Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Revolutionary"

Their have been many popular shooters out there such as the Halo series or Gears of War but once Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare released, it was nothing we had expected. It turned out to be the biggest game yet, even more than the Grand Theft Auto series. It's even labeled the most sold game on the back of the cover! But why does this CoD so much different from it's previous games? Simple. The game engine it runs on and the mechanics it uses that revolutionized the first person shooter genre such as the ability to sprint and shoot through cover.

These new mechanics has the gameplay feal much more intuitive and much more intense as it has you clicking L3 to sprint away from grenades or to quickly find shelter from jets engaging you with explosives. And then you now have the ability to shoot through cover. So if you see someone running from you and decide to hide behind a thin layer of metal, feel free to shoot at the metal as you still have a chance to kill 'em. The engine this game runs on is also mind blowing. It runs on a full 60 frames per second and has the game looking like the real deal. No game has ever looked so clean.

Besides the fact the the CoD series has finally went modern, which it needed to do for a long time now, Campaign mode is the primary mode of choice once you first play the game. It does a decent, but quick, job of teaching you the buttons and getting you familiar with how the game can feel once you play through the timed course at the end of the tutorial. Throughout the Campaign you play as the S.A.S., sneaking through various missions and objectives in Russia. You eventually also get a chance to play as the U.S.M.C., mass killing and raiding the Middle East looking for the one who's incharge of dealing out the bombs. This mode has you really getting into the story as it unfolds right in front of your eyes but unfortunately loses and seems to have abandoned and forgotten one of the key parts the CoD games were known for. Getting to know the people around you. I mean sure, you get to know a few people. But honestly, it's nothing more than that. Their's no listening to conversations, getting to know people more personally and in dept as the previous games have once done. And because of this, it's not much of a big deal when teammates die... Because you just don't know them well enough to care. But besides that, the campaign is pretty solid and no mission ever feels repeated.

The graphics also play a big roll in the games revolutionary success that most people don't seem to realize. If you get the chance to notice, when people sprint, you can see just about every item on the persons body jingle around, just to show off it's level of detail. The animated explosions in most games usually look somewhat fake or just straight up incredibly cheesy but not in this case. Here, you'll see a beautiful masterpiece of death. Their comes a scene in the campaign mode where a nuclear bomb goes off and, oh man, is it intense!? Especially if your not expecting it or forget about it! The graphics aspect of the game deserves straight A's in every aspect.

Multiplayer... Where do I start? Well lets just start out by saying that it's the most crowded multiplayer mode in any game period! But that's not a bad thing! Not at all. It supports up to 16 player online(4 players offline) and hardly lags! Sure, you'll get some lag here and there but it's an overall no big deal. Especially if you compare it to Rainbow Six Vegas 2, a game that came out shortly after CoD4. RSV2 has horrible lag 50% of the time. The game modes Modern Warfare brings to us is also a masterpiece as it has you capturing flags in three different spots in a map in Domination mode, struggling to hold down a single one. Or you could play Search and Destroy, the most played game mode in the multiplayer, which has one team trying to plant a bomb at either point A or B and while the other team defends 'em. Sabotage is also a popular game mode as theres just one single bomb placed in the middle of the map and each team must get it and plant it on the enemies turf. Multiplayer also has a unique perks system that allows each player to have their own "specialty". Their's also a groundbreaking rank system that allows you to reach level 55 and once done, you get to "prestige" back down to level 1, having to earn your way to the top again and again. Once you've done so successfully, without giving up(because it takes a good long time after a while), you'll no long be able to prestige and you'll be awarded the gold cross, a symbol of the elite.

Everything you have read through this review is only a small taste of what the real game experience is about. I strongly recommend you rent this game, at least, and give it a try. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about then.