Game of the Year? What a Joke.
Call of Duty 4 is not worthy of the #1 spot for most played xbox live game. Call of Duty 4 is not worthy of all its critical acclaim. Call of Duty 4 is not worthy of your 65 dollars and it sure as heck is not worthy of game of the year. Call of Duty 4 is however worthy of most overrated game to ever have been released.
Why such harsh statements you may be asking right now. Let me assure you that there are very obvious and good reasons behind aforementioned claims.
Games today run for 65 dollars new. That is the equivalent of 7 trips to the movie theater or a full tank of gas or 12 games of laser tag or 20 games of bowling. The way i break it down and justify my purchase when it comes to games is this, if i divide the amount of hours i spend with a game by the price i paid for it and it comes out to be around $5 dollars an hour then it is justified. That means i have to put in just over 12 hours into a game. Call of Duty 4's single player lasted 5 hours. Yes, 5 measly hours. That is ridiculous. 5 hours of single player gameplay is unacceptable. I don't care what you say, its simply unacceptable.
People praise call of duty 4 as being, basically, the second coming and at the same time trash halo 3 because they feel it is a rehash of halo 1 and 2. Well, last time i checked there have been more games in the call of duty series than in the halo series. On top of that, the core gameplay mechanics of call of duty have not changed one bit.
Recipe for a call of duty game- numerous enemies at one time firing everywhere to cause a sense of chaos, attempt at climactic set-pieces, using sights to fire weapon accurately and generic multiplayer. Bake in oven for a year and out comes another call of duty just like the previous. But in 2007 we got a fresh set of frosting called modern warfare.
Back to the main point though. You cannot ridicule halo 3 for being the same thing as halo 2 when call of duty 4 is essentially the same game as 1, 2, and 3 just with a new setting.
Quantity over quality is proven to not work, but somehow it miraculously does in cod4. The enemies in this game are brain-dead. They know how to squeeze a trigger and duck, that's about it. Infinity Ward relies on sending double digit amounts of soldiers at you at once to compensate for their lack of intelligence. The best analogy for this game is that it truly is whack-a-mole with humans and bullets.
Seriously there is nothing miraculous about the core mechanics of this game. In fact, many times i became desensitized to the chaos and became bored with cod because i knew i would just be running into another fire fight.
You may read my review of resistance fall of man and say I'm contradicting myself, but at least resistance had a redeeming factor in its shooting by having extremely diverse weaponry. Cant say the same for cod. Plus resistance is a lot more original than cod, which is about as far away from original as you can possibly get. So, while resistance felt like a fresh experience, cod ends up feeling like the same thing I've been doing for the past 6 years because oh wait i have been playing the same game for the past 6 years.
The graphics and sound are phenomenal but i could careless when its all over in a single sitting. Playing a game twice is like reading a book twice, you already know what is going to happen therefore its just dull the second time around. Thus, on single player merits alone this game gets a 5/10.
But wait, this game has great multiplayer right? Why would you say such a thing? Is it because it is horrendously unbalanced? Is it because it has nothing unique about it, other than perks which make it unbalanced? Is it because there arent that many modes to play? Is it because the matchmaking system is atrocious?
I like to compare this game to halo 3 because they are the 2 most profound AAA fps titles out to date, both of which focus heavily in multiplayer. Halo's greatest reason it has succeeded is because it is accessible to anyone and everyone and is entirely balanced when it comes to guns and abilities. No weapon overpowers another weapon. For example the sword can be beaten by the hammer which can be beaten by the shotgun which can be beaten by an assault rifle which can be beaten by a sniper. Rock paper scissors, one beats the other the other beats it. Cod is not balanced. One ring to rule them all is how cod rolls. One gun, one perk to top them all.
But honestly, the biggest trumping card halo has over cod is in its diversity. Do you know how many variants there are in halo? its endless. from juggernaut to rocket race to indoor football basically to territories and on and on i could go. Hey, you can even mix and match game types or completely change them to fit the way you want to play, its all customizable. Cod, not so much.
On top of that, cod doesn't incorporate a level editor mode in which you can create levels and share them with your friends. You can spend over 5 hours easily just creating a single level in forge thus being more play time than cod's entire single player.
Halo is a perfect way to show how meager cod's multiplayer really is. Call of Duty 4 gets a 7.5/10 for average multiplayer. It really is nothing to brag about.
Overall, call of duty 4 is indeed the most overrated game of all time. There is absolutely no reason to love this game. The people who praise this game are the people who root for the underdogs just because they dont want to see the better team win. For example many rooted for the giants just because they didn't want to see the undefeated patriots win another superbowl. Same is the scenario here. People looked to find something to like outside of halo 3 because they didn't want it to succeed. Well, call of duty 4 just isnt that great of a game.
For the record i would like to re-emphasize that, while i used to thoroughly enjoy halo i no longer play it and am glad the series is wrapped up for a while. I wish call of duty would throw in the towel also because its time is over just as Halo's is. So, thankfully halo is in cryogenic freezing and hopefully call of duty will be soon too.