Modern Warfare never looked so good

Call of Duty 4 Aka COD4 Modern Warfare, is Infinity Wards attempt to step into the 21st century of warfare, with updated guns, vehicles, and team tactics that actually work for you. Whenever anybody hears about a COD title they immediatly think about WW2, not so in this case now it's this Millenium, your fighting in the now, with all the current world tensions, and countries being ran and overrun by viscous terrorists groups.

Fighting in the now gives this series a big boost to the freshness department seeing as how the ww2 scene has been done and done again. The entire system has been overhauled from the graphics to the physics everything feels much more responsive then they ever did during the first 3 installments. Weapons actually deliver satisfying barks as the rounds belch from the end of the barrel. Everything that has ever been good in the COD series has been done and done better, and anything done wrong has either disappeared or has been revamped and made better. So if you've been feeling a little jaded about your war shooters here's the spark you've been waiting for.

The very first thing your going to notice, that is if you've got enough power as usual, anyway the first thing is the graphics, they are about as good as I've ever seen. Right at the beginning of the game, not trying to give anything away, you'll be knocked out and thrown into the back of a car, as you come to you see that everything around you is amazingly detailed from the instruments in the car to the driver and passenger sitting in front of you. As you look around at your surroundings you'll witness some very unsettling things such as people running for their lives and being gunned down, other being lined up against a wall and executed. It is very disturbing, but man it looks so good, just a ridiculous amount of detail.

The buildings in the game are just as amazing and are not just there for looks, they serve for cover and blockage from enemy fire. The textures in the game are extremely detailed giving the buildings and character clothing an actual gritty kind of feeling. The particle system in the game is equally impressive, from the flames that emit from the end of the barrels to the burning of rubble through out the levels is beautiful. Just as impressive are the smoke and dust effects, which will have you staring in awe for the first few moments of the game. Whenever you throw a grenade you'll see a huge plume of dust and smoke rising from the ground, even the rockets look great when you see the trail of exhaust they leave behind them. Windows shatter, soldiers stumble when shot in the legs, and grab for their arms when hit. Bullets leave holes in walls, it's just astounding how much detail has been put into this game, it's one of the best examples of polishing I've ever seen.

Once you've peeled your eyes away from the screen for a second you may notice just how good the sound is in the game. From the sounds of the weapons to the shouts of pain from a wounded man, it's all here and clear as a bell. The sounds of bullets whizzing past your head has never sounded so good, the way bullets make that satisfying thud when they hit their intended target, if you happen to have surround sound for your computer then those sounds are all the more sweeter. You'll hear enemy chatter along with your squad members and radio chatter, once again just a great amount of detail here. There are a couple of soundtracks in the game which will definitely catch you by suprise and do feels a little weird yet at the same time has a sort of cool feeling to it. The explosions and the rattle of debris flying around you all sounds just right in the game and only adds to the depth of the gameplay.

I won't give away any of the story line but it does have a variety of settings from a tropic jungle setting to a sandy dusty desert, every level featuring the same amount of detail. Some of the only gripes with this game is the fact that the first person story is really short taking your time will still only take you roughly 8 hours to complete the game. In a way it feels as if Infinity Ward was introducing some new concepts when it came to gameplay when it came to COD 4 Modern Warfare, and hopefully in the second one in this series will implement more deeply. In COD 4 it just felt like right when you were getting the hang of something that'd be it and you'd never use said thing again, perfect example is when your riding in a c-130 plane using night-vision and artillery of various sizes from personnel rounds to armor peircing tank rounds, right when you start to get comfortable with what your doing thats it the level is over and you'll never ride in a plane again, which is kind of disappointing.

You'll get the chance to call in different types of strikes, such as artillery strikes or cruise missle strikes, but once again you just really don't get to play with it enough to really enjoy it until you get online.

The multi-player here is the real fun part, and it seems the single player game is nothing but a warmup for the real deal and thats the online battlefield. This has got to be one of the best online shooters ever made, it has beaten out halo 3 numerous times on xbox live, it's one of the most played shooters on pc beating out games like battlefield 1942 and the like. With it's addictive style of team based play and strategic uses of weaponry and personel puts this one in a league of it's own when it comes to online play. This is no regular frag fest there is actually some strategic value behind the play in this one. There is never any trouble finding a game type to your liking on the servers thats for sure.

The control in COD 4 is another strong point, accurate collision detection, and motion physics in the game make the control feel more natural and fluid, rather than clunky and forced. Once again though with the standard keyboard and mouse it can sometimes feels clutter especially with this one with all the shortcut keys there are, but if you have a 5 button or more mouse or a gamepad once again this problem is for the most part solved. From crawiling in the grass to running across an open field this game manages to keep your heart racing waiting for the next group of enemies to attack.

The A.I. in this one could have used a little more time though, you'll often see respawning of enemies, your team mates making some odd and downright dumb choices, i.e. yelling grenade then jumping right at it. Despite the few glitches here and there, there's really now big things wrong with it, it just feels like it lacks the polish that the graphics and sound had both recieved. All in all your team mates will generaly help you out, and the enemy soldiers will surely make your treck through the levels a difficult one.

There is no shortage of weapons available to you in the game, and you can also grab weapons and ammo on the fly, each weapon has it's own strengths and weaknesses to take into consideration when choosing which weapon you want to use. Each weapon has also been shown a lot of love with the modeling of each one of them nearly if not totally identical to it's real life counterpart, from the sound it makes to the way the shell discharges, it all just looks so d@mn good. Even the animation while reloading is shown much love, it's just great to see this much attention at such a small level, even the grain of the metal looks real.

Overall yes the game is one heck of a beast to run, and will push your system on the highest settings, but if you turn down the texture detail to medium you should be able to run it at 1024X768 with most other options set to high, I've only got 512MB of ram so that one definitely hurts but my graphics cards has another 512MB of Vram so it helps a little. System specs are as follows.
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0GHz OC'd to 3200+ 2.10GHz
GPU - ATI Radeon X1650pro AGP8X 512MB RAM OC'd to 627.00MHz
RAM - Corsaire 256MB DDRx2

The game itself is great albeit a little short but as mentioned before the multi-player is the main point of the game, the story is your run of the mill terroist plot and you must lead a team in to stop it. The load times are nearly non existent as the levels load while the movies play, and the way the levels start from an upper view via satillite down to a first person view is great I love to see it, kind of reminds me of google earth or something, better yet enemy of the state it's kind of like that.

You've probably heard there is another COD coming but it's going back to WW2 but it's taking the COD 4 engine with it, so now you can look forward to better maps, graphics, sounds, and gameplay, lets just hope Infinty Ward is working on another modern warfare edition, we can only wait and see I guess.