I'll put a few words in here before the "real" review. I know that Call Of Duty 4 is nearing it's first birthday, and that it has been reviewed to death here at The Escapist but I only bought it yesterday and I want to practice my writing. This is the first review I've posted to The Escapist. As such any advice you have would be appreciated. Please, critique my critiquing. All clear? Good. Onto the review.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, by Infinity Ward, is a spectacular first person shooter, not so much because of innovation, a word that gets tossed around like a shuttlecock these days, but because everything the game does, it does extremely well. That said, like any other game, it's not perfect and won't be everyone's cup of tea.

My first praise is that Infinity Ward broke out of the World War Two and Intergalactic backdrops that the genre is plagued by and it indeed does it very well. The game is set in the present day (Hence the subtitle, "Modern Warfare") and the locations bunny hop around the globe as you switch between the perspectives of "Soap" MacTavish of the British SAS and Sergeant Paul Jackson of the US Marines through conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.

The story starts with you infiltrating a cargo ship in the most cinematic of ways and confirming the unauthorised transport of nuclear material to an undoubtedly sinister organization. The opening cinematic that follows puts you in the eyes of the president of a Middle-Eastern country being driven unwillingly to his execution as part of a coup staged by the game's antagonist, Al Asad. Then it hits the fan, The United States launches an offensive on the capital in search of Al Asad (sound familiar?) and the SAS are tasked with hindering the enemy, finding information and basically preventing the world from blowing itself to smithereens.

Gameplay is your standard affair as with most other shooters, except that everything is wonderfully tight, responsive and intelligent. A good example of this is your melee attack. When you press the button to melee, the response is instant as it should be, but the really cool thing is that it's not your standard knife-swipe across the screen. Your character actually reaches out in the direction of the enemy and stabs deep into his body. It saved my life more than once.

Fire fights range from intense open ground shootouts to squeezed-in close quarters combat, to sneaky sniping and throat cutting. It never felt boring to me, and often was exciting, thrilling stuff, in particular the mission "All Ghillied Up". Enemies are relatively intelligent, usually taking cover behind what's available and throwing enough grenades to stock Monaco. Your allies are useful, giving cover fire while you snipe (Which by the way, is tremendous fun), and throwing back grenades that are too close for comfort. Their usefulness is limited though, as they won't advance unless you do so first, but overall you'll be glad to have them around.

The environments look fleshed out and realistic. Plants and vegetation are lush and thick, just as one would hope and visual effects are all top notch. It's mainly those little things but they all add up. Things like the air around hot things (fire, engines) being wavy, the reactions that water, dirt, concrete and other surfaces have when hit by bullets, detailed textures just about everywhere, all those sorts of things. A big plus for me was that not once during the campaign did I experience the frame rate dropping or any big graphical glitches. It was smooth, shiny treat all the way though. Cake for the eyeballs.

The sound in Call of Duty 4 is good. The voice work feels unique for each character and explosions boom and ring in the way that they should. The orchestral score is serviceable, having a few moments that it really stands out. Guns sound like guns, Russians sound like Russians, all in all the game sounds great, but it's not what you'll remember the game for.

At the beginning of this review I said that the game is not without flaw and up to this point I've made Call of Duty 4 sound like warm liquid happiness in a disc made of marshmallows. So now I'll make good on my promise and list what's wrong with the game.

First up, War Dogs. These bastards hate you. They hate you more than anything that has ever existed or ever will exist. That's how much they hate you, and should you not be able to dispose of them before they get a (quite literal) jump on you, you're dead. Admittedly once they jump on you, there is a small window where you can press melee to reach up and break the dog's neck (to much amusement), but this window is tiny. Miniscule. Near Nonexistent. I've probably died more at the hands paws of these beasts than any other way, and on harder difficulties I can imagine that more than a few controllers will be thrown forcefully in televisions.

Secondly, the campaign is way short. It takes about six to eight hours start to finish, maybe ten or so if you go for hardened or veteran. Going into the game I knew that it was short, but I hoped my ham handedness would lengthen game play. It was not to be so.

There are a few "Wait, what?" moments, where you wonder why something can't be done a certain way. Case in point; one mission has you escorting a tank through some city streets lined with bad guys, but the tank does bugger all, apart from maybe acting as cover, and as this was in a level where the enemy constantly respawned from about six different locations it would be nice if the tank crew would let off just a couple of shells.

Speaking of constantly respawning, there are more than a handful of clown car moments, and the trigger to stop them always seems to be advancing further into the firefight. One standout moment was at the end of "One Shot, One Kill" Where you and an injured sniper sit atop a knoll and snipe away and respawning waves of ultranationalists for about 5 minutes while a helicopter arrives. It gets particularly ridiculous when you look down the sight and see that each and every one of these guys are twins (wait, these guys are coming in waves of 15. That would make them quindecaplets).

