Answer the Call
Call of Duty 4 delivers on single-player, it delivers on multiplayer. Basically it just plain delivers.
Published: November 18, 2007
My god, Infinity Ward, what have you done? What dark, arcade rites did you invoke to blend the best single-player game any pure first-person shooter has ever known with online play that absolutely raises the bar in terms of depth and just-one-more-game addiction? Surely a deal with the devil was struck somewhere along the line, because even now, days after the high of finishing the absolutely stellar single-player campaign has worn off, the siren's song of just a few more hours to level up my online character calls to me.
I'm still amazed that a game like this could arrive within the first year of the PlayStation 3's life, stunned that a game with all the scripting and the chaos and the noise going on at once can run this beautifully. I honestly counted just two instances where the absolutely butter-smooth 60fps experience was marred by a slight chug. Two. Yes, there is dark, dark magic at work spinning away in my PS3 even as I type this, but whatever souls had to be sacrificed to bring us an experience of this caliber, I thank them. Their eternity toiling away in the fires of Hell will not be wasted.
What's truly stunning about the game is that it's really not terribly different from the previous games in the series -- or even from the Medal of Honor PC games that Infinity Ward helped work on when their founding members were at developer 2015. You'll still sprint from small skirmish to skirmish, pouring endless amounts of lead into countless bad guys, still plant explosives on tanks and walls, still have to make mad dashes to safety.
The difference here (beyond the obvious and absolutely necessary move out of World War II and into something in the near future) is in how well it all runs and how tightly executed and in some cases evolved those basic bits of gameplay are this time around. You still have the cacophony of automatic weapons fire, the constant screaming in foreign tongues, the chatter from your teammates, but they all sound louder, clearer, more powerful.
In truth, the single-player game's biggest accomplishment is in the area of immersion. Between all the scripted sequences that play out before the eyes of the US Marine Corps 1st Force Recon's Paul Jackson and British 22 SAS Regiment's John "Soap" MacTavish, the game quite literally becomes an interactive action movie. When control is wrestled away for cinematic effect, it's always done to maximum emotional impact, highlighting something so important that the developer couldn't risk the player missing it. As it stands, there are plenty of moments that can still be missed, but like the moments where the game takes over, it's rare.
The result is an experience like no other, with modern-day scenes that play out with more power and impact than any first-person shooter has done to date. It's a combination of the scale, the gravity and in many cases fantastic motion-captured animations, rock-solid voice acting and just pure, simple cinematic know-how. The events in Call of Duty 4 play out better than any Hollywood action movie could ever hope for, yet they pack just as many explosions and socio-political busywork as the best of 'em.
COD4's campaign is a triumph, expertly delivering a tight, incredibly immersive tale with more than a few twists and some of the best moments you will ever see in a game. Just the flashback sniper mission alone is filled so much tension and "hooooly crap" moments that it probably could have sold the game on its own. And it's only one of many sequences in the game that not only feel genuinely next-gen, but are just downright awe-inspiring.
I'm still amazed that a game like this could arrive within the first year of the PlayStation 3's life, stunned that a game with all the scripting and the chaos and the noise going on at once can run this beautifully. I honestly counted just two instances where the absolutely butter-smooth 60fps experience was marred by a slight chug. Two. Yes, there is dark, dark magic at work spinning away in my PS3 even as I type this, but whatever souls had to be sacrificed to bring us an experience of this caliber, I thank them. Their eternity toiling away in the fires of Hell will not be wasted.
What's truly stunning about the game is that it's really not terribly different from the previous games in the series -- or even from the Medal of Honor PC games that Infinity Ward helped work on when their founding members were at developer 2015. You'll still sprint from small skirmish to skirmish, pouring endless amounts of lead into countless bad guys, still plant explosives on tanks and walls, still have to make mad dashes to safety.
The difference here (beyond the obvious and absolutely necessary move out of World War II and into something in the near future) is in how well it all runs and how tightly executed and in some cases evolved those basic bits of gameplay are this time around. You still have the cacophony of automatic weapons fire, the constant screaming in foreign tongues, the chatter from your teammates, but they all sound louder, clearer, more powerful.
In truth, the single-player game's biggest accomplishment is in the area of immersion. Between all the scripted sequences that play out before the eyes of the US Marine Corps 1st Force Recon's Paul Jackson and British 22 SAS Regiment's John "Soap" MacTavish, the game quite literally becomes an interactive action movie. When control is wrestled away for cinematic effect, it's always done to maximum emotional impact, highlighting something so important that the developer couldn't risk the player missing it. As it stands, there are plenty of moments that can still be missed, but like the moments where the game takes over, it's rare.
The result is an experience like no other, with modern-day scenes that play out with more power and impact than any first-person shooter has done to date. It's a combination of the scale, the gravity and in many cases fantastic motion-captured animations, rock-solid voice acting and just pure, simple cinematic know-how. The events in Call of Duty 4 play out better than any Hollywood action movie could ever hope for, yet they pack just as many explosions and socio-political busywork as the best of 'em.
COD4's campaign is a triumph, expertly delivering a tight, incredibly immersive tale with more than a few twists and some of the best moments you will ever see in a game. Just the flashback sniper mission alone is filled so much tension and "hooooly crap" moments that it probably could have sold the game on its own. And it's only one of many sequences in the game that not only feel genuinely next-gen, but are just downright awe-inspiring.
