The campaign is a frightening and plausible portrayal of the USA fighting a fictional Middle Eastern nation that is controlled by Khaled Al- Asad, while there is a civil war in Russia. During the game, the player alternates between playing as "Soap" MacTavish, a new recruit in the British SAS, and Sergeant Paul Jackson in the Marines.

The story is one of the best ever told in a videogame. It is one of the few games that make you feel so attached to all the characters that when someone dies, you need to fight back tears from your eyes. It sets such a high bar for story telling that is has rarely been surpassed two years later.

Throughout the game's twenty plus missions, you will be entertained by the constantly changing gameplay. One mission will have you defending a position from hordes of enemies while the next has you sneaking around a ghost town. Moreover, this changing gameplay is made even better by bullet penetration.

Bullet penetration adds a completely new layer of depth to the game. It's no longer possible to hide behind a wooden fence and have it absorb all the damage; bullets now travel through certain surfaces. This feature comes is especially handy in multiplayer. You no longer need a clear shot at the enemy; you can hit them through walls.

Multiplayer is really where the game shines. Each map is ripped right from the campaign, and is expertly balanced. With 16 (not including DLC) to choose from and 14 game modes, the maps never get old.

What really sets the game apart from other shooters is the new perks system. The five pre- set character classes each have 3 perk slots, each from a different pool, so that they are balanced. "Perks" are things like Juggernaut which grants the player extra health, or Martyrdom which leaves behind a live grenade when they die.

These benefits spice up gameplay and let you create a character that fits your exact play style. However, everything starts locked in multiplayer. Gamers can unlock all five classes by getting experience in game. Experience is received in a number of different ways based on the game type.

Fear not though, even if you are slightly challenged, you will still rank up due to the bonus points that are awarded at the end of each match. There are 55 levels and all along the way, the player unlocks new rewards and weapons.

The other big improvement in multiplayer is the ability to call in support. When a player reaches a three kill streak they can call in recon which will show enemy positions. If they manage to get two more kills they can call in an air strike which they place on the map.

Lastly, if they can get a seven-kill streak then they can call in a helicopter, which flies around the map shooting enemies.

Like any game though, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare is not without its flaws. There just isn't a variety in enemies, and there are too many scripted moments. It also would have been nice to see partial environment destruction; even just in certain levels. In one level where you control an AC130 gunship, you're shooting ­­­105 mm shells which should be blowing buildings apart.

Instead though, the building remains unscathed. The only problem CoD4 suffers with multiplayer is that it can spawn you in the middle of a match. It is meant to compensate for quitters but it's unfair if you spawn into a losing match. This can happen multiple times in a row where you find yourself spawned on the losing side of a game and then to salt the wound the loss counts in your stats. These flaws though can easily be overlooked in such an amazing well rounded game.

Game Accessibility

CoD4 is an accessible game. It has closed captioning for all plot and objective related elements. However, deaf gamers will still miss squad mates calling out enemy positions and some other essential things.

The game also has some auto aim. When pulling down the left trigger to aim down the sights, it will snap to an enemy. This feature is still present in multiplayer, but toned down from its single player counterpart. The game also does a good job of being accessible to those that are colorblind.

The aiming reticule appears red when an enemy is close, however this will not happen often because gameplay consists of aiming down the sights. For colorblind gamers that cannot see green or red, you might have some trouble determining whether a helicopter or air strike is friendly. There is text though that says which team called it in, but it can be easily overlooked in the frantic gameplay.

Comments (2)

David Francis

September 09, 2009

Votes: +0

• 
• 
• 

...

It is a great game, to be sure, but on PC its accessibility suffers from the same problem as all FPSes do, for one-handed players - there's no Auto-aim, and at times (especially in multiplayer) it can require fast reflexes.

Kit Windsor

September 15, 2009

Votes: +0

• 
• 
• 

...

David, may want to get a nia unit. Love mine.

Write comment

Email Name		Comment smaller | bigger
		Subscribe via email (registered users only) Write the displayed characters Add Comment