If perfection were attainable, this is as close as you could get. Simply the best FPS to date.
For those of you who have not switched over to HD and at least a 5.1 surround stereo, you'll really be missing out on the graphics and sound in this game. For those pondering when to get HD and surround, the time is NOW. This game is a shining example of next gen graphics and sound that you won't want to miss out on.
But the actual graphics of COD4 aren't the only eye-candy in the game-the motion capture is, for lack of a better or more descriptive word, awesome. I have never need movement like it before. Enemies collapse before you in countless ways depending on where your bullets hit them; and if they don't die, they roll around on the ground grasping at their last breaths, toting a pistol that could be your demise if you're not careful. With the sprinting feature, you can duck in and out of all the corridors in tightly-packed middle-eastern war-zone streets and silently execute waiting enemies with your melee-knife. Or you can even get decked-out in a full Gillie-suit and crawl inches infront of oncoming patrols, boots crunching in your face so close you can almost taste the dirt, without ever alerting a single person. You simply go through the entire game holding your breath because the enemies are so lifelike you expect them to sense you coming.
Continuing that thought, the AI is exceptional. With the help from some invisible "trip-wires" programmed in some buildings, the AI takes advantage of all the corners and ditches you yourself would use as cover. Every corner you go around could have someone laying-in-wait, and when these guys shoot they don't mess around! The only drawback I found was that the men shooting out of helicopters seemed to be a bit TOO good; but, if they're supposed to be using infra-red technology like you get to try out in a very unique level of the game then it's fully understandable. But just because it's understandable doesn't make you less angry when someone's chopper shoots you down in multiplayer!
The physics are also top-notch. Explosions launch tires from busted autos into the air, which bounce on impact and when you shoot them, spin out of control before flopping to the ground. You can even interact with silly objects like slicing some fruit on the various abandoned fruit stands in the middle-east with your knife. The bane or triumph of many people, especially in multiplayer, is the added addition of walls/textures that you are able to shoot through with certain weapons. This concept is quite new to FPS and some people just simply don't think about shooting through walls to kill their enemy. The ones who take advantage of it, however, rack up a good amount of points and tend to become the Public Enemy Number 1 of a match. Because, afterall, you can watch the last 5 seconds from your killer's perspective when you die and then get angry at the guy carrying around the giant machine gun who just sits back and shoots at a main-traffic-building all day.
I really don't want to say much about the campaign in this review because the really interesting parts that people would like to talk about would be complete spoilers. I'll just say that there are some crazy twists in the storyline that are so intense you sit back and think, "Did they seriously just do that?" "Whoa," is another one that I hear myself saying a lot too. I personally don't think the campaign is too short. My first run-through was on Hardened difficulty and at parts it was quite a challenge. I'd like to know what difficulty all the people who breezed through the game in 3-5 hours played because even now that I know the levels I cannot play them that fast. At the end of the day I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign because of all of the unique things they through into the mix and just the fact that from the first second of the first mission to the last of the last, there is unprecedented action in this game unlike anything I've ever experienced.
Onto Multiplayer. It's a decidedly unique approach that gives tons of replay value. The leveling system is role-playing in many aspects-the more you do, the more you level; the more you unlock, the more you rock. No long waits to find games because you play with people from level 1 to 55. What does that mean, you ask? It means that if you're lower in level you don't have all the fancy-schmancy guns and scopes like a level 55 but it's not that hard to get yourself some kills. And if you like objective games you have a pretty fair chance of killing someone regardless of weapons, or scoring points by doing the objectives. You can also pick up weapons dropped from dead people. In effect, you could be a level 1, pick up a P90 from a dead level 40, and score more kills than anyone else in the game. Once you're level 55, you can choose to restart from square 1, with a shiny new medal of course but with all newbie weapons again. So far, I've only encountered people on their 4th run-through of the leveling system but I'm sure there are people farther than that. The multiplayer also just seems way more relaxed than let's say . . . Halo 3. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that you can see who killed you and how. It takes a lot of the, "What the f***?!?!?!" factor out of question. And it also let's you get a sneak peek of guns that aren't available to you yet, or hiding spots you would never have guessed to look for!
Now onto the bad. Bad . . . bad . . .? What bad? Sadly every game has to have something that lets you down because if all games were perfect there would be no need to improve. No need to write this review! And for me, the "bad" of COD4 is lack of co-op. I'll sit and play a game's campaign over and over again with new people just to have fun like in multiplayer, but here it's just not possible. I can see how doing a co-op of 2 people would change the game incredibly (let alone 4 people) so I do have mixed feelings on the issue. Maybe co-op would have made it too easy? And I see that a lot of the fighting, especially in buildings, is really designed for 1 person. Maybe they were just pressured into releasing the game ASAP and had to leave out co-op . . . who knows! This game was a shining example of pretty much everything else so in the future I'll be expecting something as awesome as this WITH co-op, and I'm not angry that I have to wait for it. Because I know it'll be something worth waiting for.
In conclusion COD4 is pretty much it-top notch, head honcho, cream-of-the-crop. All the developers of other recent games are probably sitting there going, "Crap." This game is simply a "must-have." And I know I said there was something about the game that I didn't like, but there are games in the past that have gotten a perfect 10 that can't stack up to the adrenaline-pumping rush that COD4 gives you. In my book there is nothing more perfect to date than this game so it gets its well-deserved 10.0.
Final Score: 10.0
C. Leschinsky