Entertainment - Video Game Reviews

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
By: David Patlak

Many Americans don't have to deal with a little problem I like to call "winter." Those individuals, usually from the warmer southern reaches of the continent, are free to ride their motorcycles year round, wear shorts, and all the other pleasures we northerners sorely miss during the cold and dark winter months. For me, stuck in the Great White North, this problem is compounded by my lack of funding needed to tackle an engine swap or rebuild for my ongoing Triumph 'fighter project. And so, as I take a break from most things streetfighter-related during the snowy season, other hobbies must be taken up to fill the biking void. I don't own a snowmobile and the good snowboarding weather is at least a month away, so lately I've been playing a lot of video games.

What can be said about Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that hasn't already been said about the merits of nicotine, methamphetamines, or heroin? Get it? It's that addictive.

A solid single-player storyline, filled with unique and interesting missions and weapons, is pretty much what you'd expect from the Call of Duty franchise. Mercifully, the creators of this episode in the series have finally gotten the message that World War II is over, and have thus set the game in the modern day Middle East and Russia. Game play throughout the campaign is consistently exciting, each tense scene paced well enough to keep even the most ADD gamer hooked. Missions are played as either a Recon Marine or SAS operative, as you battle to rescue a stranded tank crew in the middle of a war-torn Middle Eastern city, raid a sinking cargo ship in search of nuclear warheads, or don a camouflage ghillie suit, hiding in the grass while Russian soldiers and tanks rumble by, mere feet away. It's a breath-holding "oh shit" moment, unfolding one tension-filled second at a time. The rest of the campaign is loaded with scenes like this, and doesn't apologize for pitting you against huge hordes of AK-47-toting enemies. It's all over too quickly though. The single-player portion of the game can be gunned through in about six hours on normal difficulty, and increasing the difficulty level to lengthen play time only has the effect of making enemies frustratingly hard to kill. The game's frenetic pacing becomes somewhat tedious as it often rushes you through objectives with little time to stop and admire the hugely detailed and gorgeous scenery.

What the solo mode lacks in length, it compensates for with content. Each map seems lovingly crafted, populated with intricate buildings and enough scattered stuff to fill New Jersey. The graphics in this latest episode are phenomenal, on par with anything we've yet seen for the next-gen consoles and far and away the most attractive first-person shooter on the market. The details make all the difference; the first time you see an RPG smoke trail streak out of a building towards your helicopter or the crisscrossing of your squad's infra-red laser sights though your night-vision goggles, you will feel immersed in this ultra-realistic combat experience. The sound design is great as well: the weapons feel solid and make all the right noises, as you'd expect from a game of this caliber. The good guys shout appropriately soldierly clichés ("Frag out!", "Hoo-ah!", and the like), and even the Arabic and Russian/Uzbek sounds convincingly authentic. All in all, the production values are excellent, adding the high level of realism and ambience needed to counteract the solo campaign's brevity.

Where Call of Duty 4 really shines, however, is in its massively fun and extremely addictive multiplayer component. Admittedly, I have been playing CoD4 on a PS3, so there's no chance of Halo 3 distracting me with equally addictive multiplayer. Whether you're playing over Xbox Live or the Playstation Network, Modern Warfare keeps you coming back for more with loads of unlockable weapons, attachments, perks, challenges, and more. After customizing a class, a combination of weapons, explosives, and 'perks' (special skills such as increased weapon damage or dropping a live grenade when you die), a match-making service automatically connects you to a game with people of similar rank and skill level in one of thirteen unique maps. As you accumulate points for kills and completing objectives, promotions unlock armaments and perks. Completing challenges (150 kills with a particular weapon, for instance) will award further points and unlock attachments and camouflage for that weapon. It's a fairly simple game play model, but retaining that simplicity while achieving such a high level of fun and replayability is where CoD4 really stands out in the arena of online shooters. Case in point: as of this writing, Modern Warfare has been on the public market for exactly 14 days, during which one player on the Playstation Network has accumulated 168 hours and 54 minutes of in-game play time. That's seven solid days of the last fourteen, spent blasting away at opponents online. I'm sure it's the same story on Xbox Live (no cross-platform play yet, unfortunately). Given the highly addictive nature of the game, I understand now why it's called the 'Ex'-Box 360; my girlfriend would leave in a second if I played that much.