment to get you into the game. That first 20 or whatever minutes taught you how to play the game and gave you something exciting right off the bat.

In terms of other campaign highlights--this game is almost 10 years old, but here are the spoiler tags anyways--I think sniper mission stands out at being the best/most interesting in terms of design. It also has some really great variety from sneaking around, to taking the shot, to running like hell to the extraction. The game also does a really nice job with more set piece type stuff with the nuclear explosion and killing the second playable character, and the ending scene on the highway.

The only other game I've ever thought about buying was Advanced Warfare. I played Modern Warfare and World at War within 12 months of each other, and felt done with it. The games that came after it felt less interesting, because they were secretly Call of Duty 8, 9, etc. and hearing about other people describe the plot of those games makes me roll my eyes and say "Oh, come on." Beyond that, how many slow-mo, pull out out pistol, and shoot the bad guy in the head sequences can you do and still have it be fresh. But Modern Warfare, at the time, was the right combination of cool tech, fresh gameplay, and an exciting FPS campaign.

CoD 4 was an amazing experience at the time. Haven't played since release, but I remember finishing the campaign and going "game of the year!" This was the year of Halo 3, and I'm a huge Halo guy.

My concern was how they'd recreate the intensity of the World War II games. CoD 2 and 3 always felt like you were just barely scraping by an overwhelming force. Didn't really know much about modern warfare, really. And after that first firefight on the ship, I was sold on the new setting.

Last one I played much multiplayer in, too. Really, just a great game before the series started going overboard.

CoD 4 was a landmark title not just for shooters, but video games as a whole. It's one of those games I think about wishing I could go back and play it for the first time again.

Just out of curiosity, did you try the Mile High Club mission after the campaign. Beating that on Veteran difficulty is probably one of the more memorable things I've done in games. And if you enjoyed CoD 4, may as well give MW2 a shot. I'd say they are about equal in quality.

I haven't played it since around 2008, although every time I see the box on my shelf I pause and consider. And still several moments stick with me: the sniper mission in Pripyat; rappelling into the city, with a flight of helicopters; storming the TV studio; the desperate midnight fight to save an Abrams; and of course, AC-130.

Call of Duty 4 was the last game in the series to actually have an opinion about warfare in general, and the U.S.'s military involvement specifically.

Of the four shooters that came out in 2007 that people actually remember, I think Call of Duty 4 is the least of them. That doesn't mean that I think it's any sort of slouch, and its impact on shooters throughout last generation was certainly notable, I just don't like it as much as I liked Half-Life 2 Episode 2, Bioshock, or Halo 3.

It's probably the only modern military shooter that will stand the test of time. Call of Duty 4 kicked off a subgenre whose general quality declined ridiculously fast as far as campaigns go, but Call of Duty 4's campaign does a lot of things really well. It paces itself very well, for one. That nuke still remains one of my favorite moments in video games. Actually, this game has a lot of awesome moments, but all of them are scripted. None of them happen because of interesting mechanics or clever play on my part and last generation was chock full of critically-lauded games that I had the same complaint with. (An aside - the Mile High Club mission actually did wind up being extremely satisfying, I beat it on Veteran, but that's just two minutes of gameplay. Repeated over and over again for hours, until you get it right.)

I don't want to sound lukewarm on the game. I really liked it back in the day, and if I decided to play through it again these days, I'd probably still enjoy it quite a bit. But a combination of growing up and seeing too many copycats fight for a share of Call of Duty pie keeps me from wanting to try it again.

Check those corners!

I really want to play CoD4 again. The Chernobyl mission ranks up as one of the best in gaming IMO.