Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

As above mentioned I have the PC Special Edition of Call of Duty 4 here. Let me just point out what is included:   

DVD Edition of the game (Normally it is CD-Rom)
A Jewel Case (I’m assuming it is normally in a paper sleeve)
Art Book
A Strategy Guide Download from brady games  

Note: If you purchased the console special edition substitute the Strategy Guide for a DVD-Rom with bonus footage and other content, and there will not be a jewel case, just the normal game and case inside.  

What this means is that for PC Gamers, you lose the bonus footage, and get told how to play the game. Let me put this into perspective. A PC Gamer, being told how to play a FPS game that started on the PC and is in its 4th edition, it shouldn’t be happening. Not to mention the fact that this guide has no useful strategy whatsoever. It basically says “when the screen flashes red, go to cover.” An actual guide on the other hand will tell you on a level, what path to take, where to find weapons, etc.  

There are specific instances in this game that frustrate the hell out of you because of the mechanics. Two very good examples are the Ferris wheel and the hill. In the Ferris wheel you have to hold off what seems like 500 enemies, and it gets pretty annoying because after the 30th attempt and looking up multiple FAQ’s I still couldn’t do it. On the hill, you have to get to the bottom of a hill in around 4 minutes. I spent around 30 attempts (7 or so of which are on the audio file) trying to follow what an FAQ advised (and I got about 1/3 of the way), but thanks to Dizzy I finally go through by exploiting the whole infinite respawn mechanic.  

Some things about this game that might bug you:  

- Infinite respawn (really, you kill the enemies and they respawn on the hill mission)
- Triggered events
- AI Killing you or blocking you (this happens a good portion of the time, mostly indoors)
- Before every mission, there is a loading blip for about 2-3 seconds while it goes from pre-rendered cut scene and loads the in-game stuff. You can see this in the third video.  

I think an appropriate spot to start is the graphics. Good, yes, phenomenal, not really. The think I like about this game is the fact that it has just about the same specs at cod2.  

Cod4 specs:  

-ATI 9800 or better, GeForce 6600 or better (both of which are 4+ years old). -pent IV 2.7 GHz or AMD 2800
-512 mb ram.  

Cod2 specs:  

-ATI 8500 and up or GeForce 2 and up.
-Athalon XP 1700 or pent. IV 1.4 GHz
-256 mb ram  

Let me put it this way, cod2 came out in 2005 and 3 years later I can play it on the same pc. (But Nabo, I thought that you needed a new pc every 6 months. Another pc myth busted!)  

The game is basically a texture upgrade. I don’t recall exactly what cod2 looked like (only the tank mission stands out), but right away you can tell that the texture work on this game is through the roof. As such, everything else is ass. The grass looks bad, including the guille suits. And anything that isn’t a surface is pretty much half-life quality. You can see what I mean on the second level of the game when you are on the ship. The water and rain look atrocious.

The sound design in this game is pretty good, but things like random yelling of reloading from one single source instead of many can get annoying. I don’t like the sounds of some of the guns. The m249 sounds pretty weak when you compare it to something like the p90. A lot of things just don’t have the bass that you would expect.  

The environments and scenarios in cod4 have been bumped up quite a bit when compared to earlier games in the series, but you still are doing the same thing. You still have to take out the AA gun, or follow this pathway to get to the end of whatever. It’s a very linear game, and it is getting to the point where I just don’t want to be led somewhere anymore.  

As being a call of duty game there is one phenomenal level. Many would argue that the Chernobyl level is rather grand, and I have to agree. I liked the scenario of trying to hide in a field of walking soldiers, and having to follow a commander and what not. It seemed like a very good approach to this type of game. As such, the rest of the game seems rather bland, boring, and not very well put together. You can tell right away that this level is going to be something big, and it was, but there is just something about the rest of this game that pisses me off.  

I’m going around killing enemies, doing it in some sort of a squad, in a decent looking game, but there is just something missing. I think when you get to the point of the hill, the Ferris wheel, and the last level where you really have to exploit the game to get past a part of the level it just becomes more of a frustration. In all honesty, should a game make you pissed off, I don’t think so. I think challenge is a good thing to have, but the fact that I can move an inch and set off an onslaught of 200 baddies is getting pretty redundant and it begins to show that this franchise just has no heart at all. It’s like I’m playing America’s Army now. I’m supposed to be in awe at the realism, but I’m in an unrealistic situation and that just pisses me off.  
 
The controls in this game get pretty retarded. I traded my ps3 version because the tuning on the joysticks was off, and here I am faced with having to tackle console controls. I don’t have a crouch button to ctrl type of scenario and I had to remap half the keys to play the damn thing. It was an unnecessary task and it really shows who the audience for this game is. Look at who got the bonus disk, who got the controls, who got the superb graphics, I mean come on infinity ward this is a pc game! By graphics I just mean they could have upped it a lot more than they did.  

I think the final aspect of this review will be the story. It was what some would say a stylized look at war and sure it was. In the demo I had a feeling of that destruction was horrific and man was it hard to watch. I went from a radioactive landscape, to a Ferris wheel where i had to take out 500 enemies, to a hill where I had to face an infinite amount of enemies. There was even a mission in a bomber where I was taking out people I in a town. I mean, isn’t that sort of the thing you don’t want people to know about (destruction of a town or city, casualties, etc.)? This game takes what is one hell of a bad group of people and ignores the people along the way. The fact that the series is known for millions of kills per play is just perplexing to me. I really do feel like it is time to show a humanization of killing in war games.  

When I played the darkness I had a choice at the end of the game. I was looking at a big fat guy on the floor begging for his life. It was so hard to sit there and listen to this guy. Why is it that call of duty doesn’t take that approach, when clearly in the demo that vibe was given?  

I can’t go without mentioning that in the beginning two levels of the game, you practically don’t have to shoot. The AI does all the work, and by the end of the game you want to take out your team because of how stupid and useless they are.  

Also, I spent a good portion of this game yelling at the top of my lungs and being so frustrated that I wanted to punch right through my monitor. This game is so bogged down by the amount of enemies that it is just a pain to play. Like I said before, pain isn’t something you want your customer to feel.

Lastly, recoil. WTF! Why does the m249 have no recoil? Half the guns have no recoil whatsoever. With things having slightly low recoil you can tell that it is definitely a made for console game.  

Oh yeah, the special edition is a total rip.  

-nabokovfan87