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A GUTSY MOVE BY Activision!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 72 / 74
Date: November 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

WWII had been done to death! Ever since the original CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN-3D every war theater, every front, every battle has been done again and again. True, a number of great games was produced. Yet, some game developers seem unable to stop whipping a dead horse..

ACTIVISION proved it had the guts to break with the mold it had made its CALL OF DUTY franchise a huge success. CoD4 is set in a (fictional) present in which American and British agents are called upon to stop a Russian plutocrat with Soviet-nostalgia and terrorist aspirations.

The weapons are new, the gameplay is inventive, the graphics are realistic, the settings are beautiful - a great game all together!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Forget FPS's... this is one of the best games EVER. Period.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 118 / 146
Date: November 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When it comes to FPS's, and any other shooter for that matter, you have your current kings, namely: Halo, Rainbow Six (and all of it's "spawns", like GRAW) and Gears of War (still). Throw BioShock in there if you want... whatever. You get the point. Now - take from each of those games the best aspects... throw them together, and you have Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Simply put - you'll love this game, even if you don't like military or first-person shooters. If you're the type that strictly plays the single-player mode, then I'd rent first, just to be sure it's for you. For me, even the story mode keeps me coming back. This game is a BEAST, and it's a BEAST on every platform it's on - 360, PS3 and PC.

Infinity Ward understands FPS's - their absence was noticed immediately in Call of Duty 3, which sucked. They're back. This game is a few MINOR elements away from absolute perfection, in my opinion. And you don't get better than perfection.

I'll get the little gripes out of the way:

1. No Co-Op campaign. As frantic as every stage is, coupled with the fact that there's really no point on the game where you're not at least with ONE other player - usually more - I thought this should be available. It's pretty much standard now in the next-gen FPS's, but surprisingly absent here. Hmmm...

2. The whole 'friendly-fire' thing... I realize that this is realistic, but it's pretty frustrating sometimes - moreso here than in a game like Rainbow Six, simply because there's no easily identifiable icon or marker. I don't need THAT level of realism in a game - just my opinion. Yes, your recticle is red if it's on an enemy and green for a friendly, but during all of the fighting, that's really hard to see. Coupled with the fact that a lot of the enemies are wearing uniforms pretty similar to YOURS, you may end up accidentally shooting your squad more than you'd care to admit, especially on the Veteran difficulty level.

(That's really it for the 'gripes' - the other is more of an personal preference for me. I'd rather have more gameplay modes available in the multiplayer right off the bat, but I can also see how starting off with just the initial two works.

You may notice that I haven't complained about the duration of the story mode... while short, I doubt that any of the other reviewers that are slamming it have "breezed through in a few hours" on any difficulty higher than Sick Infant - that's before Rookie, if you're wondering. The story is compelling; there are actual moments where your chest and heart actually POUND - tell me the "All Ghillied Up" stage didn't have you holding your breath in real life, I dare you. Other games, while significantly longer, don't always fill their time with substance. A game like BioShock doesn't have an online mode, so it's story HAS to carry it entirely. Halo 3 is longer, sure... but most of it is retracing your steps back through previously played boards. No thank you. Apart from an effective story mode, this game's "bread and butter" is in the online multiplayer. Just like Halo 3. Just like RB6: Vegas. Just like Gears of War. Online play is what will keep this game, and others, being played for years to come.)

...and that's it, folks. Nothing else bad here. AT ALL. Period.

Gameplay - the game is phenomenal. Even if the campaign is rather on the short side (took about 6 or so hours playing on Normal - Veteran or Hardened will probably double that time, plus some) it is undeniably entertaining. While it may not necessarily be breaking new ground as far as plot, it STILL is far more engaging that Rainbow Six: Vegas's campaign mode, which is great, as well as Gears of War and even the mighty Halo 3. (just my opinion) (A+)

Graphics - arguably the best on any console, period. I give it the nod over Gears of War and BioShock - this is the best looking game I have ever played, and it runs (with all the chaos going on) at a smooth 60 frames per second is 1080P HD glory. The word gets thrown around alot with these newer systems, but this game is truly Photo-Realistic. The only thing I've seen comparable would be Crysis, another military shooter -and that's (not surprisingly) a PC-only game at the moment. It absolutely does not get any better than COD4. (A++)

