The most gritty, realistic urban modern warfare I've ever experienced.
CALL OF DUTY HAS FINALLY DITCHED WORLD WAR EFFING II. WOO!
Thank you, now onto the review.
Now that Call of Duty has taken a step into present day, some things have changed, while sticking to the same core gameplay that IW is famous for.
When walking around and firing a gun, it definitely feels like something Infinity Ward developed, which is good. Because we all know how solid COD2 was for the 360 when it first came out. But just because the core gameplay feels similar doesn't mean the game is completely the same as past ones. Many things have been changed, and all for the better. But not too many. If any of this makes sense, that's good. But if you are totally lost in this review I deeply apologize. It is very hard to explain.
I'll just sum up this paragraph by saying that Call of Duty 4 is damn good, and it has by far surpassed the amazing experiences the other Call of Duties had to offer. This game is a genuine masterpiece.
Let's talk about visuals first. We've all tried a call of duty game in the past, so you should know what to expect...
...then again, your expectations will most likely get blown away. This game looks beautiful. Environments this time around are much more detailed, and the facial expressions and character models are top-notch. These visuals are almost virtually flawless. You could basically say the same for the sound effects. Think about COD2's amazing sound features and times them by 10. COD4 just goes to show you IW knows what the hell they're doing in this department. And they're damn good at it. Voice acting - brilliant. The game has very well written dialouge with fantastic voice work to back it up. You will feel drawn to your fellow soldiers in the game. You'll feel like you actually care for them, and you will laugh, cry, and have a good time while fighting along side them. It all just adds to the already extremely visceral experience.
Moving on, we will go ahead and briefly describe the gameplay. The controls are exactly the same as COD2. Except for one small and new thing. The D-Pad now selects special weapons, including grenade launchers off your rifles, night vision, C-4, Claymores, and more. This feature is a small addition, but it really seems to add much more depth to how you play the campaign and how you compete online. Yes, this feature is available to play around with on XBL matches as well.
Speaking of XBL, it's a huge part of this game (obviously).
Call of Duty 4 contains the single most impressive Xbox Live experience I've ever played. It's a sum of many small features, really, that makes it so much fun.
Online, you now level up as you get more and more kills. The experience points you gain from killing will level you up, causing your rank to go up, which also causes you to unlock tons and tons of content. You will unlock small things like weapon silencers, laser aims, etc to big things like gametypes, and more and more weapons to blast away with online. The way it is set up just makes the online play very addictive and makes you feel like you're working for something and earning praise along the way, even without online multiplayer achievements.
Yes, every single achievement is for the single player campaign. And you know what? I could care less. I'm very glad IW chose to do this. So long, gamers that come in games and screw them up because they want their oh so important achievement. So long.
All in all, Call of Duty 4 is one of the most impressive shooters on the market, up there with Bioshock and Halo 3, and in my opinion, slightly more impressive than both.
Seriously folks, even if you've never tried a Call of duty game in your life, you must try this one out. Do it. Now. Get up, of your big, fat ass that sits in the computer chair all day, start up your car, no, walk (since you're most likely a fat ass) to the nearest Gamestop and PICK THIS UP.
It's all worth it in the end. And by the way, without any kind of spoilers, I'd like to say this game has the best ending a Call of Duty game has ever seen.