Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

THE BAD:
• Campaign mode is short.

SUMMARY:
Let me start off by saying that Call of Duty 4, without a doubt in my mind, is one of the best, if not the best, shooter out right now. From stunning graphics to fantastic gameplay to simple and easy controls, Call of Duty 4 is a must-buy. Even if you don't like shooters, Call of Duty 4 will make you begin to like them. This has got to be one of the most addicting games that I have ever played.

GAMEPLAY: 4.8/5
Call of Duty 4's single player campaign is amazing; one of the best that I've played. The campaign has a deep storyline and amazing level design which will keep you addicted to it from beginning to end. Each level of the campaign offers you something different, unlike in some First Person Shooters, where it seems as if you keep killing the same enemies but on different maps. In one level, you'll be avoiding enemies completely. In another, you'll be flying high trying to take out enemies in a helicopter.

The only downside to the single player campaign is that it's short. Although the levels are amazing, and gameplay is fantastic, the fact that campaign is short drags down the score a little bit. However, after you beat the campaign, you unlock something called Arcade Mode. Arcade mode, which has a sexy retro NES-styled menu, offers replayability to the campaign. In arcade mode, you get scored for killing enemies. You also get scored for killing them in unique ways; such as knifing enemies, making a car explode next to an enemy to kill him, and so on. If you can manage to move through a level quickly enough, you get a score multiplier. This helps a lot if you're out to beat your own high scores, or even your friends' high scores. However, if you go too long without killing an enemy; about 20-30 seconds, your score multiplier will be reset.

To add to the replayability for the relatively short single player campaign, finding all intel pieces will also keep you occupied. There are 30 intel pieces in all, and if you have a certain number of them, they can all do different things. For example, if you have two intel pieces, you can choose to play through the campaign mode in black and white. If you have fifteen intel pieces, whenever you kill an enemy, they explode into a bunch of car tires. Finding all intel pieces can be quite difficult, but it's worth it in the end.


ONLINE PLAY: 5/5
The online play in Call of Duty 4 is phenomenal. It's extremely fun, as well as addicting. There are several online modes you can play. Some of the most popular modes are Team Deathmatch, Domination, Sabotage, Search and Destroy, amongst many others. Most matches end once you reach a specific score limit, others end when all players are eliminated or when a bomb is successfully planted or defused.

The ranking system for online play is easy to understand, but fun to rank up as well. As you rank up, you will unlock new weapons, attachments and camouflages for guns, and perks which will aid you when you battle online. There are also challenges that you can complete which will help you level up quicker. Challenges are organized by difficulty in different sections, and each section of challenges will be unlocked as you reach a certain level. The highest level you can reach is 55. However, you once you reach 55, you have the option to prestige. Prestige mode will take you back to level 1, your guns will be gone, all challenges will be gone, etcetera. You can prestige up to 10 times, and each time you prestige you get a new badge.


VARIETY MAP PACK: 5/5
Recently, a variety map pack was released for Call of Duty 4. The map pack is a must-buy for anyone who plays Call of Duty 4 online. There are four different maps, and is well worth the money.

Creek- Creek is possibly one of the biggest maps online. It's one huge map, and mostly everyone will try to snipe, mainly because Creek is the perfect map for sniping. It's so big, but there are many trees, and spots with tall grass that allows people to hide to camp. There are also many buildings which people can go into to snipe as well, and even a cave; that seems to be where most people end up.

Chinatown- Chinatown is exactly that; Chinatown. There a tons of buildings. Basically, everywhere you run, you will run into a building. There's an upstairs to every building; even a downstairs to some. Chinatown puts great use to claymores and C4's. Chinatown is probably the most fun, out of the four new maps, to play on.

Broadcast- Broadcast is a very fun map to play on, and is pretty big. Not as big as Creek, but still a pretty big map. A majority of the map is one big building, but there is a balcony to the building which attracts a lot of people, and another smaller building across from that. Whereas the other three maps from the variety map pack are all original, Broadcast is taken from the single player campaign. That, however, is a good thing.

Killhouse- This is probably the smallest map on the game; possibly even smaller than Shipment. You won’t be running into this map online in a ranked match, so if you want to test it out, you'll have to do it in a private match. Although you can't play it in ranked matches, it doesn't take anything away from it, it's still very fun to play in.