Sound - as good as anything out now. The musical numbers are all spot-on, and the dialogue and combat chatter is phenomenal. Top notch all the way around - no "forced" sounding acting here. This games sounds like it was recorded during actual combat. (A+)

Multiplayer - time will tell if it will stand up to the insanely deep Halo Multiplayer mode, or the ridiculously addictive multiplayer modes on GoW or RB6, but even in this early stage COD4 is more than holding it's own. Choose from a preset variety of classes - sniper, assault, heavy gunner, etc. and get to killing. Kill enough and eventually unlock the ability to create your OWN class - and that's where the fun really gets going. There's a rank structure, but with there being absolutly ZERO offical multiplayer achievements, hopefully this will minimize people's tendency to cheat. (big problem on RB6) Ranking up does have it's privileges, however... different weapons, customizations for those weapons (scopes, skins, etc.) How new players feel about playing months from now when the majority of their combatants have superior equipment remains to be seen... balancing could be an issue there. The way it's set up though, if you're good at FPS's (and you know who you are), you will be alright. There's some work to be done with the team balancing... and I would prefer the ability to choose which maps I play on during ranked matches, but all in all, pretty solid. (A)

Replay Value - extremely high, even with a relatively short campaign. All of the achievements for the game come from the Campaign mode, yet over half of them require you to beat the game on one of the two harder difficulty levels. (not recommended for first-timers - frustration WILL ensue... as well as bullets, grenades and dog bites) Hell, even the TRAINING MODULE is fun and gets replay - Halo can't say that. This game is ridiculous. Even as varied as multiplayer is by nature, the Prestige Mode adds a new level to it. Make it all the way to Level 55, then you have "a tough decision" to make... (A+)

Overall - Dangerously Good. I give it an A+, or a solid 9.9998 out of 10 (I stand by the fact that a co-op campaign would render a potential Call of Duty 5 pointless) This is one of the best games ever. After playing the Beta earlier this year, I proclaimed that this could be a sleeper for Game of the Year, while everyone else was obviously sold on Halo... maybe a few for BioShock. This has them both, hands down. The only surprising part is how convincingly better this game is than the other GOTY frontrunners. All other FPS's (particularly military FPS's) need to take notice - this is BY FAR the best ever. (Note to Tom Clancy and the folks at UbiSoft: you have work to do for that next Rainbow Six. The bar is WAY up there now... don't disappoint)

A definite must own, especially for online players - this is the best for this year. No not Halo - Call of Duty 4. Period. The only thing I see that could pull people away from this even for a moment would potentially be Grand Theft Auto 4.

Disappointed

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: November 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was disappointed with this game and no matter how much I try to like this game I can't.

For a start the game has a real "consoleness" feel to it and no matter how much you try to ignore it you know that this was developed for the lowest common denominator. For example overly large text and icons, etc.

The single player is really short which was a real surprise and shame especially considering the wonderful single player earlier CODs had. You would think that after the success of games like BioShock and the earlier CODs the developers of this game would have realized there is a significant number of people that like a good single player experience, but sadly its obvious that the bulk of the development has gone in to the multiplayer aspect of the game.

While some of the missions are really great (full credit to the people that designed them) and you get to do things like crawl through a field full of enemies as a camouflaged sniper, use a 50 cal sniper rifle, and be on helicopter turrets, there is no Armour or any other ground based vehicle missions except a "car chase" mission where you fire out the back of a truck while trying to get away. A number of the missions feel a lot like you are playing Rainbow Six / Delta Force and not so much like COD because of the real small-unit action clearing out ships and buildings.

Many of the missions are frustrating as you die a lot and have to repeat some parts over, and over, and over about 30 times which gets really annoying. While this was OK in the earlier CODs, I'm really rather tired of this now, especially after playing other FPS where this does not happen so much.

Because the missions are heavily scripted you know that staying in the same spot and shooting at the enemies until the sun goes cold is not going to achieve much and in order to stop more enemies magically replacing those that you just killed you need to move your character up, which you can take advantage of to complete the missions faster.

It is obvious that the developers have tried to stop players from staying in one place for too long because, after a not very long time at all, no matter how far you are away from enemies and at the back behind all the other troops, a grenade magically lands beside you forcing you to move.

