A game in which it doesn't pay to have home court advantage!

First-Person Shooters dominate the library of the XBox 360. It takes a lot for a war shooter to stand out now a days, so Infinity Ward tried something new with their latest installment in the Call of Duty series- bringing it into modern times. This decision was obviously a good one, as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has sold over 10 million copies and is easily one of the best games that money can buy for your 360.

Graphics- 9/10. Call of Duty 4 is the 3rd of the series to be on the next generation of platforms, and it shows (or doesn’t). The game actually looks very much like Call of Duty 3, but there are a good bunch of noticeable differences that make this one of the better looking console games to date.

The detail on the guns is the first thing you’ll notice when you start the single-player campaign. It’s amazing how realistic they will look while you are shooting utilizing the sights, and running with them. Character models look astounding in Call of Duty 4, and though you will never see the soldier you are playing, everyone else looks entirely life-like in the game and in cut-scenes. The immense detail of the environments is clearly what everyone is talking about when they say that Call of Duty 4 has the best graphics of any console game out right now. There are so many environments in the game, they all have near perfect textures, and everything appears as it should. The game has a few big loading times in between missions, but there is almost no screen tearing and the frame rate is a smooth 60 frames per second throughout, so the loading screens are to be expected. Lighting is also used incredibly well in the game. My favorite example of this is in the opening mission, in which you are trapped on a sinking boat, racing to escape before it sinks. It is a dark and stormy night, so if the lighting wasn’t convincing, this mission wouldn’t be nearly as intense. Fortunately, the lighting is spot on, and really gives you a sense of immersion.

However, the game’s graphics department could have improved upon quite a few things. Water in the game doesn’t look nearly as sharp as you’d expect from the game. It looks very choppy, and when you walk through a pond, you won’t see a difference in the water (no ripples, splashes, etc.). In addition, grasses and shrubs don’t move or rustle when you walk through them, which brings you out of the immersion of the game for a brief moment. Instead of just having invisible walls that surround the map, there are shrubs, or maybe a vehicle blocking your path. The texture work on these barriers isn’t where it needs to be, and it can be very frustrating when you can’t walk throw/over a shrub.

Sound- 7.5/10. The voice acting is probably the lowest point of the game, but that’s ok, because it isn’t nearly as bad as some of the other voice acting in FPS games. Whenever you mess up, your fellow soldiers will yell at you with the same 2 or 3 insults throughout the mission, and it can be very frustrating to listen to.

The sound effects have their highs and lows. The gun’s sounds really capture the gritty image of war, and keep you immersed in the world, but as you are walking through bushes, water, dirt and different terrain, you won’t hear a change in your footsteps at times, which is a real disappointment. Also, some sounds directly behind you get lost for some reason, but this is barely noticeable when you have so much else going on in front of you. For a game that appears so polished at first glances, it really is sad that they didn’t take the time to nail down the sound effects in Call of Duty 4.

Controls- 9/10. The controls in Call of Duty 4 are fine. If you’ve played a previous Call of Duty, nothing should come as a surprise to you, as everything is set up much like it was in Call of Duty 2 and 3. If you are a Halo player, things will seem natural as well, and you can change a few of the buttons so that it is nearly identical to Halo 3. If you’ve ever played any shooter game in general, the controls here should come naturally to you

The controls are as follows- Right trigger is shoot, Left Trigger is to aim, RB is to throw a Frag Grenade, LB is to throw a “special” grenade (Flash, Stun, and Smoke), clicking on the right stick is a melee attack, clicking on the left stick is to sprint, B is crouch, A is jump, right stick is to move, and left stick is to look around. Again, if you aren’t happy with these default controls, it is possible to tweak them to your liking.

Game Play- 9.5/10. Good ol’ fashion fun. Call of Duty has always been known for keeping things simple and that doesn’t change in Call of Duty 4. Players familiar to the franchise will quickly realize how similar the gameplay in this newest installment of the series is to that in previous games. You have to use your sights to make it through the game alive. Shooting from the hip rarely does any sort of damage to the enemy, so unless you are only a couple of feet away from the enemy, and have a shotgun handy, it is best to use your sights.

