Bullets whizzing through the air; your field commander shouting orders to you as your team scrambles. A grenade goes off a few yards to your right: A few yards too close. You\'re temporarily blinded, a loud ringing the only audible sound coming from the deadly mayhem before you.
Your comrades shout for cover fire as they try to move up the lines, being shot at by an enemy you can\'t see. Aiming your rifle, you have to take a guess as to where the enemy soldier would be behind the wall, take a deep, steadying breath, and fire.
This is just the beginning of what COD4 has to offer, and I just had to express my utter amazement with this game. If there is one game that displays war in the most realistic way possible, then COD4 is it. I\'m playing through on Veteran Difficulty right now, and Infinity Ward made sure that this is not a one man fire-fight. If you want to survive, you need to stay with your team; provide cover and help out, and they will return the favor. Try to go off on your own, and you will fall before you empty your first clip.
The first thing that became very apparent to me is that you are not a one-man army: You are a member of a squad of Marines. A squad of human marines. A scene that really illustrated this point to me was when one of my team members was rushing back to me in order to get to cover: A grenade went off just to his right as he was in front of me. It wasn\'t close enough to kill him, but it caused him to stumble and loose his balance; forcing him to limp the rest of the way to cover. Call me easily amused, but I haven\'t seen something that realistic in a very long time.
Another point that illustrated this to me was the fact that you have no special futuristic equipment; you have no magical radar that can detect movement. When you unleash a barrage of bullets on an unseen enemy, you have to sit and wonder if they hit their mark; there\'s no red dot that disappears off an on-screen radar. When you\'re getting shot at, you have no way of telling if there is one enemy or twenty.
Alright, let\'s talk gameplay: No, I have not finished the campaign yet, but I only started yesterday afternoon for 2 or 3 hours and beat the first three levels on Veteran. They were fairly difficult, not the hardest game, but nothing that can be called easy either. The real beast of this game is going to be it\'s multiplayer: I only played two multiplayer matches yesterday, which were fun as hell. Just by going into the menu you can see how much there is to unlock in multiplayer. It\'ll keep us busy for weeks to come.
Graphics and sound: Top notch. Running through the tanker on the first level got my heart pounding as I tried to blindly run after my teammates, the sound of the metal hull denting and giving to the pressure of the water as the ship sank. Walking through the barren town, newspapers flying about in updrafts of wind really set the effect. While the inside environments are really nice, the outside environments are awesome.
Problems? Of course nothing is without it\'s imperfections, and I\'m sure I will notice more as I play, but what seems to stand out to me right now are a few things. First, no coop campaign. That sucks. It\'s not a real big problem, and if this was last November I probably wouldn\'t even have mentioned this as a problem. However, I\'ve been spoiled by Halo 3 and Gears of War and have come to expect a Coop campaign.
Another minor issue; lack of multiplayer achievements. This seems to be offset by the huge amount of unlockables in multiplayer, but it\'s just kind of a let down to know that if I pick up my opponents grenade, lob it back at him and kill him with it, I won\'t hear that oh-so-satisfying click and see the achievement unlocked notice.
Alright, well I bought COD4 because I needed one more game to hold me over until Christmas. Looking at Mass Effect, Assassin\'s Creed and the rest, I think I made the right decision. If you are still reading this, go out and pick up COD4, then send me a friend request so we can play. DO IT SOLDIER!!! NOW!!!
Your comrades shout for cover fire as they try to move up the lines, being shot at by an enemy you can\'t see. Aiming your rifle, you have to take a guess as to where the enemy soldier would be behind the wall, take a deep, steadying breath, and fire.
This is just the beginning of what COD4 has to offer, and I just had to express my utter amazement with this game. If there is one game that displays war in the most realistic way possible, then COD4 is it. I\'m playing through on Veteran Difficulty right now, and Infinity Ward made sure that this is not a one man fire-fight. If you want to survive, you need to stay with your team; provide cover and help out, and they will return the favor. Try to go off on your own, and you will fall before you empty your first clip.
The first thing that became very apparent to me is that you are not a one-man army: You are a member of a squad of Marines. A squad of human marines. A scene that really illustrated this point to me was when one of my team members was rushing back to me in order to get to cover: A grenade went off just to his right as he was in front of me. It wasn\'t close enough to kill him, but it caused him to stumble and loose his balance; forcing him to limp the rest of the way to cover. Call me easily amused, but I haven\'t seen something that realistic in a very long time.
Another point that illustrated this to me was the fact that you have no special futuristic equipment; you have no magical radar that can detect movement. When you unleash a barrage of bullets on an unseen enemy, you have to sit and wonder if they hit their mark; there\'s no red dot that disappears off an on-screen radar. When you\'re getting shot at, you have no way of telling if there is one enemy or twenty.
Alright, let\'s talk gameplay: No, I have not finished the campaign yet, but I only started yesterday afternoon for 2 or 3 hours and beat the first three levels on Veteran. They were fairly difficult, not the hardest game, but nothing that can be called easy either. The real beast of this game is going to be it\'s multiplayer: I only played two multiplayer matches yesterday, which were fun as hell. Just by going into the menu you can see how much there is to unlock in multiplayer. It\'ll keep us busy for weeks to come.
Graphics and sound: Top notch. Running through the tanker on the first level got my heart pounding as I tried to blindly run after my teammates, the sound of the metal hull denting and giving to the pressure of the water as the ship sank. Walking through the barren town, newspapers flying about in updrafts of wind really set the effect. While the inside environments are really nice, the outside environments are awesome.
Problems? Of course nothing is without it\'s imperfections, and I\'m sure I will notice more as I play, but what seems to stand out to me right now are a few things. First, no coop campaign. That sucks. It\'s not a real big problem, and if this was last November I probably wouldn\'t even have mentioned this as a problem. However, I\'ve been spoiled by Halo 3 and Gears of War and have come to expect a Coop campaign.
Another minor issue; lack of multiplayer achievements. This seems to be offset by the huge amount of unlockables in multiplayer, but it\'s just kind of a let down to know that if I pick up my opponents grenade, lob it back at him and kill him with it, I won\'t hear that oh-so-satisfying click and see the achievement unlocked notice.
Alright, well I bought COD4 because I needed one more game to hold me over until Christmas. Looking at Mass Effect, Assassin\'s Creed and the rest, I think I made the right decision. If you are still reading this, go out and pick up COD4, then send me a friend request so we can play. DO IT SOLDIER!!! NOW!!!
