FM6CT
Posts: 11752
Joined: 12/23/2003
From: Somers, CT
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Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3)
Bungie's Halo 3 and Valve's Orange Box both just showed that people are always in the market for great shooters. There's one player left to bat for the holidays, however, and stepping up to the plate is Infinity Ward with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Players had the chance to check out the CoD4 multiplayer beta over Xbox Live not too long ago, but we were recently invited to play more of the multiplayer content, including a few of the perks unlocked after level 25, as well as some new maps, including one that we're unveiling here for the first time: Downpour. Be sure to check out our videos, direct from our gameplay session at the Infinity Ward offices.
Interestingly enough, we ended up playing the PlayStation 3 version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. We were prepped for time on the Xbox 360, but the PS3 version didn't disappoint, looking just as good, playing just as fast, and feeling just as good to control as the other version. We were a bit hesitant at first, as the triggers and bumpers were swapped on PS3, as opposed to the Xbox 360 controller layout. This is due to how the PS3 controller is designed, as the R2 and L2 buttons don't have the right feel to work as triggers. After getting used to it for a few seconds, however, the controls worked just fine, and this should only be an issue if you frequently go back and forth between versions of the game.
If Looks Could Kill
It's really quite remarkable how great Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare looks. Character models in shooters are rarely so alive with detail; just take the Ghillie suit sniper as an example. While he may look like a leafy version of Star Wars' Chewbacca, it's hard not to be impressed by how well the heavily camouflaged character model blends in with the lush grasses of some of the game's woodsier maps. Perhaps even more impressive, the game always maintains a smooth frame rate, even when your screen looks like it's going to absolutely burst from all the vivid detail and eye-popping effects going on at once. If you're the type of player to sometimes feel nauseated by dodgy frame rates and choppy camera movement, Modern Warfare may well be just what the doctor ordered.
While lots of games boast a very high level of visual fidelity, few can match the excitement and intensity that we experienced with Modern Warfare's multiplayer action. The feeling of being pinned down in the middle of a firefight with explosions going off a few feet away from your cover and bullets whizzing past is a key aspect of the military experience, and has been portrayed with varying degrees of success in films like "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down." By structuring the maps and play experiences around moments like those in these modern war epics, Call of Duty 4 left us reeling from the sensory overload of it all. Closing our eyes, we were still seeing plumes of smoke, huge fiery blasts and plenty of red from taking one too many gunshots to the face.
The focus of our playtest was to get more time to explore the multiplayer aspect of the game, including the later options available for character advancement. What exactly does leveling up your Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare multiplayer profile get you? Well, with each level, you can gain access to a variety of different character enhancements. Some involve access to content that you didn't have before, like challenges and training missions. Other levels may grant you access to clan tags or other ways to personalize your character. Primarily, however, you'll be leveling up for access to all the different weapons and perks that are the key building blocks behind the character class system. After all, can you really stop playing until you've gained enough levels to unlock the Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol?
Building the better mouse trap, or becoming the most efficient killing machine possible, is dependent on building a character class that best suits your play style on a map-by-map basis, or even on a situational basis, and finding appropriate combinations of weaponry and perks to bring your concept to tactical fruition. It's a pretty simple formula, just a main weapon, a sidearm, a special grenade choice and three perks. But don't let that fool you into thinking that the gameplay lacks any depth. If there's anything going for the game at all (besides the aforementioned ridiculously impressive visuals and silky-smooth frame rate) it's in how much the multiplayer game has to offer.
My Sniping is 18(00) But My Charisma is Only 5
For raw efficiency in nearly any scenario, one of our favorite "bang for your buck" character class builds centers on the M4 assault rifle. With the red dot sight attachment, it's hard to find a weapon that's more viable in more situations than the M4, as it has decent range, good stopping power, and great accuracy. The drawback is that the red dot or reflex sight is great at pinpointing targets within your field of vision, but lacks a zooming function, which makes it a poor choice for taking on an ensconced sniper. Still, for most situations, the M4 proves more than adequate, and its versatility allows you to pick and choose from the many different perk options. Completing the marksman challenges required to unlock the M4's red dot sight isn't very difficult either, since you can always get the required number of kills using the undermounted grenade launcher attachment (or as Infinity Ward's staffers have come to call it, the Noob Tube).