Last and least, nitpicks. Some guns take an eon to reload, whereas others take about nought-point-one seconds. Objectives are sometimes not entirely clear. You usually have C4 charges, mines, a grenade launcher and night vision goggles at your disposal for each mission however there are only a few times through the game where use of these items is essential or for that matter, useful.

Also, the epilogue doesn't make much sense. It's cool, but you'll be scratching your head after playing it.

Call of Duty 4 is great, it's only crippling flaws being the campaign length, and the amount of money it cost me ($110 AUD for a nearly year old eight hour game. Damn my supporting local business). If you like shooters then you're not going to go wrong with Call of Duty 4, and I'd reccomend you Buy It. If you want something that lasts you a bit longer than one evening, you might want to look elsewhere.

Good strong review, nice and concise without being a word-dump type review, nice balance between pros and cons, nice word flow.

In other news, you've now removed any impetus for me writing a review about CoD4. I suppose I'll have to make my "I-don't-always-play-old-games-honest" review about Crysis or something.

Nice work, well written and made me chuckle. Especially the leaf-ghosts

One of the best.
Good strong humour, never forced and still manages to convey the point in an interesting way.

I give props for this review. Better than most. I'd disagree with you lauding of the graphics though. I thought they were a bit sub-standard for the time the game was released, but I don't really care about graphics so long as I can bare to look at them. Pretty graphics are a bonus though.

Nice review although you tread dangerously close to plot summary.

And good jokes with the pictures (I think pretty much anything is more menacing than that).

I'd disagree with you lauding of the graphics though. I thought they were a bit sub-standard for the time the game was released, but I don't really care about graphics so long as I can bare to look at them.

I was quite shocked (and almost disappointed) to find that Call of Duty 4 ran absolutely perfectly, on full detail at 1280x960 on my computer. I mean, with the likes of Crysis kicking my computer's ass, and ArmA trying desperately to drag my computer's stability down the tubes in every way, I felt it would be harder on my system than that. Same with BioShock, which tried to murder my old 6600GT in gruesome ways, but which gave my G80 GeForce 8800GTS absolutely no trouble.

Wow. Looks like I did pretty well for a first timer, if I do say so myself. Responding to some of the comments;

RAKtheUndead:
Good strong review, nice and concise without being a word-dump type review, nice balance between pros and cons, nice word flow.

In other news, you've now removed any impetus for me writing a review about CoD4. I suppose I'll have to make my "I-don't-always-play-old-games-honest" review about Crysis or something.

Thankyou. Once I'd finished I thought it looked a little like text-wall so I decided to break it up with some pictures.

Also, there's nothing wrong with old games :)

shufflemonkey16:
I give props for this review. Better than most. I'd disagree with you lauding of the graphics though. I thought they were a bit sub-standard for the time the game was released, but I don't really care about graphics so long as I can bare to look at them. Pretty graphics are a bonus though.

I understand what you mean, and that pretty much everything this generation looks cool, but framerate slowdown is a real pet peeve for me. That, and my video card is just a Radeon 9600, so to me everything on the 360 looks awesome by comparison.

Eldritch Warlord:
Nice review although you tread dangerously close to plot summary.

Perhaps I do, but the game spoils itself a little but putting all the cool parts of the game in the opening cinematic. I'll leave it at that, I'm leaning over the edge as it is.

Case in point; one mission has you escorting a tank through some city streets lined with bad guys, but the tank does bugger all, apart from maybe acting as cover, and as this was in a level where the enemy constantly respawned from about six different locations it would be nice if the tank crew would let off just a couple of shells.

I got the feeling from the game in that mission (apparently, I'm correct on replaying it) that the main gun was busted, and if I know my tanks properly, that's a big job, not the sort of thing the combat engineers could do in the field while it's hostile.

Speaking of constantly respawning, there are more than a handful of clown car moments, and the trigger to stop them always seems to be advancing further into the firefight. One standout moment was at the end of "One Shot, One Kill" Where you and an injured sniper sit atop a knoll and snipe away and respawning waves of ultranationalists for about 5 minutes while a helicopter arrives. It gets particularly ridiculous when you look down the sight and see that each and every one of these guys are twins (wait, these guys are coming in waves of 15. That would make them quindecaplets).

Incidentally, it was at these moments that I was most aware that I was playing a game. Not only because of the Groundhog Day-type respawning, but because I had to use typically gamey exploits to complete them. For somebody who'd played a ultra-difficult-but-realistic game, it disappointed me that there were only so many approaches to take in the mission. Snipe, or hide, in the case of "One Shot, One Kill".

