18 months and roughly 18 million sales later, I FINALLY bought CoD4. It's won countless awards and has gained enough rep to be babbled about by 11 year old Floridians more than Halo 3. It's been said to be the best Call of Duty of all time, and although I don't generally believe that the vast majority has to be right, I thought with so much biggin' up there may be something awesome about CoD4. So I headed to the old Cex store and bought a second hand copy.
As I do with every game, I started off by playing the campaign, and my thoughts were in the exact same way as they were when I first played WaW; 'Well this is isn't too bad... Ok this isn't getting much better... is the whole game going to be like this?'. This was worrying, as WaW's campaign didn't turn out great... at all. Nonetheless, reminding myself of its 94% ratings from the very magazines that I trust and Gears of War 2's improvement during the campaign, I persevered. How did it turn out? Somehow, through unimaginable odds, WORSE than WaW's. Now, if I have any readers out there (which I doubt for the record), I imagine I just lost them all. Yep, I hated just about every minute of the campaign, nothing EVER happened that could vaguely stir up some kind of 'hell yeah' feeling, nothing got anywhere near intense, I was bored for a good 3-4 hours of playtime. Liking the modern environment is surely opinion-based but I have simply no idea how people could prefer samey, metal guns which aim for you with bloody stupid laser-sights and then miss horrifically with burst fire (thinking of the G36c right now...) instead the at least likeable WWII guns which had some character and vintage factor. The storyline is nothing original - a war with Americans and Britain against the Russians and Iraqis? What an original idea! - and because of this nothing was ever gripping enough to make me really want to beat the campaign. There's also a ridiculous amount of enemies and too many situations in which enemies will constantly spawn for about five minutes which makes it seem like you're some kind of invincible war hero on a anti-Commy kill spree, rather than the game being a modern warfare realistic - and realistic being the operative word - simulation. Lastly, the graphics, which somehow won an award, are hugely overrated. How were they awarded for a game with graphics not much better than PS2? Open your eyes; Halo 3 came out a whole year before Modern Warfare and they still blow me away.
Of course, what I should be commenting on is what made CoD4 so popular for the most part: the multiplayer. Once again, I set my hoped high because of the popularity and about 70% of my Live friends playing it religiously and whoop-de-fuckin'-doo here comes the disappointment again. Don't say it's because of me moving from WaW to an earlier installment; not only because I expected it to have fewer perks, weapons etc but because I'm also constantly told that CoD4's multiplayer is superior. Well, I couldn't agree with you... LESS. Nothing stands out to me whatsoever, the maps are boring as hell and don't allow for strategy, and the only thing I find enjoyable is sniping on Overgrown (lying down in the corn field wearing a ghillie suit makes you just about invisible, which is brilliant). How do you people play this game for so damn long?
Overall score is 2/10. Sniping's good fun, especially with the Barrett .50 cal rifle which is one of my favourite weapons ever, and there's the occasional 'this isn't so bad moment' but there is NO reason for all these people believing this game was crafted by the hands of God. Massively overrated and a huge letdown.
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