I'm a big fan of the Call of Duty series. A friend of mine had told me about the first game, and at the time I had ignored him because I had some sort of moral hangup about WW2 games. (I eventually knocked that shit off- a tale for another day.) When I finally got around to trying the game out I was blown away. Here was a game that gave us an idea of what WW2 really looked and sounded like- an orgy of explosions, shouting, and gunfire.
Call of Duty 4 is all that and more.
Because the 4th game is set in the present day, Infinity Ward, without access to World War 2, needed a new conflict. The Iraq war is far too touchy a subject, so they went the non-political route and made up their own war. The story goes that a Russian Ultranationalist convinces an ally of his to start an uprising in the Middle East; the resulting war would distract the Russian government from his true intentions: to bring back the Soviet Union. The United States and Britain are aware that the war in the (unnamed) Middle Eastern country is a feint, so the US sends forces to shut down the uprising in the Middle East while England sends the Special Air Service (England's military counter-terrorist group) to enact surgical strikes on Ultranationalist camps in Russia. The result is two very different styles of gameplay. Yes, I know the plot sounds like something Tom Clancy pulled out of his ass, but it's well done, and besides, Tom Clancy just seems to have a monopoly on the whole modern-day warfare thing. Doesn't make it his.
In previous games the Call of Duty series were divided up into three parts: the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, all fighting against the Nazis. The settings were different, the characters were different, but gameplay was largely the same. In Call of Duty 4, the SAS and Marine stages differ significantly. The Marine stages, set in the Middle East, are much more like previous CoD games, even reusing the same voice actors who make up the NPC shouting and audio cues you hear throughout the VERY LOUD roar of firefights. The SAS stages, on the other hand, play more like Rainbow Six or other counter-terrorism games- the closest analogy to another Call of Duty game would be the Britain campaign in Call of Duty: United Offensive. (By the way, yes there are still "trigger lines"- where the enemies and the action are non-stop until you cross some invisible line at which point the enemies stop spawning and your teammates will rush to catch up to you and a scripted sequence can begin.) The game will also alternate between SAS and USMC throughout the first act (of three) until act one's rather stunning conclusion, at which point you will be playing the SAS almost exclusively. The sole exceptions are in act one where you play the TV controller of an AC-130 gunship (a sequence I will touch on in a moment) and in act two where you play as the ubiquitous Captain Price of the SAS (who has appeared in earlier incarnations as the Captain Price of the 7th Armoured and then the SAS of England in previous games) 15 years prior to the events of the main game, as a young lieutenant following a Captain Macmillan throughout Prypiat, Ukraine (a sequence I will also touch on in a moment.) A third exception, though I'm not entirely sure it counts, is as the president of the overthrown Middle Eastern country. The opening credits (after an initial prologue stage with the SAS) is essentially a 5 minute long cutscene through the eyes of President Yasir al-Fulani as he is shoved into a car and driven through the streets of his country, which are currently in riot- looting, firefights, executions, and the revolutionary commander screaming a speech in Arabic over the radio. At the end of the drive, the president is dragged out of the car, tied to a pole, and shot in the face- and you see it all through his eyes. Now that's hardcore.
re: The gunship sequence:
This sequence is a bit controversial because of the attitudes of the gunship crew. They say stuff like "get that guy" and "nice, I see little bits of him" and whatnot. That said, it's my understanding that this is actually pretty spot-on for a gunship crew. I'm pretty sure Infinity Ward were just trying to portray as accurately as possible the attitudes and mentality of gunship crew. (I should note this is the first CoD game to recieve an M rating, and it's a far sight bloodier than its predecessors! No gibs or any serious spillage though.) Unlike the average hollywood movie it didn't try to dress things up to appeal to the average mouthbreathing nancy who likes movies adapted from Tom Clancy novels. I also don't think they were trying to push an opposing point of view, either. This is Call of Duty, after all, and all the CoD PC games at least have avoided the typical "let's hear it for the grunts" bullshit that Medal of Honour is famous for. The whole point of CoD is to try to present war as it really looks. And that includes gunship crew with their detached, desensitized, cynical attitudes. I mean, think about it- the people they're shooting don't really seem to be people. They're little white blobs on a screen. the crew have been up in that plane for so long, it's easy to forget that these are real people getting shot and blown up and it turns into, of all things, a video game.
re: The Prypiat sequence:
This is hands down one of my favourite sequences in the game. Aside from a few odd points such as modern cash registers and 1990s+ graffiti, the Prypiat sequences are amazing, and have rekindled my interest in Chernobyl, Stalker and, funnily enough, Metal Gear. I got a very MGS feel from these two stages, the first of which is very stealthy (the second is comprised of a very long range sniper sequence followed by a mad dash for an evacuation point.) There's a sequence early on where you and your commanding officer, dressed in ghillie suits are hiding in tall grass as a whole platoon of Ultranationalists and their tanks and armoured vehicles practically roll right over you. I'm pretty much convinced the next Metal Gear needs to take place in Chernobyl. The only problem with these stages is the nearly impossible "defend the point" sequence at the very end, where you're trying to defend yourself and your commander (who has been crippled, but can still provide cover sitting down) against endless swarms of enemies for 5 whole minutes. Very difficult.
Which leads me into one of the few problems I had with the game- the difficulty is inconsistent. For the most part, even on Veteran you're not likely to run into any serious problems, but even on regular there are a few huge trouble spots such as the end of Prypiat which was a gigantic pain in the ass. In fact the only thing I can think of that was harder is the grand finale of United Offensive, which was shit hard from beginning to end anyway.
Another problem was framerate. My rig is reasonably beefy even without a GeForce 8xxx (it's a 7600GT), and it can handle CoD4 alright with everything crank'd except AA (which I never really bother with unless the game's more than 5 years old), but there is some frame-skipping in the first minute or so when a level first loads. It's not constant, it crops up every few seconds randomly, then eventually goes away and doesn't bother me even when I reload. Not sure what's up with that.
By the way, yes, the game is as short as you've been told. I blew through it in 2 evenings.
Despite these really rather minour problems, the game is fantastic and has made it into my top 5 list of 2007 games. If you're looking for a modern combat game that doesn't suck and/or have Tom Clancy's name on it (though "Tom Clancy game" and "suck" tend to go hand in hand), this is the one for you.
Verdict: Get this game now. Or wait until it's cheaper- $60 is a bit much for what amounts to 6 to 10 hours.
