Category:Featured Games

Call of Duty 4's cover.

Cast away your doubts, all ye faithful - for Treyarch isn't in control anymore. Call of Duty 3's mistakes are not repeated in this latest chapter of what has always been considered Infinity Ward's masterpiece Call of Duty franchise. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare brings back the frantic fast paced action that made it's predecessor's while run under the guidance of Infinity Ward such a large hit. Both the Single Player Campaign, and the Multi-Player games provide endless hours of entertainment as you wade through a slew of bullets, grenades, and helicopter cannon fire to capture a flag, plant a bomb, or get that final frag before the round is done. Though the game despite it's many modes, does tend to become a little repetitive, especially due in part to the small maps that you play on, it's ranking system, and class-customization options will give you many reasons to jump back into the fray for another round.

Call of Duty 4 reverts back to what made the First Person Shooter genre such a success. Frantic fast paced action that any casual player can jump into, and feel like a marine within minutes. It's all about the frags here; and though tactics and strategy tend to separate the decent players from the great ones, even the best players can find themselves victimized by a new player due to the fast rate of fire for most guns, and the fact that it only takes a few bullets to drop someone with most guns. Also note that with such small maps, and the ability to have up to 50 or so players on each server, it's only a matter of time before everyone on the map meets the reaper at least a dozen times every round. Thankfully, most server operators offer smaller player-amount maximums on their servers, so that the insane frag fest can slow down a little to offer the more strategic minded player a little breathing room to think and react.

Did I mention there are class-customization, challenge system and ranking system features in this game? Oh yes, I did. Well, let me tell you something. They can make a person go absolutely obsessive over a game. The Playstation 3 and the X-box 360 versions especially have attained a cult status, merely for the introduction of "Prestige" levels that allow a player a mere cosmetic medal for reaching Rank 55 over and over and over again. True, it's a real feat doing so, but in doing so, you are effectively punished by being forced to restart at Rank 1, without any of the perks, weapons or challenges that you've earned. The PC version is much different in that once you reach level 55, you no longer advance any further, but thankfully there are a great deal of challenges out there that are exceptionally difficult, and as a by-product are rather fun to achieve. Theres no cosmetic medal for doing so, but the satisfaction in getting the Cooked-Grenade Jihad Challenge III by blowing yourself and three other guys up with a cooked grenade is rather immense. I myself am guilty of restarting new profiles merely for the sake of earning the challenges all over again... While theres no true purpose to it, it has a certain appeal. Like I said. Ranks and Challenges make a person become obsessive zombies.

Darn Claymore Spammers.

Then of course, theres Class Customization, which is perhaps one of the most well refined features in Call of Duty 4, even if it doesn't seem very well balanced. Every person has their own taste, and every person acquires different skill sets to meet the needs of every gun's and perk's nuances. You can choose stopping power, which gives you a 40% bonus to damage, or you can take the UAV Radar Jammer, which makes you invisible on the Mini-map allowing you to sneak around much easier for better ambushes and other mischief. Each perk has a Rank requirement, giving the Roleplaying Game feel that draws in most casual players. Thus with every rank earned, theres a sense of satisfaction when you see you've unlocked the latest perk, weapon or attachment. So it's best for players to experiment with different attachments, perks and weapons until they find the right one for them. Try to switch out your pistol with a dead enemy's dropped weapon to try out different guns before you unlock them. Doing this, not only does this give you two Primary Weapons, but it gives you a taste of whats to come. Of course, there will always be people out there looking to abuse some of the most powerful weapons such as the Grenade Launcher, Grenades, or Claymores. Of course, this is how it was designed by Infinity Ward, thankfully there is a very limited amount of ammunition for the aforementioned to counter-act it's power.

Sniping is difficult.

People who're looking to jump into Call of Duty 4's multi-player scene with a sniper rifle will find that the game is sorely different from any other First-Person shooter in terms of sniping. There is a very heavy sway on your gun meant to imitate real life sniping. The only way to slow the swaying down (other than crouching or going prone) is to hold down the Shift Button, which is the game's way of imitating a man holding his breath while sniping. I guarantee that for a new player, this is a feature that will turn off many from sniping forever. Also note that for most Sniper Rifles, the only way to get a one-shot kill without taking the Stopping Power (+%damage) perk is to get a head-shot on an individual who doesn't have the Juggernaut (+health/damage reduction) perk. Thus, it's difficulty to use added with the fact that some sniper rifles (M21) actually have a small amount of deviation can cause more misses than most players are willing to deal with. This of course is a boon in the game's community, since it leaves only the more patient and level-headed of players to choose to snipe. It takes a lot of skill to be good at sniping in this game.

