Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare

Post Written for DAVE

Name = Call of duty 4 - Modern Warfare
Genre = FPS
Platform= PC,X360, PS3, DS (Tested on PC)
Developer = Infinity Ward
Publisher = Electronic Arts, Valve Software
Players = 1
Online = Yes
Age = 16+
Released = Out Now!

==HISTORY/BACKGROUND==
Call of duty is a well established long running series of war games, this being the 4Th incarnation of the series, they typically a hero, shooting and killing bad guys (normally the Germans in WWII) However this latest title takes a dramatic turn by not setting its story in WWII and more in the modern day

==STORY==
Unlike every other Call of duty title this game is set in the modern day. The single player story line has the player controlling a variety of characters ranging from the fantastically named SAS newbie Sergeant "Soap" MacTavish, to an airship gunner all the way to Soaps American counterpart Sergeant Paul Jackson, part of the USMC 1st Force Recon.

Our new willing heroes are sent on very realistic campaign missions, gone are the times of the lone ranger in FPS game play, this game See's your character working in strict squad based action - at all times during your missions you are in contact or working directly with a full squad of trained soldiers.

So you and your squads are sent around the world responding to various terrorist activities chasing after a henchman, evil enough to have his own superhero rival. With this being set in the modern world the story line had to of course feature the theft of nuclear weapons by either a Islamic extremist or a Russian dictator. In this case it is both, although this is very predictable the story is pulled off in a very compelling way and you will find yourself speeding through missions just to see where the story will turn next.

==SOUND/MUSIC==
The music of the game fits the scenarios rather well but that isn't where the sound of the game really excels, i quickly turned the games music off in favour of the rather excellent ambiance, this is most evident in the multi player - unlike most war games whereas the ambiance is created by randomly fired shots, in this game the shots you can hear the most prominent are that of the players on your battle field while normal ambiance exists it is easily distinguishable from that of players, every shot you fire echos around the maps in the most realistic manner i have ever experienced, when played in surround sound this means that each and every shot gives away your position to everyone on the map - not something you want. Each gun sounds almost exactly how i would have imagined them too, and after straying too far near a grenade or 2 with full volume you will quickly learn how best to avoid them

There are a few selected music tracks from the soundtrack available on Infinity Ward's "7 Days of Modern Warfare" website

==GAMEPLAY==
unlike most games whereas you cannot rely on your AI squad to do anything but look pretty, In Call of duty each one of your squad members is fully trained and ready, The AI works well for your colleagues and they seem to react very well to changing situations, making them valuable members of the team.

However this excellent squad AI is matched by equally good Enemy AI, All through out the single player you see enemies reacting to how your squad is positioned and will take cover if fired upon, they regularly will hide out behind crates and boxes while waiting for more members of their squad before firing upon you.

Team play in a single player game - who would have thought it?

The multi player game play isn't the fastest paced game play in the world but the realism from the single player isn't lost - each gun works exactly the same way as single player, this makes the game play a little slow, but good fun all the same you need to keep your wits about you when taking cover and making well aimed shots. There is little to be gained picking the biggest guns available to you and charging at your enemies, heck in some servers you will barely make it 10 feet.

The biggest difference to the multi player from the prequels to this game is that the guns are now acquired from leveling your profile up. (Oh No i hear you cry, an RPG!) Well yes, it has an RPG element to it, but its not as bad as it sounds the guns that become available are really only options to the guns you start with, the actual firepower you gain from unlocking these guns is not a great deal - but its still a good enough reason to go through and put in the hours to make yourself a rank 55 general of war.

The levels themselves are gained by earning XP - this comes from participating in games with a bonus for winning. Most of the XP you earn though will be earned by completing the challenges set to you.

The challenges- These are many and varied, they add tons of replay value and range from mundane task (e.g. Kill 150 people with an AK47) to the more fun Base jumping (fall 30 feet or more to your death). There are literally hundreds of these tasks to complete, each earning you both XP rewards and new parts for the guns that are used for the task - allowing for customisation of the guns that you use.

