Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Brace yourselves.

The Call of Duty series has taken a giant leap from World War II into the field of modern warfare.  Assault rifles and nuclear weaponry aren't just a concept anymore, they're a reality.  You and a few brave men will have to fight to stop the total destruction of the Eastern Seaboard as we know it.

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Recommended Age Minimum Age Available On... 16 10 PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Mac Overall Fun Length Frustration   Violence Sexuality Substances Gambling 7 5 2   8 0 1 0 Mods Religion Anti-Law Community Sports Magic Miscellaneous 1 0 4 5 5 0 5

1.     Gameplay

• Overall Fun - 7

If there’s one thing the guys at Infinity Ward do well, they can create a memorable multiplayer experience.  If there are two things they do well, the second is they can tell an excellent story.  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare puts the player in the shoes of three different characters as a story of special operations and headline news unfolds into full scale assaults and all out war.

Ride of the Valkyries was playing in my head at this point.

If you haven’t heard of this series yet, you’re either extremely unfamiliar with video games or don’t have kids, because your kids definitely know about it.  This series is one of the best and by far the most popular First Person Shooter series currently on the market and for good reason.  The gameplay is smooth and well designed, levels are linear enough to keep players on task but open enough to allow some flexibility in tactics.  Characters are memorable and well developed.

This guy wants you dead.

This game is almost cinematic in how it unfolds.  Players are first shoved into the shoes of “Soap” McTavish, a new member of the British SAS.  Soap joins more veteran SAS members as they infiltrate a Russian cargo ship in search of banned nuclear weaponry.  The Russian’s aren’t too happy about being caught red-handed, so they shoot missiles to sink the ship with the SAS members on board.  You barely escape in time to watch the ship sink into the sea.

And that’s only the beginning.  From the first chapter the player will be put into seemingly impossible scenarios and asked to hold out against hordes of enemies.  The player will have the advantage of intelligence and must use that against overwhelming odds.

Or just call in armored support.

The multiplayer experience is almost unparalleled.  This is the kind of game that can easily be picked up and played for a few minutes or a few hours.  It’s a fast-paced shooter with a good variety of maps and weapons.  Some weapons are powerful, but the rank of the player tends to have more to do with the skill of the player rather than the weapon the player chooses.  It’s one of the few games with a multiplayer that I have truly enjoyed the vast majority of the time.

The only thing this game seriously lacks is length.  So much of the time developing this game was spent working on the multiplayer (time well spent, in my opinion) that the game’s single player is very, very short.  Other than that, this game is something that all gamers should eventually play at least once.  There are few experiences quite like it.

• Length - 5

As I mentioned, the single player experience is very short.  To put it in perspective, in order to test the game out I put it on the easiest game mode and started playing around 10 AM.  I was finished with the game by around 3 PM.  The entire game.  And while I wasn’t checking every crevice and corner for mature content, I was doing a fairly thorough search.

Fortunately, the multiplayer makes this game much longer.  If the player enjoys the multiplayer experience enough, it could lead to an infinite number of gaming hours.  I found it enjoyable enough to play for about a month before I moved on.  If you’re not looking for multiplayer, though, don’t pay full price for this game.  I’d pay about $10 maximum for just the single player.

• Frustration Factor - 2

There were some sections of this game that were a bit annoying but most of the game was very smooth.  It felt very linear at times and sometimes I got caught unprepared (and subsequently killed) by an exploding barrel or car, but other than that I never really felt too frustrated.

2.     Parental Notices

• Violence - 8

The first chapter of this game puts the player in the shoes of a man who is killed on camera.  This game is violent.  The player will have to fight through wave after wave of enemy soldiers with a variety of weapons and equipment from automatic rifles and shotguns to C4 and claymores.  Violence in this game is abundant.

Think of this game as a shooting gallery, but the targets get to shoot back.

That being said, the type of violence really isn’t as bad as similar shooters.  Blood is fairly light, only appearing when an enemy is shot near a wall.  No limbs are ever lost even if an enemy is killed next to an explosion of any size.  Enemies can fly up a foot or so into the air if an explosion goes off underneath them, but that’s the worst that it gets.  Even the execution in the first chapter is never actually shown.  The screen just goes black and a gunshot is heard.

Ah, I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

There are only a few hiccups in the otherwise non-bloody violence. The most obvious of these is when the player performs a melee attack.  The player can take out a knife and stab close enemies to instantly kill them.  This attack is quick but there is definitely blood present.

SHANK!

There can also be enemy dogs present on the map.  These dogs will jump on the player and attempt to rip his throat out.  If the player successfully melees at the right time, he will snap the dog’s neck.  If he fails the melee attempt, the dog will rip his throat out (with some blood and gore involved).

