Graphics = 10/10
Gameplay:
Naturally, with a totally new time period and environment comes a new way to play the game and a new way to play war. Besides the all-to-natural way of shooting sub-machine guns, machine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and anti-tank weapons
Modern Warfare introduces a few more help ways for you to destroy the enemy. First there's the inclusion of night vision goggles - you'll notice that more levels take place at night this time around so the night vision is more than a welcome aid in combat. Also, at given times throughout the single player portion of the game you'll have the chance to use such things as air support to clean out dug in enemies.
Some more new mechanics are the ability to throw back enemy grenades (like in
Call of Duty 3), the sprint ability (ala
United Offensive), and the use of flash bangs to help you clean out confined spaces and enemy buildings. Lastly, the cream of the crop with this title is the ability to shoot through the environment. No longer can enemies (and yourself) hold out against a stationary machine gun behind a wooden crate, no longer do fences and wooden walls hide you from harm. Bullets can now pass through given objects in the environments leaving you to choose your cover carefully in the midst of battle and use the enemies mistakes to your advantage. It should also be stated that previous
Call of Duty players can take some pride in knowing that there are no more elaborate button mashing "mini games" in order to set charges, etc.
Like all other games in the franchise (with the exception of
Big Red One) the game's single player campaign is split between multiple characters and nationalities. This time however there are only two nations which your characters are associated with: the British SAS and the USMC. The game's campaign is broken up into three separate acts each containing 4 - 7 missions each. As the SAS you'll find yourself more involved in Russia, fighting the Russian Ultranationalists while playing as the USMC will bring you to the Middle East and close quarters urban combat. The two provide a very welcome and enjoyed varying of combat - providing both an outdoor, open environment and a confined, claustrophobic environment to fight your way through.
The new features of the multiplayer portion of game cannot go unnoticed. Along with the ability to use air support and artillery strikes during games there's also a whole new experience mechanic where players earn XP and gain levels during online play. As you gain levels more weapons and special unlockables are released to you.
The only drawback to
Modern Warfare's gameplay is the length of the single player campaign. While most multiplayer nuts figure this to be a back seat concern, for single player lovers like myself I find this to be a little disturbing. While all the franchise titles post the original
Call of Duty proved to be longer,
Modern Warfare decides to take a step backwards and reduce it's campaign length to what the originals was - something around less than six hours. Tsk, Tsk...
Gameplay = 9/10
Audio:
Sound effects, music, and voice overs are all crystal clear and make you feel like you're in the middle of the war zone itself. The only problem with
Modern Warfare's audio I found was how uncanny it was that most of the Russian's death sounds, and yelling/dialouge sounded almost exactly the same as the Germans out of past
Call of Duty titles...only with Russian accents (and in some instances not). With how much this game advances the franchise you'd think they could've taken the time to record new enemy voice overs and sounds.
Audio = 3/5
Replay Value:
Plain and simple: if you're all about multiplayer whether it be on Xbox Live or on your PC than you'll be constantly playing this game over and over again for months to come (just like you've done with past
Call of Duty games). If, however, you're not an online junkie you'll probably find yourself either replaying the game again shortly after you've completed it (finding it too short) or you'll be constantly going back to play certain past missions (which are easily accessed via the main menu).
Replay Value = 4/5
Story/Plot:
This is the first
Call of Duty to ever actually feature a coherent and somewhat believable plot line. Actually, it's very cinematic, minus the depth of characters and such...in short the game takes place in the modern era, if not the "not too distant future". In this world a Russian ultranationalist named Imran Zakhaev seeks to return the motherland to how it was during the time of the Soviet Union. To do this, Zakhaev plans to overthrow the current Russian government and seize stockpiles of nuclear weapons with the help of certain loyal divisions of the Russian army. Knowing that this revolt would fail with all attentions set on Russia, Zakhaev helps incite a coup in an unnamed Middle Eastern country with the help of his ally Khaled Al-Asad.
The game opens with the public execution of the unnamed Middle Eastern country's president and the beginning of the coup. From there the player takes the role of two different men. One, an FNG named Sgt. John "Soap" MacTavish, with the British SAS and the other an American named Sgt. Paul Jackson of the 1st Force Recon USMC. Playing as both men you hope to quell the uprising in the Middle East and hopefully stop Zakhaev's plans to seize control of Russia.
The story is well put together and the loading sequences and a few special levels here and there help to push the story along, never letting it take the back seat to mind-numbing run and gun action.
Story/Plot = 9.5/10
Conclusion:
It would be a lie to say that how good Modern Warfare was was a surprise. I heard nothing but good things about it and it comes from a relatively trusted franchise of enjoyable and award winning games. Modern Warfare proves that the once ground breaking franchise still has life in it and can set the bar for future games of it's genre.
Final Score = 35.5/40 or 89%
Call of Duty 4 (again)
Originally Posted by Dieter The Conquerer
Re: Call of Duty 4 (again)
