"Still CoD, Different era."

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the next part in the famous series of Infinity ward. Only this time, it takes place in the modern days, instead of the 2nd world war. This may seem like a weird change to long time CoD fans, but it actually works out pretty well.

Story 9/10
The story in this one of the best I have seen in any FPS game. One of the reasons in that Infinity Ward was no longer restricted to events that happened in world war II. They have now created their own storyline which is very well executed and explained during the game. Call of duty 4 places you in the boots of 2 main characters. A U.S. Marine called Jackson, and an SAS operative nicknamed 'Soap'. Call of Duty fans will also notice a familiar face. Captain Price. He is the leader of the SAS squad you're part of. The game takes place in the Middle East and Russia, where you hunt for two dangerous terrorists named Zakhaev and his ally Al-Asad.

Gameplay 9/10
The gameplay is great. Just like it was in all the other CoD games. Although, it's a little bit better in this game. Primarily, this is because of the variety in missions and settings. When you play as Sgt. Jackson, the missions mostly take place in the Middle East during daytime. These missions feature huge urban firefights with armor and air support. When you play as 'Soap', the missions mostly take place during nighttime, with silenced weapons in more open areas. This is where the variety comes in. You play one mission as 'Soap'. The next mission is played as Jackson. The game is fast paced, switching from mission to mission very fast. One of the things that helps keeping that pace is the unique health system from CoD2. After you've takes a few hits, you have to take cover for a while to regenerate your health. So you won't be running around searching for medpacks. this system works great and is very well executed. The game kind of plays like an action movie. With intense action, realistic movement and reloading animations and amazing cutscenes.

Graphics 8/10
the graphics in this game are some of the best to date, without the fact that you need a beast of a PC to run it. You won't need Vista either to fully enjoy it, because this is a DX9 game. the game is amazingly optimized and runs very smooth even on low end rigs. The lightning effect are great. aswell as the smoke effects (from smoke grenades) and player/weapon models and textures. But some stuff could have been better. Some of the textures look blurry and not detailed, while others are amazing. Some other things just don't look good, like the trail of smoke behind an RGP. it looks jaggy and unrealistic. But, these things are just details and overall, the game looks great.

Sound 7/10
The sound is one of the weak points of this game. You will especially notice this if you have played Call of Duty 2. Some sounds, like deathscreams and some weapon sounds, have just been recycled. Most of the guns sound weak unrealistic. it does sound really good when you get into a big firefight though. It sounds like all hell has broken loose, and it feels like you're actually in the game.

Multiplayer and replayability 9/10
Once you have finished the game, which will probably not take that long, you can either play it in the newly unlocked arcade mode, or just on a higher difficulty setting. You can also gather intel in singleplayer. They are laptops that you can pick up in order to unlock cheats. Once you are done with singleplayer. You can always play multiplayer. The MP is great once again, with no changes in game modes. these modes are free for all, team deathmatch, search & Destroy and HQ (those last two being objective based). Infinity Ward has built in a ranking system that allows you to unlock weapons when or upgrades when you rank up. There are also perks. which are small abilities that might give you the edge in combat. these consist of a small health boost, to you being able to pull out your pistol once you die, so you can maybe pop some rounds into the enemy that just shot you.

Conclusion 8/10
Call of Duty 4 is a worthy Call of Duty game, it delivers great graphics with amazing gameplay that will last for while because of the multiplayer. Some minor cons is the sound and the face that the singlelayer campaign is a little short.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/07

Game Release: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (EU, 11/09/07)