Halo Reloader
Call of Duty 4 Review
There was a time when the Call of Dutyfranchise was beginning to look a little stale. Call of Duty 3, the Treyarch-led travesty of the otherwise stellar series, took some of the steam out of the franchise, and the World War II gaming niche was overpopulated by the time the game came out. There needed to be a big change for Call of Duty to recapture gamers’ interest.
Taking the established war-game formula into the modern era, COD4 not only successfully maintains the trademark frantic gameplay, but also expands on past efforts with an increase in both scale and scope. The feeling of being just a single soldier in an all-out war has never been so prominent; you’ll feel engulfed by danger in nearly every mission. This is a game where you want to turn the lights down and the sound up.
The biggest changes from the modernization include a more “contemporary” presentation and some advanced weaponry. The story is now told as a single narrative, rather than a collection of campaigns viewed from different perspectives. High-tech news feeds and video briefings accompanied by grid-based overlays break down the missions, and the transition between narrative and gameplay is extremely smooth: the map-level overview zooms down directly into battle. It’s a visual treat and serves as a moment’s respite before you are thrust back into the unrelenting action.
The advanced weaponry provides some new gameplay elements. While your standard equipment operates more or less the same as its WWII counterparts (grunt-level fighting feels as though it’s the old game with a new skin), certain missions really play up the modern setting. In one, you’ll need to make a long-distance sniper shot using an extremely powerful rifle: you have to correct for wind, relative humidity, and the coriolis effect. In another scene, you’ll use the white or black-hot heat sensors of an AC130 gunship to wipe the opposition from the skies.
The single player campaign runs a moderate length (roughly 7 hours) at the normal difficulty, though hardcore players will likely return for the signature Veteran difficulty. Thankfully, there’s incentive to go back and play it again, as Infinity Ward has introduced a “cog tag”-like collection mini-game, scattering 30 enemy intel laptops around the campaign. What really makes the single player compelling though is the sheer relentlessness of the gameplay: the action doesn’t stop from beginning to end, and, given how different one player’s decisions will be from another, there’s quite a bit of variation in play experience. Plus, once you beat the game, you’ll unlock an arcade mode that’s not too different from the campaign meta-game of Halo 3.
COD4 follows an increasingly-evident trend in that its true draw is the multiplayer action. Shipping with 16 maps of varying sizes and 13 different game modes for online play, system link, or four-player splitscreen,COD4 offers one of the more expansive multiplayer offerings yet. The game’s excellent class-based customization and experience system add an interesting dynamic to the mix. In addition to choosing weaponry, players select perks which offer different abilities such as faster reloading or more health. You can only select three from specific sets, but mixing and matching proves to be an amazing way of keeping the action fresh and maintains an element of personalization.
The XP system is also a strong addition, offering XP on a per-kill basis with bonuses for assists, wins, team-related objectives, and challenges that award bonus XP for completing a certain goal. Kill 25 people with an M16 and you’ll be awarded with an “M16 Marksman” rank. Every gun has a different set of challenges, as do game modes and other various in-game activities.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that all this goodness plays out with one of the best visual and aural presentations that we’ve seen. True to Infinity Ward’s pedigree, COD4 is a marvel to look at and runs at a seemingly impossible framerate, even with all the action on screen—and believe me, there’s a lot of action. Aesthetic effects, like a tapestry of laser sights seen through the mist with night-vision goggles, are evident everywhere; the entire presentation appears to set a new a benchmark. And, of course, the sound team at the company has been revered for its work over the years. They have outdone themselves with a powerful mix of neighbor-waking explosions, gunfire, and orchestral music.
There’s very little not to like about Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The game offers one of the most intense and draining single player experiences yet in the FPS genre, and an incredibly expansive and enjoyable multiplayer offering that rivals, and possibly surpasses, everything else available now. If you have even one action-loving bone in your body, you owe it to yourself to buy this title.
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Halo, Reloader, TOO Shell Screws & Battery Door
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