==GRAPHICS==
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare runs on a proprietary engine, this engine allows for some of the most up-to-date graphic techniques to be used, for example true world-dynamic lighting, HDR lighting effects(that annoying bloom stuff), dynamic shadows(moving shadows) and depth of field (bluryness around your scope when zoomed in). All of this combined gives a very very pretty looking game that on high settings will melt a lot of computers, a lot of the more fancy features will have to be turned off by most gamers, i was privileged enough to see the game in its full glory and i will tell you it was quite a sight...Not quite Crysis but not very far off either.

The game also makes use of a physics engine that allows players shooting guns of enough caliber to shoot straight through almost any wall in game, this can add an interesting dynamic to multi player game play if enough players shoot straight through the walls of the building your stood in, but is more commonly used to shoot players who you spotted recently ducking behind cover.

==REPLAY-VALUE==
It has to be said the single player section of the game, while good, does not hold much in the terms of replay value, players will probably not run through it more than once or twice before becoming bored. The games real replay value comes from its multi player, with its many many achievements, unlockables and (for the more serious gamers) Up-coming tournaments, Call of duty 4 has what it takes to be the next Counter Strike (until the next counter strike of course).

==BUY OR NOT TO BUY==
Buy!

==SCORE==

Graphics - 8/10 - (impressive, but it ain't Crysis)
Sound/Music - 8/10 - (get past the music, ambiance all the way)
Controls - 7/10 - (Simple, easy to use, bog standard fps controls)
Game play - 9/10 - (impressive single player AI on both sides, and a wide variety of game play types in multi player)
Replay Value - 6/10 - (single player not so good, but the multi player will appeal to most)


I give Call of duty 4 - Modern Warfare a FINAL RATING of 8/10, Definatly worth the money, run on over to steam and buy a copy now.

What kind of gamer are you?

Gaming Legends A new addition to the leagues of blogs that i try and read on a regular basis has won me over with an excellent post, this post brings up the question, what kind of gamer are you?

Now this post is a reaction to a post from Jarret Cale, otherwise known as Jeremy of PurePwnage.com (if you don't know who he is then i suggest reading his article here and viewing his Internet TV show Here.

It is one of the finest shows to come from the world of Internet gaming in a fair few years in my honest opinion, and i am a proud member of the PurePwnage fan club GAMER ARMY I have my Dog tags, my Hoody - its quite unmistakable around college now that i am a gamer, and i have made a few friends for it.

Anyway! enough distractions, to the main point of the article, What kind of gamer are you?
Now after reading both Gaming legends and Jarret's articles i figure there are 3 main types of gamer

• The Story Fanatic

These are the people that can recite the whole of a final fantasy game back to you backwards, with all the researched history, back story and character profiles memorised. These people see gaming as a expressive art form, a means of telling a story with a little bit more entertainment and interactivity than a pop-up book or Half a tree long novel, these people tend to never see multi player, since it clearly has no value or story there is little point in it at all.

• The Multi player fanatic

Jarret fits into this category, this is a very good quote from his article that i think sums it up rather well

"I'm the kind of gamer that immediately after installation turns off the music and turns down all the graphical fancinesses to ensure maximum frame-rate for ass-kicking. I don't care about particle effects, I don't need blur, and I fucking hate bloom. I've played every Command & Conquer game and consider myself a big fan of the franchise, yet have to admit I've absolutely no idea what the story is outside of "get tiberium, destroy opponent(s)". I assume the bald guy is "bad". To me, the goal of CoD4 is "to be at the top of the list at the end of the round". Never does saving a princess enter my mind, nor are domestic disputes the motivation for Ryu and Ken's regular skirmishes."

These people see gaming as a competitive sport (see Korean) I have to say i find myself in this category - i regularly turn my graphics down if it impedes my game play, my score is what makes games fun - a game with Evan a basic multiplayer that allows me to beat friends and family over and over again makes a game infinitely more enjoyable and replayable than the most immersed storyline ever.

