When Medal of Honour games started losing breath a few years ago the first Call of Duty game came out of nowhere and made a small revolution within the genre. For the first time players were able to fight alongside hundreds of allied soldiers (remember the Russian campaign?) instead of playing the lone wolf behind enemy lines. But much like its spiritual predecessor the CoD games started losing momentum with the third instalment. Is Modern Warfare another step down on the road to mediocrity or did the jump to modern times give it the needed boost to return to greatness?




Almost WW3
If you had to guess where CoD4 takes place being based on the recent events most of you would probably go with the Middle East. If you had the northern parts of the Middle East in mind you struck gold, else your guess was close enough by most standards. I’ll not go out and list all of the countries (which mostly remain unnamed anyway) so you’ll have at least some surprises along the path, but the story is full of clichés and plays out like a typical Tom Clancy novel (Ultranationalists kill the president and take over the country, NATO forces step in and singlehandedly catch the leaders while simultaneously dealing with the hundreds of military supporters, you know how it goes).


Corny as the story is it is still a big step forward from previous Call of Duty games. I mean sure, games like Halo 3 or Half Life 2 still leave it in the dust, but compared to no story at all (following the course of history moving from one battlefield to the next can’t really be considered a story) this is a major improvement. Even better, the trademark Call of Duty multi-person storyline approach really expands on this. Playing as either Sergeant John “Soap” MacTavish of the SAS (What kind of nickname is soap anyway?!) or Sergeant Paul Jackson, United States Marine you’ll follow two separate war operations (one lead by the SAS and the other by the US) until things escalate enough that the two countries start working together in a joint effort to stop the crisis.




Surprisingly enough there are some crucial turning points in the war, some of which will literally come out of nowhere taking you by complete surprise. In a true military thriller you’ll also get to play a segment taking place 15 years ago, re-experiencing the assassination attempt led by Soap’s Captain (then lieutenant) Price (who has the apparently required SAS officer trademark moustache).


Modern Warfare
Like many I was expecting CoD4 to play more or less like the previous games in the series, with only slight changes made to the gameplay mechanics. Well, apparently the alteration of environment and time frame were not the only major changes made to the game. First and foremost, the game is now a lot more tactical and you’ll die in a hail of bullets if you try gung-ho tactics (especially at higher difficulty levels). Great, another candidate for the ever growing list of “shoot them from cover” games... Well, not exactly.



For the first time ever the game makes a huge distinction between cover and concealment. Hiding behind wooden planks will keep you safe in most games, but you’ll be dead within seconds in COD4 with bullets piercing the relatively thin layer of wood behind which you are hiding. “Fine, I’ll just hide behind walls and avoid fragile looking fences” most of you are saying. Not so fast buster, even walls can’t protect you from bullets of a high enough calibre. In fact, thick metal objects are the only thing which will reliably keep you safe from incoming fire. You might think that this is not realistic – after all, shooting at a wall will usually stop the bullet just an inch or two in. You are probably imagining shooting at brick walls while most of the Middle East buildings aren’t made out of bricks but mostly just a cheap (and therefore fairly brittle) mortar. With that in mind it makes sense that you’ll want at least a wall of two between yourself and the enemy shooting at you.

This principle works both ways. Enemies shooting at you from windows won’t be able to just crouch out of harm’s way – a well aimed barrage at the part of the wall they are hiding behind will usually at least injure them, if not kill them. This might not be World War 2 with its massive invasions and thousands of soldiers on a single battlefield, but you’ll still kill a countless hostile soldiers per mission. The impressive thing to note here is the huge diversity of approaches you’ll take to kill them.





