A good game is hard to come by these days, an amazing game is rare to find, and you can almost forget finding a game that’ll leave you speechless and wanting more. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the latter. Not only
does this game have spectacular graphics, but very well coordinated controls.

The plot is very well constructed and the physics of it is almost one hundred percent perfect. The plot is fairly easy to understand, you start off as a recruit for the S.A.S. (Special Air Services), named “Soap MacTavish”. Captain Price is your leader, and you almost always have the technician Gaz on your S.A.S. team.

The developers of this game did a very good job opening the game up to you, having you do the normal training stuff first, and then going on your first mission. During the game, you’ll switch point-of-views with another character, a U.S.M.C. (United States Marine Corps) soldier, named “Paul Jackson”.

You can tell when you’re either Soap or Paul by the little twirly symbol on the screen as the level first begins to load, or when one of your team mates calls you by your name. One thing that I find nice about CoD4: MW is that you don’t have to stare at a blank screen as it loads.

It will usually show a world map of your current position from the previous mission, and then move to the next position on the globe for the following mission. Not only that, but it goes into detail about what you’ll be doing in that following mission, as well.

This makes it so that you can have your eyes on the screen and paying attention to what’s going on, if you’re interested in the story, rather than looking away at a magazine or something else to keep you occupied while
it loads.

There is a total of 21 missions, although one of them is just an opening scene showing the credits for the developers. They’re split into five parts, “Prologue”, “Act I”, “Act II”, “Act III”, and “Epilogue”.

The Epilogue holds only one extra mission that pertains nothing to the story previous to it, but I’m sure most, if not all, players will remember this mission very well. Music is not something you’ll hear often in this game when playing a mission, however when you do hear it it’s definitely worth listening to.

The opening movie track isn’t so bad, really shows how much action can go on in war. Most of the time you’ll have to disregard the music, because you’ll want to know what the characters are saying so that you know what to do to progress in the level.

The track for the Epilogue mission holds a special place in my heart, and I’m sure I’ll never forget it, but that’s beside the point. This game doesn’t have a lot of outstanding tracks, but they’re there and definitely worth taking a chance to listen to.

What am I doing talking about a First Person Shooter game without even mentioning the guns? Not only are they in great detail from your view, but the reloading animations are very realistic. I believe most of the time you’ll end up using an M4 Carbine or an AK-47, but there are other guns worth mentioning like the MP5 (Sub-Machine gun, M16 (Assault rifle), P90 (Sub-Machine gun) and the Dragonuv (Sniper rifle).

There are also Light Machine Guns, that can hold quite a good bit of bullets in them. Sadly the reloading for them takes forever, and personally I’d recommend not using them. This isn’t a guide, though, so do what you want with guns. Most wars aren’t fought with only guns these days, though.

There are also grenades, flashbangs, stun grenades, smoke grenades, RPGs, Stingers, and Javelins. The last two are mainly for taking out helicopters and tanks, but they’re only found in the campaign levels. Flashbangs are something new (to me, at least).
They blind the enemy and make it so that you can surprise them without taking damage yourself. Stun grenades are kind of like flashbangs, except they don’t leave them flashed for a while, they just can’t move very quickly. Smoke grenades are just that - smoke grenades.

Once thrown, they generate a type of smoke screen and allow you to be able to go around an area without being shot at, or seen. The graphics of this game are simply breath-taking. They truly show the power of the Xbox 360’s processor, and that’s something that should be pushed to the limit.

The movements of the soldiers around you are very realistic, and the voices match the movement of the character’s lips. The environment around you might make you want to just sit there and admire it for a little while, it’s so clean, sharp, and did I mention realistic? Not to mention the shadows of everything are very well done.

Controls for this game are simple, once you get them down. At first you might be a bit confused, but you’ll get the hang of it probably by the end of the Prologue. It took me a while to learn how to use a flashbang, but that’s only because I didn’t read the manual, first. So you may want to take a look at that before you start playing, although that’s just my advice.

Once you get it all down, the controls are actually very well thought out for the Xbox 360’s controller. They actually use all of the buttons, too, so that shows something.

The only downside to this game is the replay value. Once you get all of the achievements and stuff, it’s just not worth replaying. Arcade is a fun little pass-time thing you may want to do, but otherwise, it just isn’t worth it. Maybe if you’re into the story, or just want some action, sure. But the bad replay value is just one small thing, compared to multiplayer, should you have Xbox Live at your disposal.

The online play is alright. You have to deal with other people, so you might have to deal with fools who don’t know what they’re doing, or people who scream into their mics about the most stupidest things. But that’s alright, because there’s also cool people online, so they make up for it.

There are several different modes to choose from, Team Deathmatch, Free-for-All Domination, Search & Destroy, Headquarters, Sabotage, Old School, and Cage Match. There’s an extra mode for Team Deathmatch and Search & Destroy, titled “Hardcore”.

In this mode, there is no map in the upper-left corner of your screen, and everyone’s guns do more damage regardless of what perks you have equipped. I’ll leave the game descriptions and FAQs for you to read on what the different modes are like.

Over-all, this game is pretty damn good for a first-person-shooter game. I’d recommend getting it if you’re a FPS kind of person.
8/10

No Comments Yet »