Open scene. Soldier sits across from you with cigarette in mouth which smolders in the darkness. Soldiers to your left look out the door of the helicopter with their M4’s across their legs. Radio chatter is heard mixed with the signature chop of the helicopter while it heads to your mission. Rainbow Six: Vegas? No. Battlefield 2? No. This is Call of Duty 4, and up until this point it has followed a common formula of how FPS war sims should work. *sigh* Another COD…
But before you can regret spending your $60, you look to your right and you notice large swells amid a dark ocean storm. The pilot comes on the radio, “Almost at target, 20 seconds till drop”. We running recon drills on a whale? And just then, a large cargo freighter comes into view at your 1:00, tossing in the darkness. The detail is incredible as you come up alongside: gangway lights casting shadows as you pass, ocean spray shooting up onto the deck of the ship, interior details visible through portholes, and at this moment you realize, “I’m about to board that". Before you know it, you are checking corners as you step through portholes and cargo holds. Terrorists pop out from corners and jack you in the face with the butt of their G36s, you die, and a quote fades in, “If a mission is going well, something is wrong -Anonymous”.You find a nuke in the aft cargo hold, but before you secure it, a couple of MIGs slam the boat with high explosive ordinance. The ship lists to starboard as water begins to pour from all areas of the boat. You and your team are rushing topside and when you get there, you see your team leap over the back of the ship onto the open ass of a helicopter and you think, I can’t jump that. You press A anyway, and you launch yourself off the edge only to land on the very end of the cargo door and as you scramble to get a grip before falling into the ocean, your commanding officer reaches out and grabs you. As you sit, you look out the door to see the ship take a final Titanic tip into the ocean, the detail just as gorgeous as when it was afloat, and the mission ends. Holy shit. This is Call of Duty 4: the most exciting 2007 first person shooter and the most gorgeous game to date. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, those awards are very well deserved.
Call of Duty 4 is not entirely an innovative game when it comes to gameplay. The FPS concept of point and shoot still holds true, but where CoD steps above the rest is in the tweaks Infinity Ward put into the formula. A typical CoD would involve running through a level, your Thompson blazing at any Nazi scum you see, chucking uncooked grenades back, pushing forward in a blaze of bullets, and really not getting involved in the story or characters; pure action, but no meat. In CoD4, the story actually does serve a purpose. You shift between two main characters, a U.S. Marine and a British S.A.S., in true CoD fashion. Unlike other CoD’s though, the story remains linear whether you are playing for the U.S. or the Brits. While the Brits just captured a main figure in the terrorist organization, your Marine team is working to secure his 2nd in command.
And blazing through levels in a hail of bullets? Easy on the trigger finger, El Juapo. CoD4 mixes action with true war simulation. As you finish up a mission where
countless enemies are moving on your position and you are trying to get away, you (the player) step into an AC-130 gunship to cover the S.A.S. retreat with a stupendous armament using infrared imaging to see all enemy movement hundreds of feet below. One of the best moments in the game is firing one shot of the 20mm cannon at a group of five enemies waiting behind a cover of cars for your S.A.S. team and seeing their little white infrared bodies fly in the air accompanied by the pilot saying over the radio in monotone amusement, “Boom”. In another change of pace, you shift from a mission to capture the leader of a revolt to a sniper mission in the abandoned Ukrainian city of Pripyat, right next to the now defunct Chernobyl reactor. In this black ops mission, you must duck and dodge through enemy patrols with one mission in mind: get to the sniper position without raising the alarm. And while I will not reveal too much of this mission, I will say that at one point you have to fire a .50 caliber sniper rifle from such a distance that you must take the Earth’s rotation in mind. Sound like a typical CoD to you?Where Call of Duty 4 really goes above and beyond the call of duty (groan) is in its multiplayer. Current Xbox Live issues aside, the matchmaking for CoD4 is simple and easy to use. Better yet, CoD4 improves upon the Persistent Elite Creation (PEC) idea launched in Rainbow Six: Vegas by expanding the ranking system. Players achieve ranks as they gain experience from killing enemies, completing challenges, and winning games. Ranks not only unlock new guns, but also unlock new perks and challenges. The perk system allows a player to select three bonus attributes to better their character. The double-tap perk, for example, causes the player's gun to fire at double speed and so if you combine this with an Uzi then you have yourself an Uber Uzi! The ability to plant claymores or hold your breath longer as a sniper all fall in the perk category, and when you unlock character creation you are able to pick and choose which perks best suit the situation/armament. All of this combined makes CoD4’s multiplayer absolutely addictive and whether going for Private 2nd class or Brigadier General, you will play your ass off to get that next rank.
All of this is inconsequential to Call of Duty 4’s graphics engine. The single player campaign really showcases the Infinity Ward proprietary engine’s beauty with shadows, lighting, and
weather effects. All characters in the game are rendered beautifully and all movement, be it climbing a fence or an enemy falling down after being shot, are fluid and natural. Rag-doll effects are combined with pre-rendered animations to make the most realistic deaths this side of Saturn, and a sniper bullet actually plasters some enemy brains on the wall behind them. Mix that with some farva beans, Hannibal! What really strikes you when you play CoD4 is that the multiplayer graphics are just as beautiful. There is one map in particular where you exit a garage into a beautiful sunny day and as you approach the exit of the garage, the outside environment is bright and hard to distinguish, thus taking the indoor versus outdoor lighting into account. As you get closer, everything comes into focus, but nothing is 100% clear until you are outside. Though you have to see it to truly understand this effect, it is a moment of "Wow" that is a bit hard to find in this tail end of next-gen. In other words, CoD4 shows us that our beloved Xbox 360 still has a little next-gen juice left.While Call of Duty 4’s single player campaign is too short, the level of gameplay and the addictive multiplayer puts this game above all others. In a moment of weakness, I picked up Halo 3 yesterday to play for the first time in months and I was actually disappointed…*sniff sniff* am I normal? Perhaps not in traditional standards, but in regards to this feeling: yes. CoD4 actually trumps Halo 3 on the multiplayer front and for all you Bungie fans out there, that will either impress you or cause you to never read this blog again. Bungie, I love you, but there is a new love in my life and it goes by the name of Infinity Ward and it is beautiful and it is gentle and it is kind. It’s not you, it’s me. Actually, that is untrue: I crave Prestige Mode, and you…well…your simple ranking system and unexciting armor unlocks just don’t “do it” for me anymore. I need a ranking system that knocks my socks off, I want graphics that make me pee a little; I crave Call of Duty 4. Alas, such are the desires of a gamer…adieu, mon ami, adieu.