I found the concept of modern warfare boring, why would I want to play something that I am sick of seeing on the news every other night? Sure I realize that after 3 CODs the amount of good quality WW2 missions left must be on the decline, but why modern day warfare? why not Vietnam? or the Korean war (if nam is a bit too sensitive)? they could have even done some missions based around the Falklands war.

Instead of the intimate, and mature tone that was taken with the earlier CODs, where the character you play talks about what they are about to do while the mission is loading via a personal log type of thing and in game they and their comrades behave in a civil manner, the mission briefings in this COD are overly flashy, stroke off over the hardware that the US military has, and try to make war cool, and a number of the characters are a very gung-ho when it comes to killing. A further example of this is the inclusion of an Arcade mode in the game where you get points (i.e. "+ 5", "+ 100") show up on the screen when you hit and also when you kill people.

Multi player. After the averageness of the Single Player I figured that the Multiplayer would be better, but again I was disappointed mainly because I can only get 1 server with a ping of under 200 and once again I can't hit other players very well due to the lag issue which means that even though from my point of view after unloading half a clip in to someone and then me dying, I see on the kill cam that from their point of view I did not even get a shot off. Also you die a lot (and I mean a lot) in the COD4 multiplayer because unlike COD2 where you could take a few slugs, crawl somewhere quiet and recover, then get back in to it, you die too easy in this one. The FEAR multiplayer, not the COD2 multiplayer is what it is like.

Graphics. As you can probably tell by now graphics are not a big thing for me. While I do have a pretty good PC and graphics card, I found the graphics were good, but not outstanding. Actually a number of times I felt like I was in the STALKER universe.

To finalize, if you are looking for a really good single player experience with a similar length and feel to the earlier CODs then sadly, like me, I think you will be disappointed.

If however you are after yet another modern FPS to play online, don't really care about any single player, and think war is cool, then you will probably find that this game is pretty good.

Very addictive, but claustrophobic

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: January 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

First, the positives: This game features absolutely movie-quality graphics and life-like realism. It just can't get any more realistic and addictive than this. Clear your calendar, because this is the heroin of games: once you start playing you will find it very difficult to stop in the beginning, especially on multiplayer. However, I think the game has inherent drawbacks that make it not very "deep", in the sense that developing great skill is not necessary or even rewarded.

The prime issue is that, probably due to the graphic demands, you are constantly playing on maps just larger than a shoebox. If you are the type who just can't get enough of shooting your opponents at point blank range in the face with a shotgun, congratulations, welcome to heaven. Unfortunately, if you are more interested in group or clan strategy or using sniper tactics, I have bad news: the quarters are just too tight.

The maps are so small that many players just wildly huck their grenades at the start of action in multiplayer in a random direction and get multiple kills. They even have a name for it: "grenade (nade) spamming".

The problem is made worse by many servers having "no friendly fire". It detracts from the skill and realism of the game if you can just wildly throw grenades in every direction, followed by a blind spray of automatic weapons fire, secure in the knowledge that hitting your own teammates won't count, and with the tiny map, you are sure to kill several enemies before one of your opponents gets equally lucky.

If you compare this game with Battlefield 2142, you see the differences. The graphics of COD4 make BF2142 look like a cartoon, but you can play BF2142 for years and not get bored, because the maps are large and reward skill in hunting your opponents. The "spray and pray" technique is not so successful on BF2142. I wish someone would combine the graphics and "you are there" cinematic quality of COD4 and the gameplay and balance of BF2142 for the ultimate first person shooter game.

Best Call of Duty game so far!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 49
Date: October 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have played a few previous version of Call of Duty, but this one takes the cake. I like the idea of more realistic weapon compared to the old ones. The graphic's and over all gameplay is great.

CREAM of the CROP

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 21
Date: November 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Hands down this shooter is the most intense COD to date. If your a fan of the COD series this game will not disappoint at all. Intense, intense, intense to say the least. Good work Infinity Ward.

Only the map sizes will have you scratching your head

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 24
Date: December 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game delivers on a whole lot of levels. The graphics are outstanding - even if you find yourself running a slightly long in the tooth PC. My old AGP ATI 9600 card manages to run it just fine on my Intel P4 3.2 system.

This is one of the few games out there that has not only delivered a dynamic and interesting online experience, but has also given those interested in single player action a place to turn.

I had a great time finishing the single player game. There were some fantastic cinematic touches. I will not ruin the experience with any spoilers, but lets just say your in for a hell of a ride.

