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Graphically, the game is beautiful. On par with most games nowadays. The character models are well rendered as seen in this screenshot:
http://gaming.instab...f-duty-4_52.jpg
They use HDR lighting, so if you're going from indoors to outdoors, the light is going to be brighter until your virtual eyes adjust to the light (a la Half Life 2). One thing I am slightly disappointed in is the explosion graphics. They look dated especially when you're getting air-striked in multiplayer. It's like they reverted back to using flat 2d animated sprites of fire and added transparency effects to hide it. But since that's my only qualm with the graphics, it's a moot point.'
Sounds are typical war-sounds. Guns sound like guns, nothing really remarkable you can do with em I guess. Voice acting is well done.
On my computer, the game seemed to stutter when I moved my mouse, but found that turning on "Mouse Smoothing" fixed this. For all the stuff going on, there was no apparent drop in frame rate. (Specs: Core 2 duo 3ghz, 2 gig ram, 8800 GTS)
Gameplay: I'll be speaking of multiplayer in a moment, for now, here's my opinion of the Campaign... I made the mistake of starting in "Hardened Mode" rather than Normal as I probably should have.... The game was a challenge and I got into moments where I couldn't find cover from enemies and kept having to reload from dying multiple times. There's a point where a game needs to be not so hard as to not frustrate the player. There's not a lot of skill involved as it's mostly run forward, shoot bad guys, advance, repeat. Standing in one spot taking out bad guys does not help because they apparently infinitely spawn until you reach triggers throughout the level as you progress. There's a lot of trial and error for some levels, because you have to figure out which direction enemies spawn from so you don't get flanked so easily.
The controls aren't as robust as in Battlefield 2... You can't change your rifle to "auto" to "semi-auto" which would help a bit for accuracy. I blame the fact that it was made with consoles in mind, and consoles don't have a lot of buttons
Overall it feels better than other console shooters though, especially when I figured out about the mouse smoothing.The story takes place in "modern day" as opposed to WWII as the other games in its franchise (I've only ever played the first CoD). As for actual "story" it isn't really deep. You're after a group of bad guys trying to launch a nuke. Simple. But there are lots of cinematic moments in between, which I refuse to discuss because you need to play it for yourself for the full shock value. Seriously, this game will awe you at some points if you're not expecting it. The ending is somewhat abrupt, but there is closure so I have no complaints. (Unlike Timeshift where you basically run through hell for nothing).
At one point in the game, you encounter a "flashback" which takes place 15 years before in which you play a lieutenant of the British SAS with a mission to assassinate the "present day" bad guy (apparently your assassination attempt only rips off his arm, and he lives). I was on the second to hardest setting throughout the game, and though it was hard, I got though no problem... Well at the end of this flash back, you are at the rendezvous point waiting for your ride, and literally something like 20 guys spawn that you need to take care of... Which isn't that bad, considering they give you 30 seconds to plant claymore mines and whatnot... The hard part is when you get another wave of 20 or so guys, in addition to 3 helicopter loads of them coming in from all sides.... and you have no cover. And the little cover you do have, they throw grenades at you like you were a magnet for explosives.... I must have spent 2 hours playing that level over and over again trying to survive till the chopper got there, and would make it about half way before some team came around and blew me up or shot me, or an attack dog tore out my throat... Yea, they have attack dogs you need to worry about. If they jump on you, it will prompt you to push the melee button at the precise time or you die. If you hit it too early, it bites your arm off... if you do it too late, it rips your throat out. It's not as hard as ... say Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles button pushing is though.
Anyway, I finally figured out that I could pick the mission separately, start at the beginning, and play in Recruit (ie. No0b mode) and I even THAT was hard due to all the troops.
As for Multiplayer, that's a whole different ballgame. Here's where I start comparing it to Battlefield 2...
First off, I approached this game as a veteran Battlefield 2 player, so my standards were pretty much set as far as what I thought to expect from Multiplayer, but I was strangely shocked at the result. First off, apparently they don't seem to have a master server in which your stats get saved, which makes me wonder how easily people hacked their game to enable all the specials they can get....Anyway...