GRAPHICS: 5/5
Call of Duty 4, with an impressive 60 frames per second, offers some of the best graphics you will find in a next-gen game. The cinematics are impressive as well, and everything seems so detailed; from spotting the shadow of an enemy sneaking up on you, to the texture of a street or a car. The graphics just seem perfect. Even when you get sniped from over a mile away, the way you fall to your death is impressive. The graphics couldn't be any better.


OVERALL: 19.8/20
Overall, besides the fact that Call of Duty 4's campaign is rather short, there really is nothing bad I can say about this game. It's nearly perfect in my opinion, but still, I believe it is the best First Person Shooter out there today. From the amazing gameplay, to the detailed maps, to the outstanding online play, and to the stunning graphics, you can't go wrong with Call of Duty 4.

THE BAD:
Bad: The only real bad thing I can point out the game is that, when it gets tough, it gets really tough and can get annoying, but that is a lot better than if the game was extremely easy.

SUMMARY:
As Call Of Duty 4 is my first edition of any Call Of Duty games, I'm a bit disappointed that I did not buy any of the three other games, as I feel I would have really loved them as much as I love this game, easily my favourite game. It simply is the best game I have ever played and I feel it's worth every penny that was paid for it. Before this game, Gears Of War was my favourite all time game, but Call Of Duty 4 is just head and shoulders above that, and it never gets boring.

The Online Mode is simply brilliant and they way the makers of the game have set it all up is truly brilliant because I have not seen any sort of glitches on the game, and there is no Online cheating of any sort. As I mentioned above also, the way they have done the servers where there is close to no lag at most points through Online play is really good, it should be an example for every Online game. When I got the game, I didn't have an Xbox Live Gold Membership, so I was really just playing the Campaign Mode which was pretty okay because it means I could get into it more. If I had Online at the time I'd probably have played that a lot more than Campaign Mode so at this point in time, I probably wouldn't have completed it. I honestly thought the game wasn't gonna get any better when I completed it because it was just sensational, but to my luck, it got 100 times better with Online. You'll also talk to some really nice people on Live, but at the same time you'll talk to some asses, but as I say a lot, with a great game, everybody is gonna play it, including them asses.

I don't feel the game ever at all gets repetitive, it's just something you could play forever if no new games were released. The Camapaign Mode is excellent, depending on the difficulty you play it on, it can be extremely tough. I completed it on Normal and I found that very tough and was pretty happy when I did complete it. I then tried the toughest level (Veteran) and it's the toughest difficulty on any game I've ever come across. That's all the good though as it means you can keep trying to complete it and I feel it never really gets boring. The story started off sort of confusing for me, I couldn't get the drift of it at first because you are two people throughout the game - Soap McTavish and I'm not too sure on the other guy, I think it's Sgt. Jackson or something but you get my drift. As I started understanding the story mode it got a lot better and it meant I started to know what I was doing. You can understand how I got a bit confused because at the beginning you're with Captain Price doing like a tutorial level to get use to the controls of the game and get into the habit of the shoot button and such. But then after that you're in a helicopter (where you will be for the start of most missions by the way) and you're dropping in on a ship which you start exploring for a bit and taking out people as you go along. As you get near the end of the mission, something happens, not sure what it was but next thing you know the ship is about to sink. I love this part of the mission because you're rushing behind Captain Price and your team but it's like a shaky camera and it's so realistic, you also get stuff falling onto you or beside you to stop you from getting out quick enough and if you don't you fail. And if you do make it, the helicopter is waiting for you at the side of the ship, and knowing you playing the game, you're the last to get on and you just barely survive because Captain Price puts his hand out to stop you from slipping off. Anyways, that's how that mission ended, the next one was really confusing. It's like you hear a heart beat at the beginning with no screen and then you sort of hear a crowd cheer. You're getting dragged along by two terrorists really slowly and they put you into a car. One thing I like about this part is when he puts you in the car, you can try to escape and when you try, you get hit with an AK47 in the face which knocks you out for a couple of seconds. Anyway, when you get up then, you're in the backseat of a car tied up and there are two people in the front who are talking in an aggressive tone to each other and one of them sort of looks back every few seconds to see if you are eavesdropping on them, but the don't speak English so you can't expect me to know what they're saying at all. As you go along, you see a lot of people being put in corners and being shot, it looks really awful but I'm sure that happens in some places in the world. When the car journey ends, you get pulled out by someone, and two people are dragging you along again into this little stadium filled with people. You get put up onto a cross and you see this one main guy talking to the crowd and making his point clear. As he starts talking, you don't know what's going on, but when he finishes, he walks over to you fast, pulls out a gun and then the game goes in slow motion and I'm like "what the hell is going on here!?". Seeing that it was in slow motion, you think you can prevent stuff from happening, but he just shoots you and the screen goes black and that's how that very strange mission plans out. It will be quite confusing for you at the beginning too probably but what I'll say is, if you watch the clips before the start of every mission you will understand what's going on a lot more. I'm not gonna spoil anymore of the story for you so I'll leave it at that. It is thoroughly enjoyable.