• The Total gamer

This gamer will only play a game if it offers a mixture of them both, a solid single player and a kick ass multi player, however these are usually the gamers occupying the lower half of the score boards due to a whole host of bloom, blur and shiny effects that mean their poor poor computer melted until it had the frame rate of a Amiga leading them to not see the Multi player fanatic before they get their head blown off. - these people tend to know the story of a final fantasy well enough to drive them to it, although they often have to refer back to a guide of some description to find out where to go since they skip the text when it gets too chunky.

All in all though the total gamer is the one that the industry seems to be aiming at, for better or for worse (worse in my opinion, but I'm biased) they are often referred to as casuals- maybe they are the cool kids who only play games in between doing cool things like going outside and throwing rocks at cars, or eventually going crazy shooting somebody and getting video games blamed. yet again.

I'm ranting again, i know alright? :P

Anyway, think about it, think long and hard, because knowing what you are can save a fortune on bad purchases.

WHAT TYPE OF GAMER ARE YOU?

Plans!

My Plans for this blog

Well this is my personal gaming blog, here i will be writing down my general views, QQ's and reviews of whatever game i happen to be playing a the time- this could mean having the same game for several weeks if thats how long it takes me to beat it, and if its a seriously engrossing multiplayer then who-knows how long i could be playing.

BUT
There are seceret and sneaky plans with a couple of my blogging friends to create a more serious game reviewing blog that would require us to try new games with a reasonable rate of turn around, at the moment these are only plans, nothing is quite decided but if that goes ahead i can expected to be downloading free trials and demos by the bucket load. Any reviews i write for that blog you, my readers, will probably get the first and more in depth look at, since you are my PERSONAL readers :)

so everytime i have a something of significance to post, or lots of little points then i shall endevour to bring them to this blog, and any gaming news that catches my eye will probably get reposted up too :)

Re-introductions

Well Hello there! Welcome to what is to be my brand new *sparkling* gaming blog, some of you may know me or my writing from previous blogs or various websites, but for those who don't here is a brief look at me and my history.

Lets start a number of years ago, back when i used to be good at games.
This, surprisingly, was a little over 3 years ago, i used to be a counter strike player, an RPG player, a racing game player, you name it, i was awesome at it, then i stumbled upon a very strange game, it went by the name of world of war craft.

The thing that made this game strange was the fact that i sucked at it, to be blatantly fair and honest, so i set about playing it as long and as often as possible to become to as good as i could possibly be, this was 3-freaking-years ago, If you have played war craft for any amount of time you can probably relate to what I'm about to say, That game is god damn addictive, its like a drug without criminal implications, one that gives longer highs for almost as much money.

yeah! that's another thing! money, i have poured Farr to much money down the drain of that game, 3 years of subscriptions expansions and other costs comes to well over £400! If somebody had told me on the day of purchase that i would lose all of what remained of my social life, my gaming skills AND £400 i would probably have told them to F**k-right-off, since no game is worth that. right?

And here's the clincher, it kinda was worth it, in the end. I have made such awesome friends during my time in the world of Azeroth that leaving them behind has been extremely hard. A very VERY wise man once said this to me, "nothing we do in this game will last, gear is nice but will mean nothing eventually all we can take from this game is our memories and experiences" He was right, so i have left with a bucket load of good memories and friends. Quitting War craft is probably the hardest thing i have done in my gaming career but it is something that has to be done, playing the same game for three years just isn't healthy in the long run.

So here i stand, £400 lighter but with a whole trunk load of experiences with me. Ready to get back started into the world of gaming, over the next couple of months i plan on playing as many games as a possibly can afford to, both to money and time constraints. and as i play ill be posting up my general thoughts about what i happen to be playing at the time. I'm not a qualified game critic - nor am i payed for anything i happen to review, so what you are going to be getting is a whole lot of me. My thoughts. My experiences of the games that i play, and hopefully along the way i will pick back up some of the gaming skills that i used to posses.

Its going to be a fun time in the next couple of months, i can feel it.

So, for the first time, Quincey - Signing off.