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Call of Duty 4
Platforms: PS3/Xbox 360/PC/Wii
You know there was a time when the skies of a multiplayer game weren’t filled with osprey gunners, harriers, predator missiles and care packages. There was a simpler time with maps that are instant classics and balanced guns and gameplay. Those days are long gone but can be fondly remembered by looking back at this game. The eighth greatest game of all time is Call of Duty 4. This is the pinnacle of first person shooters but at some point in the near future I think it will be unseated but based on the current format this company is following its not gonna be a Call of Duty game. Sit back and enjoy the game that started a multiplayer phenomenon.
Call of Duty 4 did something that no other first person shooter could do. With the exception of Halo, Call of Duty 4 sold consoles and Xbox Live subscriptions better than any game before it could. Before I go on about this game I want to thank all the people who made this game so damn fun online: Champ (as integratedbus), Rudi, KGB (I’m Kamping!), Point Blank, J Hen, T-Shirt Ninja Zach, Sliz, Bonesmahoney (are you ok?), Rush and many more. The most important of all is Stealthshot, been my buddy on COD since the first and most of our time spent on there is him yelling at me for getting in his way. One last thing before I go into something else. I remember actually getting this game. I didn’t pre-order it because I had to go to the Smithsonian Art Gallery for class and I left right in the middle of it and got on the metro back to my car. I stopped at a Best Buy in DC and got like their last copy. Apparently the nation’s capital wants to kill some mother fuckers online. I really could have went without telling you all that but hell I figured I might as well, to at least fill some space.
All Ghillied Up Bitches
Before I dive into the part that was everyone’s favorite, multiplayer, I want to at least take a few sentences and talk about the badassery that was the single player campaign. First off you take control of multiple characters throughout the entirety of the campaign. Your main man is Sergeant John McTavish, also known as Soap. You are joined by one of the greatest characters in gaming history, Captain John Price and his right hand man Gaz. Luckily for you the game lets you get your feet wet by running through a kind of shooting range call the Killing House. If you complete it in a certain amount of time you get an achievement as well for you achievement whores. After that the game literally lets you get your feet wet by invading a cargo ship. I guess the developers wanted to contrast different graphical capabilities of this game because the cargo ship level is absolutely gorgeous. The campaign is one of the finest in any first person shooter I’ve ever played, albeit it’s kind of short compared to numerous other campaigns but I’ve never played one with as many OMG moments as COD4. Also at the end of the campaign there is a part that I won’t spoil for you but if you have any heart at all you will feel helpless. I do want to say one thing and its not very spoilerific if you ask me. “All Ghillied Up” is hands down the greatest mission/level in any game ever. I am a huge history guy and seeing Pripyat in all its glory is amazing. Not only the history aspect but the gameplay and what you have to do in that mission create such an aura of tension that can’t be outdone by any game. Personally I think the campaign does a very good job of mixing cinematic elements and gameplay. There is a perfect mixture of both and really leaves a good taste in your mouth after you are done. Also if you are an achievement whore you can collect the entire enemy Intel. One last thing, this is the first game I got to play as an AC-130, how many other fucking games can say that?
Now the moment you guys have all been waiting for; Multiplayer. Call of Duty 4 had the absolute perfect multiplayer ever made. Like I said in my opening It was perfectly balanced and the glitches that existed in Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3 were non existent. Sure you could get out of maps like Crossfire but it really didn’t give you a tactical advantage and the process you have to take just to get out of the map wasn’t worth it and you’d likely get shot in the back. Speaking of Crossfire, this game had some of the best maps….no no no no wait, this game had THE BEST MAPS OF ALL TIME. Maps like Ambush, Backlot, Bloc, Bog, Crash (arguably the best map ever), Pipeline, Overgrown and many more. I think if I had to choose I’d say Crash, Shipment or Strike were my favorite maps but it’s really hard to decide because they were all so great. Showdown was lame though. But simply put the developers took a lot of time to make great maps but I think they took more time on refining gunplay. Fortunately there were no overpowered guns in this game and they all seemed like they had their strong points and weak points but nothing too dramatic so it was a fair fight no matter what gun you had. I used to call the Scorpion the stapler gun. Just thought I should put that out there. My personal favorite gun in the game was the G36C; I spent countless hours trying to get the headshots so I could get it in all gold. The gun selection was numerous and was varied so you could really play the game to your strengths if you went in there with the right load out. Perks were great in this game although people often bitched about Martyrdom and Stopping Power but if you were a really good player you knew how to take people out who had those perks. The game types were numerous as well and I was not a COD player before COD4 so things like headquarters, domination and search and destroy were like opening Christmas presents every time. I seriously must have logged a few weeks worth of gameplay into this game and honestly don’t think there will be a multiplayer experience like this one in quite some time. Sure I have purchased MW2, Black Ops (which is my second favorite COD) and MW3 but none of them even hold a candle next to this one. I mean all you had were 3 killstreaks, UAV, Airstrike and Helicopter. What really killed COD was adding the cheesiest fucking killstreaks to the point where some games are unplayable.
Finally the graphics for this game were out of this world at least for the time. I was used to games like Halo 3 with their cartoony approach to multiplayer and campaign but when I dove into the campaign for the first time I was breathless. I’ll admit Battlefield 3 is by far the most beautiful multiplayer game I’ve played but at the time COD4 came out I was jizzing over these graphics every time I played the game. The campaign graphics are a little better than multiplayer but its nothing incredibly noticeable. Explosions, gun fire and voice acting are great in this game as well. Captain Price’s voice is instantly recognizable by me and gamers alike. Even in the newer Call of Duty games they have great voice acting so at least they have that going for them.
I know a lot of you are really appalled by Call of Duty since MW2 and MW3 came out but there was a time that everyone loved this game and thought it was the best multiplayer experience. Watch the video below and remind yourself that simpler is always better.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktcLGzLifd8"]Call of Duty 4 walkthrough - All Ghillied Up - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BZTGPVJDyM&feature=related"]Call of Duty 4 - Online Multiplayer [HD] - YouTube[/ame]