If you are a gore fan, you'll love this game even more. Some of the blood scenes are horrendous, you'd shoot a guy near a wall and you'll see heaps of blood splattered against that wall. If you like gore, you'll love Cal Of Duty, but if you don't like it, it's probably not the best idea, though saying that, it's not like it's extremely gorey like some games I've played, but it's got quite a lot. I think it's really good.

You'll love the wide variety of weapons also. You get to choose from many machine guns, sub machine guns, light machine guns, sniper rifles and shotguns. All of these guns are really life-like too. My favourite gun overall is the M16 which is the first gun you'll probably use in the game. It only fires three bullets at a time so if you are holding your finger down on the shoot button, you're screwed! The gun is very powerful and when you get use to it, it can work greatly to your advantage. During Online mode, you go through 55 ranks and as you go through ranks, you unlock more and more guns. Each rank has a rank logo. Some look really cool some not so cool for the lower ranks. It's not all over when you reach level 55 though, you can do 'Prestige' which makes you go through the ranks again, but you have a really cool logo and you unlock golden guns and stuff like that. The only downside of doing Prestige is losing all of your favourite guns and camouflage and special abilities and such. I'll be alright if I do it though because my favourite weapon is the M16 and you'll have that from the beginning. =]

I could keep babbling on about how amazing this game is all day, but I'd probably put you to sleep, all I'll say now is, I would most definitely recommend this as a buy, no matter what the price is, you won't regret it.

THE BAD:
Campaign is a little short
Graphics can get a bit choppy at times

SUMMARY:
The Call of Duty series has never really caught my eye until this came along. Call of Duty 4 is probably one of the best games you'll ever play. Games like this don't come along to often so enjoy it while you can because sooner or later it'll catch your Dad's eye and he'll be itching to play.

Unlike previous Call of Duty games, the fourth installment is set in the present day which is a healthy change as many have grown tired of World War II in which the other Call of Duty's were set. You play as Private Soap of the S.A.S and Sergeant Jackson of the USMC. The USMC levels are played out though an unnamed Middle Eastern country where a band of extremist seek power. Meanwhile with Private Soap and the S.A.S you discover the extremist leader, Al-Asad is providing nuclear weapons to a group of Russians, who unsurprisingly, seek revenge on the western world. It'll have you hooked and every corner has a surprise which will make sure you won't put this copy down or be lending it out to any desperate friends.

The campaign may be a little short but every second is fun and challenging. There is a large amount of variety in the game so you rarely find enemies running to the same places if you have to restart your mission. The AI (especially on the Veteran) can be clever and actually quite sneaky. Though a few may be stupid enough to run at you, shooting wildly, most will lie in wait and shoot at you when you least expect it. It's all about tactics, and sometimes those tactics may include going around the enemy instead of engaging them.

Online mode is a whole different kettle of fish. The ability to create the perfect soldier by choosing what weapons you take into battle makes it seem a lot more fun and satisfying. You increase in levels by earning EXP and once you max out at 55, you're given the option to go into Prestige mode, where you'll be able to do it all again. You can do this 10 times which will surely keep you going until the next Call of Duty.

Graphically it's quite nice to look at although it can get a little choppy at times and it's probably better suited to a nice, over-priced, flat screen, HD ready TV but that' not the point. It's a pleasure to look at and the 360 version certainly looks as good as the PS3 version.