When playing as Sergeant Jackson you’ll be a part of a squad most of the time, so you’ll be jumping out of cover, killing a few enemies and than running for safety as your teammates cover you or do the same. You’ll never really have to sneak around, but you’ll come across a few situations where you’ll be on the defensive, trying to keep incoming hordes of Ultranationalists at bay. Playing as Soap couldn’t be more different. Being an SAS member you’ll never really make offensives, staying in the shadows with your squad mates most of the times. Don’t worry, the game doesn’t turn into a Splinter Cell clone in the SAS parts of the game, but the action will be a lot more tactical and sneaky. Instead of running into ambushes like his American counterpart, Soap and his colleagues will usually be the ones setting them up, taking advantage of the low light conditions they are operating in.

Lieutenant Price’s flashback assassination takes on another approach – sneaking around in his camouflage suite all of his kills are supposed to be quiet and when possible unnoticed, right up to the final crucial shot taken a few hundred meters away from the target. You’ll also get to play as a nameless Thermal Imaging TV operator on an AC-130 Gunship, but that on rails shooting mission is more of a diversion than an actual gameplay feature.



Online war
Sweet as the singleplayer might be the meat of this package is in the multiplayer. After all, shelling out 60 bucks for 4-5 hours of playtime isn’t the soundest of decisions (not with games like Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect on our doorsteps). With multiplayer in mind however, CoD4 suddenly is a very sound purchase. Just the sheer amount of gameplay types makes it interesting – you’ve got your regular deathmatch and team deathmatch. But who cares about those with gametypes like Seek and Destroy (think Counter-Strike with bomb planting), Headquarters (one flag CTF), Dominance (Domination mode from UT) and Sabotage (reverse of Headquarters).

More importantly however, you can play DM and TDM in either Hardcore or Old school mode. The first one removes all HUD elements and enables realistic bullet damage, making the game play like a very realistic (though slightly fast) tactical shooter. Old school does just the opposite – all weapons become hovering pickups, health is increased and players can jump higher. You can even combine the two modes, resulting in a no HUD, extra damage with high jumps and weapon pickups game. All of the options will take players weeks if not months to full experience, regardless of the platform you game on (though admittedly the Xbox360 has a slight edge here because of achievements and Live!).



A next gen war
Compared to how Call of Duty 4 can look on a high end computer the console versions are inferior, but that doesn’t mean they won’t take your breath away. Regardless of your platform of choice, you are in for a treat. The character models look amazing and their animation is one of the best ever seen. Sure, there is the occasional animation jump where the transition between two animations isn’t as smooth as it should be, but most of the time it looks like the entire movement of a character has been pre-recorded with motion capture.

Environments look amazing as well, with a high amount of detail seen everywhere. The textures are top notch as well, though it has to be said that on the PS3 the texture filtering is a bit more rudimentary, taking away some of the detail (especially on the ground textures). Another difference between the two systems are the shadows. They look good on both, but the 360 version looks more pixelated while the PS3 ones carry slightly less detail in them. But all of that is irrelevant when you see the game in action. Due to the already mentioned high quality environments combined with great character looks and animations, the war literally pops out in full 3D from the screen. When a grenade falls at your feet and you struggle to throw it back you’ll literally start sweating from the adrenaline rush. The same will happen when you are trying to defend a stranded tank against what seems to be countless hostiles. No, CoD4 is not for the light hearted!




Some of the immersion is due to the sound. Watching an amazing smoke trail is one thing, but if the explosion that caused it didn’t sound good the experience will be marred. Thankfully, as with previous COD games that isn’t the case – explosions, bullet fire, enemy screams all sound amazing. The orchestral musical score is backed down to more new-age music like guitar riffs and techno thriller loops, but that makes sense considering the time frame of the game.



Conclusion
When playing games the first impression usually counts the most. Sure, with RPGs or adventure games it takes a while before you can make a decision on how good the game is, but with shooters you can make an educated guess after playing for only a couple of minutes. In this case you can even make a decision after just a few seconds of playing, and if that decision is anything but heartfelt approval you obviously have a strange taste in games. Sure, at its core CoD4 is just a rehash of previous games in a different environment. But for that matter, all of the cars you see today have 4 tires and a steering wheel just like cars from decades ago. That doesn’t meant they aren’t a whole lot better however, does it?