Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision/Infinity Ward)

In the beginning, there was Medal of Honor. It was not the first in the way of World War II-themed First Person Shooters, but it made a clear distinction on what was good and what was Next-Gen for the time. However, over the years what was good about Medal of Honor quickly faded away until all the Franchise was was sticky mound of goo.

A real hole opened up and it was decided that a change was-a gonna come. Hope strode through on a tall white horse and called itself Barak Obama Call of Duty. It was a first person shooter like no other. With great graphics, a super cool engine, original multiplayer stuff and of course, the ability to play soldiers from three different countries, it truly was our savior. Although I never hit the first or the second game on the consoles, COD 1 and 2 quite rocked the crap out of my PC! Alas, I never played COD 3. Developed by a Treyarch and not Infinity Ward, many people complained about it. Without any real development time and other restraints, the COD series took a serious hit, and Treyarch was especially black-listed.

However, the horse rides anew, and Barak the franchise rises from the ashes with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

The Story

Set during modern times, all heck has gone plum crazy in the world! In the middle east, a leader who promised real change and economic growth brought only McDonald's to the land, destroying the cattle industry and sending land prices through the roof. A terrorist group throws up a coup and fires the president, tied to a stake, with a BIG gun.

In Russia, a separatist movement - tired of the 400+ Japanese Restaurants carrying Kimura Takuya's picture - start a civil war that threatens to spread throughout the rest of the region. KimuTaku was unavailable for comment as he was too busy staring at himself in the mirror, making baby-talk about how pretty the man in the mirror really was - while pleasuring himself to the sounds of Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson - with the help of all the other SMAP members.

Unlike the other games in the Call of Duty Franchise, you will only play two different characters. You're the new boys in a platoon of the US Marines, and the British SAS. Your job? Bust through the terrorist threat and find out who's really pulling the strings of this global catastrophe and stop the world from going nuclear.

The Game

No longer using my Mac to play games, I can't comment on the the desktop version of the game. Only recently starting to play FPS games on a controller, the control set-up seemed a little weird to me in the beginning. It's a little complicated and sometimes hard to control. It's not the games fault however, as I have to learn how to hold my breath while looking down the scope and force myself to move out of position when sniping.

That's right. You've got to hold your breath! You've got two buttons for two grenades, a melee, jump and a position button when going in between prone, crouch and standing positions. Weapon reloads and selection and the D-pad is used for turning on your night-vision, selecting explosive devices and calling in helicopters and air-strikes. It's a lot, but you get used to it.

The visuals are gorgeous and highly detailed. The only thing that doesn't really work, I think is the water. You move through it like it isn't even there. The way the system works around the environment is really sweet. If you're hiding behind some tall grass, it's very likely you won't be seen (well, except on the highest difficulty setting. There, the bullets just fly at you.). And hiding behind walls isn't necessarily going to save you. Different weapons can shoot through the walls giving you damage.

Yeah! Multiplayer!

"It has the deepest Multiplayer action blah blah blah!" The first time you play online, if you are not some sort of game-playing aficionado, you are going to get your ass handed to you on a big ol' stick. It's going to be like that for a long time, too. This isn't Halo 3. There are no shields protecting you. You get shot, you die. This is real-life, bitch!

Anyway... The cool thing about COD4's multiplayer is that it gives you a lot of control. There's a perk and weapon attainment system that is combined with challenges. Challenges aren't 360 Achievements, however. All the achievements for the game are within the single-player, only.

Complete the challenges to unlock more weapons of different classes, from assault rifles to sub-machine guns to sniper rifles and more. Other challenges unlock perks, which are different abilities that give you different strengths, like carrying many grenades, or the ability to be invisible to the radar.

The number of kills you get in a row also gives you some advantages. Kill three in a row and get a radar. Kill five and get an air-strike on any position on the map. If you can kill seven, you get a helicopter that can kick the crap out of the enemy. However, if someone is lucky enough with bullets or have a couple rockets on hand, your bird can go down.

Unlike Halo, your teammates keep on coming. That is if you have an uneven team to begin with, or a couple people quit, the system logs more people on as they come online. The problem I have with this is that if you are the host of the game, you don't know it, and if you quit, the whole game goes kaput - for everyone. And lucky you, you get to hang around long enough to hear all the twelve-year-olds saying bad shit about you. Awesome!

The only other down-side of the multiplayer, besides my skills going from awesome into a nose dive to hell, is the spawning system. There is a good chance that when you spawn, you will die. More than half of my deaths, it seems, comes from being spawned in the middle of a bad-guy pow-wow. Sometimes two or three times in a row.

In The End...

If you love FPS games. Your collection is not complete without this one. And clean underwear. And pants. And couch... Wallow in it!

Go to the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare homepage.