Overall, a highly rated game. A perfect buy for any gamer, if you're the pale faced guy glued to your 360 all day or the casual gamer who plays for a sensible hour a day, it'll suit all of you.

THE BAD:
-Graphics could be better at times
-No online achievments

SUMMARY:
Call of duty 4 is one of the most anticipated shooting games this year. It makes a huge jump from the series roots, as the game has always been a traditional FPS set in the times of WWII. However this latest installment changes all that, as announced in the title it is a modern warefare game.

This does change the gameplay a great deal, but gives a fresh new feel to an aging series. The call duty games were arguably as good as they could get by the time 2 was released on xbox 360, this new installment however keeps the series fresh and makes sure it doesnt feel repetitive.

As you would expect the game has a multiplayer, and singleplayer game mode, both of which i will explain in detail.

The singleplayer is as polished as any cod game before, with an exciting plot and exhilirating gameplay. Firstly the ai is pretty good, enemies take cover, push forward and know when to retreat. Although the same can't be said for your allies, who sometimes get in the way, blocking doorways, or merely walk into a barrage of machinegun fire only to respawn metres behind you and repeat the process. An annoying thing with the enemy ai is on the harder difficulties its as if they can pinpoint your exact location, even behind a wall, and there have been quite a few occasions where somehow they managed to kill me with pinpoint accuracy through a stone wall. That brings me to a new feature introduced in cod4, guns can now fire through cover. This has its pros and cons. Firstly it speeds up gameplay, and means players dont just tend to sit in one place but move around the battlefield. However it can be extremely frustrating, and somewhat unrealistic when you get head shotted by an MP5 through have a foot of stone...

Anyway, the gameplay in singleplayer is what you would expect for the most part, that is if you've played a cod game before. The gameplay is fast paced, as you can die after just a few shots, however wounds can be shrugged off if your character doesnt sustain any more damage for a few seconds. This keeps combat fast paced and makes you think carefully about cover. The battlefields are quite impressive at times, with dozens of soldiers fighting in the ruined enviroments, and although the game makes you feel theres a massive enviroment around you (which it does very well) theres only really one set path to follow. Some levels are a welcome break from the usual system of mincing your way through some bad guys. One level sees you in command of a Gunship, and you must use three different weapons carefully when ordered. Or a sniper mission, which sees you creeping around an abandoned city to assassinate an important bad guy using your sniper rifle, but the assassination is done in amazing detail, with windspeed and distance taken into effect. The whole feel of the single player is fantastic, suiting the missions entirely, manic for street bound firefights, tense and dark for sniper missions, etc. Sadly the campaign isn't as long as it could be, at around 6-8 hours depending on the difficulty you select, and the lack of online achievements is disappointing.

Now, the multiplayer mode is really were the fun is to be had in this game. Even if you whizz through the campaign in a matter of hours, the multiplayer will have you hooked for weeks. It uses the traditional game modes, team deathmatch, headquarters, capture the flag, etc. But theres a new feature that hasn't been implemented in a cod game before - the ability to level up, and create your own classes. The class creation is perhpas the best part about the online mode. Players can pick a main weapon, a side arm, and three different 'perks' for their class. The perks can influence gameplay a lot, for instance, for perk 1 i might have the extra flashbang grenades attribute, and perk 2 the stopping power perk, giving my weapon more damage. There are a multitude of perks, some unlockable at higher ranks, and some work well with certain characters builds better than others. The level up system is excellent though, and is what really keeps you coming back to play more. You get experience for each kill, but experience can also be earned by completing challenges. These challenges could range from getting 75 headshots with the M4 to killing a total of 25 enemies with airstrikes, and all give large experience bonus's depending on the challange. As you rank up new challenges are unlocked, and when new weapons are unlocked so are the challenges for that weapon. This system keeps the player hooked, and always gives you a goal to complete.

As for the balance of the game, its as good as you'd expect, with most of the guns useful in different situations. The gun models and sound effects are nothing special, but don't leave anything lacking.

Overall cod4 is shortlived single player game but also a multiplayer masterpiece. Must buy.

Ps: Look out for the 50.C clan!