Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

"Was highly excited, a lil' dissapointed..."

Highly waited for and much appreciated. I am a huge FPS fan and was uber excited to get COD4. The only FPS in my DS collection is Metriod Prime: Hunters (excellent FPS for the DS, a solid 10/10).

The array of senarios all revolve around 3 main positions. Manning a .50 on a Humvee, a Gatling on a Helli, and FP. All great fun, pretty easy missions, and solid controls. Was really disappointed in the fact there were only 12, yes, only 12 levels, and the ending was a huge disappointment, one second I was killing bad guys, the screen changes, and credits rolled. Very sad. Great effort, but left us hanging, making you want a big console for the full effect. At least MP:H had 20 levels, and mutliplay with bots so you could still play all multi-play game styles by yourself. Try again guys.

Overall though, I was impressed with the graphics, about 6-8 different makes of guns to choose from, ranging from the standard issue M 16 to the weapon of all countries, the AK-47. I actually found myself using this gun more often as it packs quite a punch. The MP5 issued in later levels has a very nice rate of fire, but lacks the punch. The sniper rifles are very easy to use and zoom, and a one shot ANYWHERE is a kill.

Hit detection, thank god for hit detection. A shooter game is not a true shooter game if it is lacking hit detection. Most enemies in Call of Duty 4 are wearing body armor, and you will spend more shots aiming for the chest than the 2-3 in the head. Always aim for the head or you will find yourself swamped with enemies due to wasted time attempting to kill someone with body shots.

Melee, great feature, and works very nicely, and in a jam. Stuck in a reload? Rush them with a melee, one hit and they are down for the count. You actually can kill an enemy faster with the melee attack than with guns.

From what I can tell you play as US/UK soldiers, nothing to impressive, just different weapon setup.

Other than guns, you are issued a standard sidearm, frag grenades, smoke grenades, and or flash bang grenades, depending on your overall mission execution, ranging from ground assault, spec ops missions, ground vehicle assault, and air assault.

The controls are very basic, which is actually a nice break. The standard (right handed) control pad moves your character around, the shoulder pad fires, hold the shoulder button to cook grenades, double tapping DOWN changes stances from standing to prone and back. Double tapping UP changes from prone to standing but also makes you sprint for a short period. Aiming is done with the stylus, and also from the touch screen you can changes your firearm, grenades, and a handy hand icon appears that you touch to interact with objects, such as picking up guns, to disarming bombs. My favorite feature, double tap the touch screen and you change into a point-of-scope view or "down the barrel". Very accurate, and provides a somewhat zoom. That's about it for the controls.

Overall, I liked this game, and will keep it in my collection, but dang, I sure wish it had Wifi play online like Metriod Prime. Could have possibly given birth to a whole new group of console players playing online FPS on a DS.

But oh, what could have been, hopefully a COD5 wont let us down.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/07

Game Release: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (US, 11/05/07)