I would feel sorry for the pooch, but he's trying to kill me. Humans take priority.

• Sexuality - 0

Sexuality is not a factor in this game.

• Substances - 1

One of the characters is seen smoking a cigar in a helicopter right before a mission.  Other than that, substance use is not a factor.

He really should be smoking a pipe.

• Gambling - 0

Gambling is not a factor in this game.

3.     Other Factors

• Mods - 1

There are some fairly good mods released for this game (including a cooperative “zombies” game mode that’s pretty awesome).  Overall, the mods that I found were either new game modes, high-resolution textures, or realism mods (to increase the difficulty level and realism of the game).

• Religion – 0

While the Middle East is one of the central areas of the game’s combat, religion is never specifically mentioned as a motivating factor for the terrorists.

• Anti-Law – 4

After the prologue, the first chapter of this game starts with a military coup.  The player is put in the shoes of a Middle Eastern leader as he is kidnapped and executed on video.  This is the catalyst for the rest of the game.

Dodge this.

When one of the American Special Forces members gets captured, his captors can be overheard telling him that Geneva is a long way from where they are, implying that the prisoner of war laws laid down by the Geneva Convention won’t be observed.

• Online Community - 5

The Modern Warfare community is fairly mature by now.  There are still hackers that roam the various servers causing chaos and ruining the fun for the other players, but the ability for players and clans to run and police their own “dedicated servers” significantly reduces the number of instances of hacking.

Ever tried taking an action shot while playing online? It's not easy.

I found the Modern Warfare community skilled, but never truly overpowered.  There were times when I would massacre the competition and times when I would be slaughtered.  It's almost always fun.

I have found that the older the player the more likely they will be able to compete.  Younger players who aren’t used to the fast-paced nature of the combat in multiplayer will find themselves significantly lower in rank than their competitors.  Higher ranked players have access to more weaponry which can turn the tide in the right battle.  Older players are usually more accustomed to the controls and have developed better reflexes, which in the end is 90% of the skill involved in this game.  Older players will know to take out their secondary weapon if they run out of ammunition on their primary instead of reloading, younger players probably will not.

Either way, this is one of the best, cleanest multiplayer experiences I have ever had in a game.

• Extreme Sports - 5

There were a number of instances of extreme sports in this game.  The player will be required to “fast rope” down from a helicopter onto the deck of a ship in an extreme storm.  No easy task, but the player manages to pull it off perfectly.

We're going down...

In the prologue, the player is put onto a ship that is eventually struck by missiles and begins to sink.  The player has to run along the corridors and deck of the ship while the ship is sinking sideways and in the middle of a torrential downpour.  In real life, the player would have slipped off the deck and slid into the ocean.

It's going down!

After you complete an assassination mission, you have to rappel down the side of a building that’s being practically demolished.

Forget the toast, we're going down!

At the end of the game you’ll have to rescue a VIP and jump out of a plane with him.  It’s a bit random but you only find it after the final credit sequence has been completed.

Dooooooowwwwwnnnnn...

• Magic - 0

There is no reference to magic in this game.

• Miscellaneous - 5

Weapons of Mass Destruction

There is one scene in which the Middle Eastern leader the Americans are trying to capture manages to secure and detonate a nuclear bomb, killing hundreds of American soldiers (including the player).  It’s a horrific and moving scene that motivates the other characters to find the man responsible and bring him to justice.

If death had a face...

Kidnapping / Execution

As was mentioned numerous times in this review, in the first chapter the player finds himself kidnapped and executed by a military coup.  There is also a chapter where the allies manage to capture an enemy leader.  After interrogating him by beating him, the SAS member interrogating the leader gets the information he needs and kills the leader.  Normally I'd say this was brutal, but the leader did just order the use of a nuclear bomb to kill thousands of Allied troops.

The dude kinda deserves it.

Torture

In one chapter the player must rescue an informant who has clearly been beaten by his captors.  The informant lives and continues to fight with the player, but has obvious bruises and wounds.

Eh, he'll walk it off.

Ghillie Suit Stealth / Assassination

One chapter has the player follow his superior officer while they both sneak deep into enemy territory to attempt an assassination mission.  It’s not necessarily an “extreme sport” to be able to pull something like this off, but to have an entire armored enemy patrol practically roll right on top of you and not be caught isn’t human.

Just think like the grass. Be the grass...

After that, the player must snipe an enemy leader from a huge distance with a .50 caliber sniper rifle.  If the player manages to hit the target, the target’s arm will be blown clean off.

Boom!