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Absolute2's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3)
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| [September 13, 2009 09:58:07 PM]
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Gamelog Entry 1
SUMMARY
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is, quite simply, a game about theoretical modern warfare situations. It is a first person shooter. It has both multiplayer and single player modes. The multiplayer focus is on leveling up and unlocking new equipment and camouflage. After each multiplayer match experience points are allotted to the player based on how well they did. The singleplayer mode is about stopping a radical leader in the middle east from overthrowing the government, and helping to quell a civil war in Russia. During single player mode, you jump around from two characters: an American Marine, and a British SAS commando. Now the gameplay is mostly just move around aim and shoot, with an occasional grenade toss. However there are a few interesting missions relying on stealth and sniper skills.
GAMEPLAY
For the first hour or so of play I decided to go with the single player mode. Single player starts you off as an S.A.S. commando named Soap McTavish going through training camp. Now the first thing I noticed was how well the objectives stand out. The first command given to me is to grab the pistol, and as I look around, the gun is on the table in front of me and it's flashing yellow so that you don't miss it. Another thing that they had was a little compass on the bottom of your screen that would show you which direction the next objective was located. So far finding the objectives have been very easy and I have had no problems there. Now I have played many first person shooters and this game was easy to pick up. The controls were very much like any other first-person shooter, so its not like I spent much time dying because I pressed duck instead of shoot. After you go through some more basic shooting and movement controls you move onto the course they have set up. The course starts with a quick slide down a rope and some fast paced shooting and moving. At first the course was a little confusing, but the nice thing about this is that you can do the course as many times as you want. I must have spent about fifteen minutes on this alone just trying to beat the best score. Sadly I failed by about three seconds. The training ends once you go over to your squad and the screen fades to black.
After the screen fades in from black you see that you are on a helicopter sitting next to your captain with two other squads mates opposite him. You see a ship in the distance of the stormy night. Once the helicopter gets over it you repel down to the ship with the rest of your team. When you get to the ship you are granted full control of Soap and I immediately start to open fire on the bridge, along with my teammates, and take down about six hostiles. From there we made our way into the hull taking out any small resistance that we encountered. Once we reached the inside of the hull and cleared it out, we started to get some radioactivity near one of the crates. We found a device in there but only had time to take the manifest before we had to go. As we are leaving the room, we all suddenly get thrown to the ground by a giant blast. I then get promptly pulled to my feet by the captain and we are then making a wild dash for our lives. From the blasts that occurred on the ship was slowly turning on it's side and now sinking. This was probably my favorite part of the level. From here on out you cant use your weapon and you have to move as fast as you can through the ship by following you team. As I'm moving through, the ship is noticeable turning on its side as my character is struggling to keep himself upright. Eventually we get outside and just barely make it to the helicopter, by jumping off of the ship up to opening in the back. I have to say that this part had me sitting on the edge of my seat. It was also a nice finish they added by having you almost fall off the chopper but have the captain pull you back up.
Overall my gameplay experience has been great. The storyline has been done well so far. It has kept me glued to the game even after going through this part for the second or third time. Also the aiming mechanics work very well for how i play first-person shooters. Now grenades in this game are a little more powerful than I am used to. However, whats nice in this is that if you are within range of a grenade that can kill you, a little grenade icon comes up on your screen and points to the general area of the grenade. So you can use this knowledge to run away, or even get close enough to grab the grenade and throw it back to them. One of the most amazing things that i have seen in this game so far is the smoke grenade effect. It actually looks like smoke and kinda acts like smoke. I can't recall another game that has done a smoke grenade nearly as well. So far this game looks great and plays great with only a few things to nit pick about.
Gamelog Entry 2
GAMEPLAY
After playing single player for a couple hours I have learned a few key elements of gameplay, such as how much health I have, how many bullets are in my clip, flash-bang grenades are useful, a moving target is always harder to hit, and so on. I started my second session on the first U.S. mission in the game. You are Sgt. Paul Jackson of the U.S. Marines on a mission to take out the radical leader of a rebel organization, who just executed their country's president, on live TV. This mission starts off with you in a helicopter with a couple other Marines. As you look in front of you, you can see about ten other helicopters around yours. As you move into this middle eastern city, the choppers are immediately getting fired upon from RPGs (rocket propelled grenade). As we keep moving forward the chopper slows and starts to hover in mid air about 50 ft. off the ground. The soldier next to me throws down the rope and we slide down to the ground.