It took me about 8 leisurely hours to finish the single player. Just MAKE SURE to let the credits run out. Do NOT hit escape to end them. You get a nice little bonus at the end that is wroth the wait.

Now the multi-player experience is also interesting. It takes a unique approach by allowing you to unlock weapons and add-ons. It allows you to combine these weapons and add-ons in just about any way you choose to create your own classes. Very cool.

All of this is persistent. In other words, you don't start from zero each time you go to play online. You have a record that follows you around. So as you get promoted and add new weapons, you keep them both.

So here is where we lose that star. First, the maps are a bit small. You can get some pretty heated battles going on in these confined spaces, but opening up the maps would let a less frenetic play style prevail for those that prefer that kind of experience.
Then there is the mobility issue. It is not a giant deal, but jumping on top of things that you should easily be able too is often impossible. You can fall onto the top of a dumpster, but you cannot jump on top of it. A small issue, but one that feels off.

All in all, a great experience. If you have enjoyed previous COD titles or other modern combat type games, this is for you.

Another cool feature is the level of flexibility afforded to those that would host their own servers.

If your looking for your first game of this type, this is also a great place to start.

A Tremendous Experience

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 26 / 59
Date: November 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Infinity Ward, in Call of Duty 4, has managed to create one of the best games of the year--which is saying something, given the large number of wonderful games across all platforms that are have been released or are about to be released this holiday season. In short, if you liked the previous Call of Duty games (especially 1 and 2, which Infinity Ward developed), if you like first person shooters or action games of any kind, and especially if you are tired of the seemingly endless crop of World War II based shooters on the market, buy Call of Duty 4 immediately.

Call of Duty 4 (hear after CoD4) shares many traits with it's esteemed predecessors, but, as the title suggests, moves away from the overcrowded World War II genre to the modern day. The single player portion of the game, which obviously borrows heavily from the film Black Hawk Down (in terms of story, sound, music, and even gameplay cues), takes place during a fictional conflict in the Middle East. The story is very well conveyed in a non-traditional manner: the player sees the story, and plays the game, through the eyes of several different characters, and even ventures back in time by 15 years (to experience one of my favorite missions of the game). It's above average story telling for a video game, with a mature plotline and characters that you get to know as you fight alongside them. That, of course, is one of the defining characteristics of the single player game, as it has been with past CoD games: you never fight alone. You will always have at least one AI friend fighting at your side, and usually it's an entire squad. Given that the friendly AI is almost uniformly excellent (only rarely running into your line of fire), this is definitely a plus for the game.

The single player is not perfect, though it is close. Although brilliantly presented and highly polished, it's a very short affair, taking perhaps 6 hours to complete on regular difficulty (you do get an arcade mode as a reward after beating the game, which helps extend things somewhat). Also, the design of some gameplay elements will at times take you out of the universe and remind you forcibly that, no matter how convincing, you are playing a game. Specifically, there are moments where unless you (the player) advance to a specific position, your squadmates will simply remain rooted in one place, engaging in an apparently endless firefight with a string of enemies that continually respawn from some unseen place beyond that abandoned building or over this hilltop. It's a minor complaint, but it does have some minor ramifications as far as immersion is concerned.

The second, and equally important, half of CoD4 is, of course, the multiplayer. In this regard CoD4 excels, possibly exceeding Halo 3 or Team Fortress 2 for sheer addition and enjoyability of gameplay. The multiplayer has many different gameplay modes (DM, team DM, Sabotage, Headquarters, etc), all of which are excellent (though I think the Sabotage and Headquarters modes are the best, featuring tense "capture the objective" oriented team gameplay). The real star feature, however, is the fact that your avatar gains points as you play (for kills, capturing objectives, etc), and you gain rank (from private all the way to general). Higher ranks open up new weapons, equipment, and perks (special abilities, like deeper bullet penetration through walls or Last Stand, the ability to pull out your pistol before dying to try to catch your killer off guard). It's very addictive--lending itself to the mindset of "Okay, one more map, I'm this close to getting that laser sight for my M4."

