Call of Duty 4
By Ian Wilson
Monday. Feb 04, 12:31 PM
Let's do this...

Sometime back, I was fortunate enough to jump into the fray with Call of Duty 4 while it was still in Beta. All that existed at this point was multiplayer and three maps (kinda like Counterstrike). At the time, they periodically pushed the level cap up higher and higher until the Beta ran its course. A lot of the perks, weapons, and other things unlocked by killing people in various ways seemed a bit out of place. An example is earning a “red dot sight” before getting the silencer. Of course, it was the Beta and everyone figured that these minor issues would be fixed.

We were dead wrong.

In fact, now the multiplayer seems even more borked (yes, it's a word, trust me) due to the game deciding that spawning you right in the line of fire of the 12 year-olds that just killed you is safer than somewhere else. Nine times out of 10, I ended up spawning and subsequently dying because of whatever system (and I use the word loosely) they have for picking safe respawn areas.

Of course, the online isn't really complete crap. In fact, it's a lot of fun. I'm actually willing to bet it's a lot more fun than running around with an energy sword and flipping over vehicles with inhuman cybernetic strength (yeah, I said it!). I had more fun playing the Beta than I have ever had playing Halo.

There is more to the game than online play, and unlike a certain other game (ahem), the offline is just as enjoyable (maybe more so since you don't have the 12 year-olds. Seriously, what is wrong with their parents?) and extremely epic. This is the first time that I have ever wanted to play a console game over a PC game (heck, I even prefer the 360 version over the PC version).

The game starts you off as Sergeant John "Soap" MacTavish (yes, your call sign is Soap. No, I'll wait for that to sink in before continuing. Well, look, at least it's not Ding, right? Okay, back on topic), a new recruit for the SAS. They run you through a few exercises to get you used to how the game plays (the knife attack in this game is the best I can think of) before sending you out to meet your new squad. They then send you in through a mock up run of the first level, and you get ranked on how well you did. This rank pretty much tells you how you might do with the rest of the game. Of course, I put it to what they recommended and still got my ass handed to me NUMEROUS times (and at one point hit a checkpoint behind enemy lines, which perpetually had me spawning without cover... this seems familiar...). After a few missions, you switch over to Sergeant Paul Jackson of the USMC and run through some missions as him. Some missions have you doing different things, like being the gunner on a helicopter and also a bomber. Add to this the ability to use any two weapons (provided you pick them up, since you don't get to choose what you take into the fray), some pretty good AI, and some really nice level design (all the multiplayer maps are taken from the single-player game), and it makes for a good game both online and off.

The plot focuses on a coup in the Middle East headed by Khaled Al-Asad and nuclear weapons (big shock). Of course there is more to the story than is first introduced, and the twists and turns (while kind of minor and pretty much expected) really carry the game along to make you feel that you have accomplished something. There were many scripted events that really got me on the edge of my seat while playing. These are moments that you will be hearing about from your friends for a while. The pacing of all the action and story elements keep the momentum going from beginning to end (stick around through the credits... speaking of credits, why does the black guy have to rap at the end? Seriously, it was bad enough in Gears of War).

Once you beat the game, you unlock Arcade Mode, which works like it sounds. You get a score and a set amount of lives. This makes the game a lot more challenging, because you can't rely on just starting back at the last checkpoint once you run out of lives. This also leads to more unlockables as well. All in all, it's a good way to get people to play the game again aside from just having more difficulty levels.

Call of Duty 4 really stands out from other games in the fact that I could play it for more than a week and still want to look at it again (sadly, I can't say the same for Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect... though I can say I played the former much longer). If you need a great first-person war game and you subsequently hate World War II games, get this.

Ian Wilson

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