Good review all around.

I really liked it, for whatever that's worth.

RAKtheUndead:
I got the feeling from the game in that mission (apparently, I'm correct on replaying it) that the main gun was busted, and if I know my tanks properly, that's a big job, not the sort of thing the combat engineers could do in the field while it's hostile.

It got stuck in a bog. Hence the level name "The Bog". A broken cannon would not be fixed by sunrise.

Asehujiko:

RAKtheUndead:
I got the feeling from the game in that mission (apparently, I'm correct on replaying it) that the main gun was busted, and if I know my tanks properly, that's a big job, not the sort of thing the combat engineers could do in the field while it's hostile.

It got stuck in a bog. Hence the level name "The Bog". A broken cannon would not be fixed by sunrise.

It would appear I have made some mistakes in my time.

Edit: I replayed the level. Here's what I/We got wrong:
Un. The tank's gun WAS working at the begining of the mission. Perhaps being stuck in the bog was all that was wrong with it.
Deux. The tank DID fire off rounds, and quite a many. Seems I missed that on my first playthrough, likley because I was too busy throwing back grenades and dying.

good review

Time flew by as I read that review, very good.

That little puppy is just awesome. Look at the little thing, just look at it.

Also, nice review. You summed up my feeling on the game, although a more detailed mention of the characters would have been appreciated. I like Gaz and Price, is all.

Nice review, but I disagree with most. Not that I'm ever going to review this game, I hate the single player and couldn't play multiplayer for more than 15 minutes before I wanted to destroy my computer.

Asehujiko:

RAKtheUndead:
I got the feeling from the game in that mission (apparently, I'm correct on replaying it) that the main gun was busted, and if I know my tanks properly, that's a big job, not the sort of thing the combat engineers could do in the field while it's hostile.

It got stuck in a bog. Hence the level name "The Bog". A broken cannon would not be fixed by sunrise.

The cannon works. At the start of the level it shoots out a wall in one building(it did give me a blurred vision for a second and a ringing noise after the tank crew/commander said "fire"), if you stay near the tank, it will continue to shoot at the same building until you move to the next point.

I disagree with this review quite a bit. I think Call of Duty 4 deserves some praise for its tight mechanics and glitzy presentation, but the campaign is disjointed, woefully short (I can finish the game in a couple of hours easily), and hinges entirely on mechanics that were dated when the first game came out years ago (infinitely respawning monster closets, trigger points, and incredibly linear, cramped, scripted environments). The weapons also feel surprisingly weak and non-tactile, despite the care given to their animations and models (might be the lack of loud bullet impact sounds, especially with enemies). I really didn't touch multiplayer very much but I don't think a game should be able to rely entirely on a good multiplayer mode and a lacklustre single-player one; one doesn't forgive or make up for the other.

Honestly, it sickens me how much praise and play-time this game gets. It's enjoyable in a mindless sort of way, but there's tons of other games I'd rather play and it's definitely not worth even a reduced price unless you're a deathmatch fanatic and the humour of the martyrdom perk doesn't wear off for you after the first five minutes... in which case I'd say you need to get your head examined, because there must be something wrong up there. There are too many games that rely on sleek presentation alone these days and Call of Duty 4 perfectly exemplifies this awful trend (the other big offender being Gears of War).

Heh. I'm surprised this got necro'd. But fresh comments are always nice.

TheBadass:
That little puppy is just awesome. Look at the little thing, just look at it.

Also, nice review. You summed up my feeling on the game, although a more detailed mention of the characters would have been appreciated. I like Gaz and Price, is all.

Thanks. Gaz, Price and Griggs were awesome, but if I'd said any more about the story or characters, then I'd probably have just ended up copy pasting the whole wikipedia article..

searanox:

Honestly, it sickens me how much praise and play-time this game gets. It's enjoyable in a mindless sort of way, but there's tons of other games I'd rather play and it's definitely not worth even a reduced price unless you're a deathmatch fanatic and the humour of the martyrdom perk doesn't wear off for you after the first five minutes... in which case I'd say you need to get your head examined, because there must be something wrong up there. There are too many games that rely on sleek presentation alone these days and Call of Duty 4 perfectly exemplifies this awful trend (the other big offender being Gears of War).

At the time it was released, I think people were thinking "FPS, oh okay. Wait, it's not set in WWII? HOLY SH*T GOTY!!" to some extent, but despite that I think it is very well polished for what there is.

As for multiplayer, I can't really say. I haven't played online.

Hey, all i have to say is. I pwn3d n00bs online COD4!