Call of Duty 4 is game of the year material
Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat is actually the first Call of Duty game that I’ve really played, let alone bought. While the others were supposedly quite good (the second one in particular I guess) I never really was into the whole WW2 thing very much. Battlefield 1942 was about as much as I got into WW2 FPS games to be honest. The latest COD game however, is set in the present day (or slight future, something like that) and that suits me just fine.
Single player is pretty cinematic and entertaining. I haven’t gotten very far in it though, because the vast majority of my time has been spent playing multiplayer. This is where the game really shines in my opinion. It has a quasi-RPG-esque system where you level up (gain rank) by accruing experience through game matches. Most of the XP will come just from killing enemies, but you can also gain big bonuses by completing challenges for various weapons (kill x people, get x headshots) or other activities (blow up x cars, sprint x miles, etc.). There’s a ton of these that you progressively unlock as you level up. As you gain levels and complete challenges you’ll also unlock additional weapons and gear. It’s a nice system that always gives you a goal to work towards, which keeps the player engaged and really interested in doing well not just for the sake of it.
Technically the game is very impressive. There are a couple minor multiplayer issues that need to be resolved (minor bugs) and the net code has some prediction that makes you scratch your head occasionally, but all in all it’s really solid. For my money, this game has the kind of polish and attention to detail that makes it a contender for game of the year.
But then again I did just get Mass Effect. That’s another post entirely though.
