9.0

Call of Duty : Modern Warfare is the latest addition to a solid series with a large fanbase. In this version, Infinity Ward finally scrapped the tired 1940s scene and got modern. And by modern we not only mean the game time period but the ridiculously photo-realistic combat and intense missions. The first person campaign is admittedly short but the wow factor this game delivers rivals award-winners like Gears of War. COD4 is the game that Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter could have been. The missions are varied and intense, the plot is believable and amazing, the pace is perfect and the multi-player rounds out a beautiful package. The short of it is….this game is well worth it!

Graphics

Call of Duty 4 won most photo-realistic graphics in a game for a reason. They are the most photo-realistic graphics in a game. From the first mission, “Crew Expendable”, where you infiltrate a cargo ship by helicopter during torrential rains and lightning, to the last gunshot fired, Call of Duty 4 offers spectacular visuals. The atmosphere is so believable that we were in a constant state of “wow, I can’t believe I just saw that.” There is a sense of exhilaration as you hunker behind a barrel in terror as bullets ricochet off the walls around you that is perfectly done. The way that RPGs leave a smoke trail behind them, or the way that grenades explode, or the visceral violence of an attack dog…we just can say enough good things. It’s just so real and beautiful. We had the opportunity to plug one of our gaming machines into a 48″ flat panel HDTV….pure joy. Enough said.

Sound

Well done sound is barely noticeable. It surrounds you and immerses you, adding an element that you can’t put your finger on until you think about it later. The praise we heaped upon Call of Duty 4 in the “Graphics” section of this review definitely applies here. The voice acting is great, the rest of the sound is perfectly surrounding, occluded and realistic. The sound of choppers as they fly over, seachlights hunting for your small band of soldiers strikes fear into the bravest hearts.

Gameplay

Here’s where we get to the meat of this review. Confucius once said: “Graphics and sound do not a great game make,” and he was right. How often have we seen a game with incredible graphics and intense acoustics fall flat on its face? Call of Duty 4 is not such a game, the plot, mission design, and gameplay take the gamer on a ride they won’t soon forget.

Lets start with single player. Call of Duty 4 has you playing, mainly, as two different soldiers. One is a member of British special forces, the other a member of American special forces. The plot follows a terrorist plot and the attempts of both teams to foil the plot, moving back and forth from British missions to American operations. The story is perfectly paced with both teams attempting to hunt down the terrorist groups responsible and eliminate their top operatives. The plot offers a great variety of mission types, too. Some of them require stealth and timing to complete, others feature run and gun or anti-vehicle action. There are even points where you get to control heavy weapons on vehicles (and we all love heavy weapons). In fact, the only thing that’s disappointing about the single player is that it doesn’t last for hours upon hours. We made it through the whole game in probably 13 hours. The good news is, the various difficulty levels and intense firefights make it worth playing several times.

The single player has frequent auto-save checkpoints that are spaced just right. There were only one or two times when we had to play the same section several times to beat it and it rarely takes you so far back as to be maddening.

Multiplayer. It’s exactly what it should be. We tested it on wireless (G), which results in ridiculous lag in many games. Call of Duty 4 ran smoother than frozen butter on a hot skillet with Teflon coating in July. Multiplayer offered the same intensity as the single player game with [usually] smarter teammates and opponents. Several different types of games and well-designed maps are as awesome as expected but what really keeps you coming back are the cool character upgrade features. Call of Duty 4 starts you out with a basic character that can be a few different classes. As you play games you are awarded experience that unlocks new classes, weapons and other options, including the ability to build your own class.

Basically what we’re saying is that the gameplay is awesome. This is truly one of the best class-based shooters around.

Longetivity

We said it already…the single player is kinda short. But, to make up for it, Call of Duty4 offers a very rich multiplayer experience and the single player is always worth playing through again when you can’t pwn n00bs online.

Technical

Not much to add here. We ran Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat on a Sager NP5971 Laptop at 1920×1280 on an Intel Core2Duo with 2GB DDR2 and a GeForce 8600m. It ran well but we did have to drop the anti-aliasing and texture filtering a little to prevent stuttering. The game did stutter just a bit here and there when there was lots of action but we were running at the edge of our machine’s capability. Overall there were no crashes, no faulty performance and nothing else that distracted from the brilliant experience.

Overall, SyndicateX would highly recommend this game to any gamer that enjoys action or FPS games. If you’re just getting into the First Person Shooter genre any game you play after COD4: Modern Warfare will probably be a disappointment.