Incoming Airstrike!

One disappointing thing about Call of Duty 4 is the fact that theres no vehicles to play around in. Often times this makes me question the title "Modern Warfare", since modern warfare seems to revolve around the inclusion of Vehicles in combat. Still, though we do not get to pilot the cockpit of an airplane or a helicopter, we at least get to use one by getting a kill-streak of 5 for an air-strike, and then with a kill-streak of 7 we get to call in a helicopter. The Air-strike itself is nothing more than the pressing of a single button, and the targeting of a location on an enlarged map that shows up on your screen. Three bombers then come in one by one carpet bombing along the location you chose. This is strategic in it's use, because this can lead you to getting two more kills to get your helicopter. It becomes even more important if you're playing a Sudden Death mode, such as Search & Destroy, or Sabotage's Over-time mode.

Get to tha choppa!

The Helicopter is a little less strategic, but it's still fun in the sense. Once more you press a single button, and out pops a helicopter that functions much like it does in the single player mode. It goes around aim-botting everything in sight (or not in sight, it aimbots remember?) - I personally see this in a far more strategic sense than most people, since once it's in the air, everybody on the other team tends to stop what they're doing to shoot it down with their pistol, gun, or RPG. This of course leaves them as free targets just waiting to be plucked by an opportunist looking for a 15 kill-streak or higher. On a sudden death mode, it's use is probably as cheap as it gets, since you can just hide behind some heavy cover, and let the helicopter do all the work for you.

As for the Single Player Campaign, the intensity only increases, as you'll more often then not find yourself pinned under a swarm of enemies all with an improved AI that will leave you with more than a few bullets in the side or back if you move too fast. These are enemies that understand the concept of flanking, suppressive fire and team-work. So unlike the Multiplayer mode, your twitch gaming, and run-and-gunning skills won't guarantee you victory here. Instead it's all about using cover wisely, and improvising with your special grenades, or grenades. Of course, like all other Call of Duty games, you're pretty much forced down a linear pathway, lead through the level by your nose in most cases; but there are occasionally side-roads to take to encircle the enemy and get the jump on them, so always be on the look out for these routes! Just be careful when you do, some of them lead to ambushes. Remember that the enemy is trying to flank you at every opportunity, so keep an eye on any open pathways or windows that have a clear line of sight on you, chances are thats where the enemy will be headed.

Pure massacre.

Improved AI is all good and well, but surely what will really surprise you is the dogs. No, not yappy little poodles in froo-froo collars. I'm talking about huge rotties that are constantly beelining for you while you're already struggling with the suppressive fire from it's handler and his six buddies. These rabid puppies have a different AI mode, known as Kamikaze, and if you aren't fast enough to euthanize these bad dogs, they'll become a real bitch. They latch onto you, and force you into one of the most annoying mini-games known to mankind, resulting in either you snapping the dog's neck, or it ripping into your neck. Either way, you'll most likely end up dead, since the enemy AI is smart enough to know when you're pre-occupied with fido. More often than not you'll wake up from the struggle to find a grenade as a prize for winning the mini-game. So it's usually a good idea to stay alert, and to remove those pesky dogs well before they can reach your jugular.

Good thing the Improved AI works in your favor, since your Squad-mates in the Campaign Mode are nothing short of spectacular. These guys will save your life more than you'll save theirs, if anything, you're the liability on this team, even if you're a Cyber-Athlete League gamer. Not only do these guys get the heads-up on where the enemy is going to pop up, they'll make sure to keep a bead on any enemies trying to flank you, preventing you from becoming one holey mess in the grass. So while you're off wandering into the middle of an enemy ambush, these guys are flanking those guys shooting at you, to make sure you survive long enough to put your squad-mates at risk again later on down the road. Aren't you the wonderful squad leader.

Call of Duty 4 has a special place in the hearts of everybody at the EncyClanPedia. Most if not all of us play it religiously thanks to it's addictive and frantic fun, and some of us have even become devoted pursuers of knowledge in search of the answers for this awe-inspiring game.