Another thing that doesn’t change in Call of Duty 4 from past games in the series is how much you are guided through everything. Throughout the single player, your fellow soldiers will escort you from point A to point B without exception. It is literally impossible to get lost in this game, so, for the most part; everyone will get relatively the same experience with the single player. There are a 30 hidden items to find in the single player mode, but that is totally expected from every FPS nowadays, and does little to make you try and “explore” the different environments. Also, there are times when you have the option of either sniping or going in with a shotgun to take out the enemy close range, but these instances occur so infrequently, you won’t even notice them. It is clear that freedom was not a key word used by Infinity Ward when making Modern Warfare. If you aren’t very good at video games, then ok, this might be something nice for you. However, if you are a more advanced player and want to get the most out of a situation, this “hold-your-hand” mentality will become a major annoyance. It can be very difficult to pull off simple things as flanking, unless your fellow soldiers want you flank, of course.

You have to keep moving in this game, because if you don’t, the enemy will pepper you from all angles. Cover is now destructible, so you can’t stay in any one place too long, or the car you are behind will explode sending you into a million pieces. In addition, certain guns can now shoot through wood and plaster, so there really is no place to hide. It can be very difficult to find a suitable way to take refuge, so from the beginning stages of the game, you’ll really have to be on your toes until you get the idea in your head that not going in with guns blazing is the solution. The rebounding health meter that you have will encourage you to find cover, then run out to the enemy, before finding cover again even more than you’d naturally want to. So the system will come quite automatically to you.

The most obvious change of this Call of Duty compared to past ones is that it takes place in modern times. This affects the game play, as well as many other parts of the game. Instead of slogging through the game with outdated 1940’s guns, you now get to use the most current guns that the military is using, and because of this, gunfights are significantly more fun than they are in other Call of Duty games. There are missions where you will use night vision, plant co2 charges, and fly in top of the line fighter jets, so the game does a great job of making you realize that this takes place in modern times. I really would have liked to see some driving missions in the game, but for now, you’ll have to settle for the gunner seat as you cannot drive any vehicles in the game.

The A.I. in the game is not where you’d expect it to be in such a great game like this. The soldiers that you are fighting with are totally oblivious to your presence, as they will constantly get in the way of your line of fire. The enemy A.I. is also not where it should be, as it is entirely possible to run through hoards and hoards of these militant soldiers only, take a turn and sneak up behind all of them, completely unnoticed.

Story/Single Player- 8/10. Like other Call of Duty games, you play as more than one soldier. You play as both a US marine, and a British Special Forces and they both will have a few interesting things occur towards them. At first, it is hard to care about your characters, and whether or not they help win the battles they are in. As the story develops, a few major plot twists will leave you begging for more. The main antagonist in the story is a terrorist named Al-Asad, whom you will chase through an unnamed Middle Eastern country, trying to bring him to justice for killing the president of that country. The other soldier you play as is trying to stabilize Russia, where nuclear activity is going on. The story will unfold through short cut-scenes in between missions, and through talking with your superiors during the game.

You’ll be amazed at all the different environments you will get to play through in Call of Duty 4. Maybe it’s in war-torn “Iraq”, or maybe it is in the mountains of Russia, either way you’ll have a heck of a time playing in the detailed areas. The missions of the game are very fun, with different objectives mixed in just the right places. The main game play to be had in the story is the massive battles though. Intense would be the appropriate way to sum up these battles.

The story is amazingly good for a war shooter, but it is astonishingly short for the admission price of $60. I played through the easiest setting in about 4 and ½ hours, while the hardest difficulty took me about 9 hours to complete.

Multiplayer- 10/10. The multiplayer gets a perfect ten from me, and it’s hard to argue against that score. The best part of the multiplayer is not in the game play (albeit fun), it’s in the unlockable content that you can play to get in all of the game modes. You can get new gadgets for your guns, like a grip or a scope, maybe a red dot for greater accuracy. You can also unlock new guns altogether, increasing your chances to be victorious in battle, and you can even unlock new game modes while playing with the ones you have. The best part of these unlockables is the “perks” you can get. You get three of these “perks”, and they really let you play the way you want to. If you’re an offensive player maybe you want more power behind your bullets, you can do that. If you want a little extra health, you can arrange that as well. This really opens up what you can do with the multiplayer to make it even more fun than it already is.

The map design in the multiplayer is incredibly well done in Call of Duty 4. Everything seems placed just perfectly for an even game. If there is any gripe against the multiplayer, and this is just me being nit-picky, it is that at times you can respawn right in the heat of battle, making it almost impossible to survive, but if you are a good player, you more than likely will be able to find your way out of these jams, making this no problem at all.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is hands-down the best console FPS on the market. Halo 3 only rivals the multiplayer option, but the immersive single player component puts it into the stratosphere of gaming, way past the aforementioned Halo 3. If you aren’t one of the millions of people to already experience the great game that is Call of Duty 4, buy it immediately. I’m giving it a 9.0/10, making this the best shooter of 07 in my opinion.