From here I follow my teammates over to a small building while taking out the small resistance along the way. Once we are inside the building we make our way to the basement to find about four enemy soldiers in a large room. The Lieutenant tells me to take point and move into the room. Here I made use of the flash-bang grenades. I never used the flash-bang grenades on soldiers until I got to this part. This technique was very useful. After the grenade went off I ran in and took out the soldiers, while they panicked, held their ears, and covered their eyes. I proceeded to use flash-bangs to clear out the rest of the house whenever i would go into a new room with enemies. When we cleared the house we reported back into command that our target was not in the house. We were told to proceed to the TV station, where it was believed that the rebel leader was broadcasting from.
After making our way over to the station, we breached the side door and stormed in. There was some small resistance in a couple of rooms as we made our way deeper into the station. Eventually we came to a large open room with some heavy resistance waiting for us. This was the most frustrating part of my session. I realized that I put the difficulty on hard, and it was definitely showing here. What I ended up doing after dying about six or seven times was moving around the edge of this room. From here I had much better luck. I was able to go into an area with some good cover and take out most of the enemies there. However, the enemy AI was pretty good. When it realized that I was only covering one side, they came in the back and almost killed me. After about five more minutes of enemies coming into the room we finally killed all of them. We then moved up the stairs most of the soldiers were coming from. Once we moved up the stairs, we got to the door the leads into the broadcasting room. One of my squad members then shoots the hinges off the door and we all enter ready for a fight. However once we are in there we find nothing. No enemies, no leader, no broadcast, nothing. Just a bunch of camera equipment and TVs. The Lieutenant relays the message to command and we are then told to mount up on the chopper. This was where the mission ended for now.
As I have played through a second time, I have found that this level is not as intense as most others, aside from dying a whole bunch and getting pretty frustrated. So far the storyline is alright. It's keeping me entertained enough to know whats going on, but its not the story drawing me in so far. Now it has no story as to who you are, apart from a U.S. Marine. Also it never shows your character, so you have no idea what he looks like. Without these, it's hard for the player to make a connection with the character. Thus if the character dies, then the player doesn't really care. Sometimes when you are walking by an allied soldier or shooting him, he might say something, but besides that the only social interactions that you have are with your commander. Overall the gameplay is what is really makes me want to keep playing. It is one of the best first-person shooters I have ever played. The controls are very easy to learn and use, which is probably why I like it so much.
DESIGN
Although this game is not the first of it's kind, it certainly is one of the most remarkable. Playing through this level helps to illustrate why. When you first come into the level you are on a chopper, and looking around I see the water, which does not look too much like actual water. However, I also see a wind effect on the top of the water that they added for when the helicopters are close to the water. They also made it so that you can't see your body when you look down. Personally I don't like that, however it is also nice when you can see things on the ground and not just your legs in the way of what you're looking at. Your character is allowed to take three different positions, (standing, crouching, prone) as well as jump, walk/run, and sprint. Each position has its advantages and disadvantages. Standing allows you to move the quickest, however it is the least accurate when shoot. As you get lower, you get slower, and more accurate. This allows me to snipe when I have to, keep suppressive fire constant, and run-and-gun when needed.
Now usually the game just has you fight some resistance on your way to whatever objective you might have. Occasionally you will have to defend an area, or protect a character. Typically your challenges are relatively simple, and involve following your squad and taking the next position. The level design is interesting, in the fact that it is linear but it is made to seem like an infinite level. By this I mean there is only one path to go, however the parts you can't go into still seem to go on, past just the see-able, unplayable area. The level I played was in a desert landscape. The visual aspect to this level alone was stunning. As I progressed through the level i noticed sand blowing around, real-time shadows and lighting, and a sun effect. The sun effect is really neat to me. when you look into the sun in the game you screen gets slightly darker as you move your head away and brightens back when your eyes adjust. Now since this game is done through the first-person, you can't get really see the scale of the invasion that's taking place. I found however, that it still felt like a pretty big operation with all the other Marines around me.