One of the perks that we had the chance to toy with that I hadn't seen in the multiplayer beta was Double Tap, a Perk 2 slot ability that increases the rate of fire on your weapon. This perk turned the M4 into a veritable bullet hose, emptying an entire clip in what seemed like no more than a second. It was absolute murder on enemies at close range, but for longer range firefights, the increased rate of fire had a very noticeable effect on the gun's stability, and shorter bursts became somewhat harder to manage. It's probably not a necessary perk to pick up, but a fun option to toy with nonetheless.
We had plenty of fun using Double Tap, especially with the larger machine gun options like the "Rambo gun," the M60. But if we weren't lying prone, the crazy jump in recoil that Double Tap induced made the perk more of a hindrance than a benefit. Of course we'll have to wait and see what the community thinks of affecting rate of fire this way, and it'll probably make the biggest difference for the slowest of weapons, like shotguns and sniper rifles. The higher rate of fire weapons may be more viable at the higher levels of play once you've unlocked the Bandolier perk, allowing you to carry more ammo.
Not only did we get to check out some of the new perks, but some older ones have been changed up to work more smoothly than they did in the beta test. Juggernaut, for instance, had a confusing aspect to it, in that you never had a really clear indication of whether an enemy had the perk or not. Now, a clear indicator over an enemy target will signal whether or not that player has the increased life that the Juggernaut perk offers, encouraging you to put a little extra effort into taking them down.
There were players that swore by the Last Stand perk, although some found little use for it in the multiplayer beta. Anytime players were shot, they'd often get an extra three bullets to the chest on the way down, since their killer'd be wary of taking a bullet from the last-ditch effort that Last Stand provides. It seems the concerns were heard by the balancing folks at Infinity Ward, and like Juggernaut before it, some slight improvements were made to Last Stand to make it more viable. For one thing, you get a very brief moment of invulnerability after the "killing threshold" is reached, allowing your character model time to go through the animation that transitions the soldier from standing to lying on his back. This gives the Last Stand player time to actually take a shot or two at an enemy, getting some use out of the perk. The experience for Last Stand pistol kills was also doubled, giving players a concrete incentive to try and get those revenge kills in.
Don't Try This At Home, Kids
While we're not very comfortable with Last Stand's pistol-killing, we were quite happy with the efficacy of Martyrdom, the perk that drops a live grenade as you're killed. It was described as the anti-teabagging perk, which should sound like music to the ears of any Halo 2 player who's been used and abused by crouch-happy online competition. For one thing, knowing you have Martyrdom set up encourages a more aggressive style of play. Sure, you may die while rushing to a control point, but if you do there's a very good chance of taking an enemy down with you. Same goes for trying for that knife kill instead of reloading in a close-quarters firefight. A solid third of our kills during our recent multiplayer playtest at the Infinity Ward offices were attributed to Martyrdom grenade kills, which was probably the biggest reason that our experience progression slightly outpaced that of the other journalists on hand.
Some players just aren't very good at sniping. Putting a sniper rifle -- even a semi-automatic option like the powerful 7.62mm Dragunov -- into the hands of these reluctant killers is pretty much a waste of time and a sign of bad things to come for the team. On the other hand, those players who are good at picking off fast-moving enemies with a scope can opt for a combination that may include claymores to set up a rear or flank defense, a UAV jammer to keep off enemy radar that would otherwise expose their position, and the Iron Lungs perk, which allows for a longer period of steady aim when drawing a bead on a hapless enemy target.
There should be plenty of reasons to keep advancing until you hit the level cap of 55 (and possibly beyond). Loading menus in our play session informed us of the Eavesdrop perk, which allows you to listen in on enemy communications. Spying on the opposing team's voice chat could be a really powerful tool, though you may get saddled with fighting against a team that can't stop chit-chatting about what they had for dinner.