I would be remiss not to mention the gorgeous graphics and wonderful sound design in this game. I am not sure yet which game has better graphics--Crysis or CoD4. Having only played the Crysis demo, and having played the full game of CoD4, I can say with confidence that CoD4 rivals Crytek's beautiful jungle shooter in sheer graphical prowess, but does it at significantly better performance. Crysis is ultra demanding, and the demo, at least, hiccups in framerate regularly at high detail settings; whereas CoD4, on my machine (Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB RAM, 8800GTX, on WinXP) runs without a hitch at 60fps or more wither every setting on high at a resolution of 1920x1200. That, to me, is impressive, and having such an excellent framerate really contributes to the immersion factor. Also, the sound design is excellent, from the moving score (again taking cues directly from Black Hawk Down) to the pitch-perfect weapon sounds and bullet impacts (my favorite is the ringing of scrap metal when a bullet strikes it).

This is a great game, highly polished, and I have no trouble recommending it to anyone looking for a great action game. I wish the single player had been about twice as long, but it's comparable to past CoD games, and what is there is varied and great. The multiplayer is a blast, the graphics and sound top notch...all around, Infinity Ward should be proud.

Good but not great.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: November 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The games graphics are very well done, sounds is excellent, it's non-stop action (which is always fun). Having said that, the game play is (at times) borderline awful/excellent. The problem is that events are scripted to a fault, meaning bad guys infinitely spawn until you move forward and cross the map trigger which makes baddies stop spawning at your location; is that realism? Playing the game on the normal difficulty level was to difficult at certain points during the game, that it took away all the fun. o
In spite of the things that are wrong with this game, it gets it right in many other place's. The multilayer is awesome, the ballistics and damage models are great. And if you shot someone in the head, they go down, which is how it should be. And while the story (such as it is) doesn't really tie into the game as much as it could; regardless you are taken to many different locations and each level is very well designed. This is a good game, it looks and feels like a run and gun, but just plays with a bit more strategy.

Bottom line: If you are looking for a new shooter and just can't wait then buy this game! If you aren't sure if you'd like this game and or haven't enjoyed the rest of the Call of Duty series then wait until the price drops to $29.99.

Disappointing: Falls way short of the mark set by CoD2

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 21
Date: November 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

In CoD4 I have found a wonderful game, very similar to the previous FPS hit CoD2 (Call of Duty 2), which I absolutely love. These games have generally solid mission pacing, and throw you for loops by yanking you out of the FPS Playable Character and dropping you behind a machine gun, or cannon, or .50 sniper rifle (very cool). The graphics are phenomenal, and the flashback sniper missions in Chernobyl were really fun.

Yes the scripting can be annoying, but if you want to play through a "make your own war movie" game, you're just going to have to put up with some scripting. At least the CoD teams are really, very, absolutely excellent with scripting. Their pacing is wonderful, and the intensity they can bring to the game is downright astounding.

Unfortunately, I'm done with the good stuff.

Here's my disappointment with CoD4. Outside of an admittedly impressive graphics upgrade, CoD4 offers absolutely nothing new. The single player missions aren't even long enough to make a good expansion pack for CoD2, and at least two of the missions feel like reconstructed mods of CoD2 missions. There are only two really new, really fun missions in the whole game. So I found that, given three to five minutes to be impressed by the blazingly gorgeous graphics and twelve to twenty minutes to complete those two film worthy, heart-pumping, sniping in Chernobyl missions, you have between fifteen and twenty-five minutes of really new stuff in this game.

So, CoD4 essentially plays like a graphically beefed up repeat of CoD2 with a horribly shortened story-line.

CoD4 introduces no legitimate game-play upgrades, and shows little or no attempt at offering even an illusion that the game isn't entirely linear. (I understand the difficulties of having both cinematic scripting and non-linear game-play, but at least try for an illusion. Ok?) The multiplayer upgrade is ridiculous, and arcade-like. I don't see how any long time FPS fan could really support a multi-player game that could potentially bias against a more skilled player in favor of one that just had more time on his hands to level up, but what do I know. I still play the CS titles.

All in all, if you like the multiplayer, who am I to judge. I loved the CoD2 multiplayer, but the new stuff in the CoD4 multiplayer seems kind of juvenille and video-gamey to me. I guess I'm just a little surprised, since I've never seen anything so arcade get such a positive response from the serious FPS PC gaming community.

All I can say is that $50 is way more than I am personally willing to pay for an exclusively multiplayer game. Unless you can't wait to get on-line with this game, or unless some really good expansion mods come out to add more to the single-player mode, I can't see that this game is worth more than $30, and can only recommend waiting for a price drop.

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