All this being said, there are still some things that I don't like about this game. I don't like how the events in the game are triggered by where you move to. For instance, enemy AI does not appear until you get to a certain point, and then they just keep appearing from that point, it seems like. Also the friendly AI is pretty horrible. One, their aim is terrible, two, they don't prioritize which person to take care of first, and three, they die easily. So going in with a whole squad is just about as good as going into it by yourself. The only good thing about it is that your squad mates give the enemy something else to shoot at instead of you. When you get shot by something, your screen shakes horribly, to the point where you can't kill the guy that is five ft. in front of you. Also the rewards are pretty stupid for whenever you beat a level. All that you are able to do is play that level over whenever you want. Even though there are a few things that I can argue over, all together I have to say that this game is fun, and easy to play. With a richly painted landscape, smooth controls, and a good story to tell, this game I can come back to and play again and again.
add a comment 
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| [September 8, 2009 08:28:29 PM]
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SUMMARY
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is, quite simply, a game about theoretical modern warfare situations. It is a first person shooter. It has both multiplayer and single player modes. The multiplayer focus is on leveling up and unlocking new equipment and camoflage. After each multiplayer match experience points are alloted to the player based on how well they did. The singleplayer mode is about stopping a radical leader in the middle east from overthrowing the government, and helping to quell a civil war in Russia. During single player mode, you jump around from two characters: an American Marine, and a British SAS commando. Now the gameplay is mostly just move around aim and shoot, with an occasional grenade toss. However there are a few interesting missions relying on stealth and sniper skills.
GAMEPLAY
For the first hour or so of play I decided to go with the single player mode. Single player starts you off as an S.A.S. commando named Soap McTavish going through training camp. Now the first thing I noticed was how well the objectives stand out. The first command given to me is to grab the pistol, and as I look around, the gun is on the table in front of me and it's flashing yellow so that you don't miss it. Another thing that they had was a little compas on the bottom of your screen that would show you which direction the next objective was located. So far finding the objectives have been very easy and I have had no problems there. Now I have played many first person shooters and this game was easy to pick up. The controls were very much like any other first-person shooter, so its not like I spent much time dying because I pressed duck instead of shoot. After you go through some more basic shooting and movement controls you move onto the course they have set up. The course starts with a quick slide down a rope and some fast paced shooting and moving. At first the course was a little confusing, but the nice thing about this is that you can do the course as many times as you want. I must have spent about fifteen minutes on this alone just trying to beat the best score. Sadly I failed by about three seconds. The training ends once you go over to your squad and the screen fades to black.
After the screen fades in from black you see that you are on a helicopter sitting next to your captain with two other squads mates opposite him. You see a ship in the distance of the stormy night. Once the helicopter gets over it you repel down to the ship with the rest of your team. When you get to the ship you are granted full control of Soap and I immediatly start to open fire on the bridge, along with my teamates, and take down about six hostiles. From there we made our way into the hull taking out any small resistance that we encountered. Once we reached the inside of the hull and cleared it out, we started to get some radioactivity near one of the crates. We found a device in there but only had time to take the manifest before we had to go. As we are leaving the room, we all suddenly get thrown to the ground by a giant blast. I then get promply pulled to my feet by the captain and we are then making a wild dash for our lives. From the blasts that occured on the ship was slowly turning on it's side and now sinking. This was probably my favorite part of the level. From here on out you cant use your weapon and you have to move as fast as you can through the ship by following you team. As im moving through, the ship is noticable turning on its side as my character is struggling to keep himself upright. Eventually we get outside and just barely make it to the helicopter, by jumping off of the ship up to opening in the back. I have to say that this part had me sitting on the edge of my seat. It was also a nice finish they added by having you almost fall off the chopper but have the captain pull you back up.
Overall my gameplay experience has been great. The storyline has been done well so far. It has kept me glued to the game even after going through this part for the second or third time. Also the aiming mechanics work very well for how i play first-person shooters. Now grenades in this game are a little more powerfull than I am used to. However, whats nice in this is that if you are within range of a grenade that can kill you, a little grenade icon comes up on your screen and points to the general area of the grenade. So you can use this knowlege to run away, or even get close enough to grab the grenade and throw it back to them. One of the most amazing things that i have seen in this game so far is the smoke grenade effect. It actually looks like smoke and kinda acts like smoke. I can't recall another game that has done a smoke grenade nearly as well. So far this game looks great and plays great with only a few things to nit pick about.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Sep 9th, 2009 at 21:34:44.
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Absolute2's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 29 August, 2009
GameLog closed on: Sunday 13 September, 2009 |
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