So I hop onto multiplayer and reset all my controls (because apparently they didn't save over from single player). I check out "Join Server" and there are something like 19,250 servers it was trying to refresh.... So I quickly hit cancel, and looked through the couple thousand or so that came up. Picked one that looked moderately populated with about 17 or so people (I'm used to the 64 player servers BF2 offers, so I figured this would be a bit more personable).
Call of Duty 4 offers several modes of gameplay which gives it an advantage over Battlefield 2. With Battlefield 2, you're stuck forever capturing flags... Stationary flags... With Call of Duty 4, they have a mode similar to that, but the "flag" or area you need to capture will move to a different spot every time you capture it successfully. Gives it a more dynamic feeling, but that's also where CoD4 is different is dynamics. With Battlefield 2, you can have a commander UAV the area and give strategic plans on how to go about winning... With Call of Duty 4, it's a freaking free for all, for the most part. Even with teams, the only difference is that there are some people now on the map you're not supposed to shoot. There's no TIME for teamwork because the average life expectancy is somewhere in the 1-2 minute range. If are into Team Fortress and Counterstrike, with fast paced action, and adrenaline up the wazoo, this is that game. If you can kill 3 people in a row without dying, you can call in UAV support for your team... Which amazingly is rather rare, since only spawn campers and bunny hoppers (ie. douchebags) typically live that long. If you kill (I believe it's 6) 6 people in a row, you can call in an attack helicopter... Problem with this is that it's totally computer controlled... Good thing about this is it usually gets you even more kills rather easily and effectively...
Which leads me to the fact that the only vehicles in this game are useless props that explode to hit people with splash damage. That's one thing BF2 has over CoD4 is drivable vehicles. On the other hand, enemies appear on your radar whenever they shoot an unsilenced gun, which is handier than BF2... Conversely, BF2 actually shows you which direction the enemy is facing on the map, in Cod4, you only see a red dot.
Both have pros and cons.
In CoD4, you can shoot a claymore to get rid of it so you don't die... In BF2, claymores are so small and unnoticeable, that you usually don't have the chance to shoot them before you're dead anyway. Claymores are also much more noticeable, with red laser beams shooting off to show which way they're facing.
Another difference is the unlockables. In BF2, you unlock special weapons by earning points for flag captures, kills, and team help like medical supply or ammo supply. With COD4, you get points for completing challenges, which adds another dimension BF2 doesn't have... I mean in BF2, you can win medals, but you don't get anything for them. In CoD4, you actually unlock more options like Cammo paint for your guns and silencers and more guns. Levels also come easier, since there are so many of them... According to my stats, I'm logged in at over 152 hours on BF2, and I'm on Gunnery Sergeant which is equivalent to leveling up 7 times... In CoD4, a Gunnery Sergeant is level 17, and I made it there in 2 nights. I'm actually level 19 now. So the pace of leveling up is much much faster (as is the game as a whole).
People also have a more realistic amount of damage they can take before they die... ie. It's easier to kill people in CoD4. In Battlefield 2, health is administered through medics or ammo crates... In CoD4, if you survive through a partial fight and your health is low, the screen will beat with red, but your health will return... Which is nice because it just adds to the whole fast pace of the thing.
Overall, I'd say give the mutiplayer a chance just because it'll shoot you up with adrenaline. Even though I probably prefer BF2 overall for strategy, CoD4 multiplayer is a fun game all in its own, and raises my personal value in the game, though $49 is probably still a bit more than I'd like to have paid for it.
Overall great game: 9/10
Pros: Fast paced. The only time you get to rest is when your computer is loading up the next level. Great graphics.
Cons: Hard as hell on higher difficulties that will make you want to put your Desert Eagle in your mouth and blow your brains all over the monitor.
Also stay around after the credits, like a good movie, they put in a bonus mission unrelated to the actual story that takes about 1 minute 30 seconds to beat... If you don't, the plane you're in blows up... Happy hunting
