Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Activision’s best Call of Duty yet, though it lacks a bit in the single player experience

After the lackluster game that was Call of Duty 3, it’s great to see that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare provides just about everything that you might want in a first person shooter. The graphics are amazing, the battles are intense… you’ll be travelling to hotspots all around the world for some out-of-this-world combat. Having different troop options than just the standard US or CIA operatives makes for a nice bit of variety, too. The game isn’t without its flaws, but instead excels in spite of them. If you’re looking for a great FPS experience, then Call of Duty 4 is a definite must.

First off, let’s look at the good stuff. As I said, the graphics are wonderful… everything’s beautifully rendered, and the effects are great. While you might be able to find a better looking FPS out there, you’re going to have to try pretty hard and even then it’s not likely to look much better. The graphics really help to draw you into the action, and there’s plenty of action to be had.

LAN or online multiplayer is where this game really shines, as you can lay some serious smack-down on friends and enemies alike. Just watch out for friendly fire… but we’ll get back to that in a minute. This game has some of the best multiplayer battles that you’re going to find, and some wonderful storytelling when it comes to the single player game.

Unfortunately, single player is also where the game starts to come up short… literally. While the storytelling is great and it has some wonderful moments in it, a dedicated player could be through the single player campaign in an evening. There also isn’t any sort of co-op campaign, which a number of other FPS games already have, even though it would have greatly increased the playability (and repayability) of the campaign immensely. Games like this which feature squad-based tactics and a great multiplayer really should have some sort of scripted campaign that lets you and your buddies play through the scenarios together.

There are a few other little things that kind of bugged me about the game…probably the biggest was the lack of distinct markers other than your sight color to help tell the difference between allies and enemies. As I’d mentioned above, there’s a friendly fire feature in the game and it gets really old to accidentally keep plugging friendlies (or getting plugged yourself by other players) because the enemy is in the same general type of uniform and the action’s moving too fast for you to notice that the marker was green and not red. Other FPS games have featured better markers to help you identify teammates, and it’s a feature that I think would have really helped this one.  Friendly fire really helps to add to the realism of the game, but not being able to easily tell friend from foe in the heat of conflict can detract just a bit from the fun.

Overall, though, this is a great game. My complaints are minor, and I’d definitely recommend picking it up to anyone looking for some fast-paced action.

Review by Stephen Clark