Messing with new character class options was fun, but the best part of the experience is always going to be the competition. Playing against the Infinity Ward staffers wasn't very good for our self-esteem but it was great for learning about what different maps and play modes were in store.
One of our favorite play modes was an objective-based game called Sabotage. In this game, there's a bomb somewhere in the middle of the map, and each team has their own base objective to defend. The challenge is in fighting your way to the bomb and escorting the bomb carrier to the enemy objective, giving them enough time to plant the bomb and blow it up, winning the round.
Tug of War With Hand Grenades
While Sabotage may sound much like Counter-Strike, it felt more like a game of firearm-powered Rugby, mostly because of the constant back-and-forth feel of the action, attributed to the giant icon that appears on-screen representing the bomb or any player carrying it. This has the wonderful effect of getting most if not all of the players in any particular round to converge on the bomb, making for plenty of heated firefights. There's little more exciting than getting the bomb strapped to your back and high-tailing it to the enemy objective, knowing that the whole opposing team is making a beeline right for you.
Other game types were also quite satisfying, although most offered up experiences that are available on other shooters. There's Team Deathmatch of course, where every player is a lone wolf trying to rack up the kills. Then there's domination, where you and your team struggle to take control of three different control points on a map, racking up points for as long as you can hold them. There are also larger-scale versions of some of these modes, like a bigger Team Deathmatch, that fall under the Ground War playlist. If you can keep the lag down, larger match types are often more fun, so it'll be interesting to see just how popular these bigger game types get.
Makin' it Rain
We were able to play a handful of new maps in our playtest, including Downpour. This map takes the fight to a predominantly outdoor environment in the middle of a seasonal rainfall. The terrain is a mix of grass and rural industrial structures, like sheds and water towers. One building near the center of the map is key for control of the surrounding region, since on the second level, approachable by climbing a set of stairs, is a mounted machine gun that can spray death faster than you can blink. The gun's higher caliber bullets actually have enough stopping power and penetration behind them to do serious damage to enemies taking cover in the nearby buildings.
Part of the appeal of engaging in Modern Warfare's multiplayer is that it not only appeals to the shooter fan in you, but also to the gamer that thrives on reward-based incentives. As you shoot down enemies, seeing the little experience point numbers pop up is instantly gratifying, and when you discover little secrets in each map, like places where you can fall to your death for big chunks of XP, or destructible pieces of the environment for vandalism bonuses, the game becomes as much about diversifying your gameplay experience as it is about blowing up your fellow players.
Win or lose, you're always going to find a way to progress with your character. This approach to multiplayer game design not only encourages playing with all of the different weapon options in the game, but also makes you want to try out all the different game types available, all in the search for more unlockable "quests." To promote less popular game types, Infinity Ward even plans to borrow from the World of Warcraft school of battleground management and have double- or even triple-experience weekends. This will give players a great reason to flock to the same match types, or to try a new playlist that IW wants to promote. Knowing what lengths people will go to in order to level up their characters in any online game (just ask the kids who tied rubber bands to their controllers in Rainbow Six: Vegas) this idea should work wonders.
We had a great time playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and we have little doubt that it'll end up being one of the most satisfying multiplayer experiences of the year. The visuals are top-notch, the gameplay feels great, and the character progression and challenge system could be the most engrossing feature of its kind we've ever seen in a multiplayer action game. In fact, the multiplayer experience is already comparing favorably to that of games like Team Fortress 2 and Halo 3, in our eyes. Our final verdict won't be ready until the game launches on November 5th, so be sure to check back here often for more on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
Gamespy's COD4 video page, check out the 2 10/21 video's:------>>COD4 Video page
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      “There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation.
The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
Will Rogers
FM's 360 blog
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RE: Call of Duty 4 - 
Cha-ching.
I have not touched any but TW08...and I just can't seem to get into it anymore with my interest in soldier games. I can only hope that one day EA will release a non-laggy Pebble Beach. 
With a name like CASH...I'm sure he could help a brother out. 