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Saturday 9 February, 2008
GAMEPLAY:
I have played through several more levels including the end of the American campaign, and I can honestly say that I am enthralled in the storyline. The twists and turns that they put you through are absolutely brilliant, while keeping a realistic edge that makes the story seem entirely possible in the real world. The enemies are difficult and tend to throw grenades a lot to which you must run or toss it back, but the thing that annoys me is when the enemies throw three grenades to the same spot. A bit of overkill, but it is just a slight annoyance to the overall game experience. A rare one at that, too.
What also annoys me is the fact that the allied AI tends to have this annoying habit of blocking you during the scenes that entrances must be made after something like blowing a door open. Personally, I would like to be the first through to see the surprise and just fire like crazy to take advantage of that, though if you happen to be a second too late, you will find yourself following very closely behind an ally. If only there was a push button, I would shove him through as a human bullet shield. I know, not realistic, but it would have been satisfying.
DESIGN:
First off, the controls of the game are very intuitive with the standard control of a first person shooter, also allowing you to change the controls to your preference. I made sure to change a few keys, including the melee attack which was awkwardly placed as “v” which was a bit out of the way. The controls were responsive and the hit registration was satisfyingly accurate and clean.
The health system is not one of a health bar, but of a type of regeneration where if you take a hit, you can heal up by just taking cover for a short time. But if you take enough hits in a short period and you will be down to the ground like a dead fish. This type of health system is perfectly suited for the type of game that Call of Duty 4 is, allowing beginning players a more lenient way to stay alive and preventing expert players from attempting to commit a sort of Rambo maneuver, where they would run out in the open, gun-blazing in full auto. Not that it prevents the AI from doing the same exact thing.
I have explained before about the enemy AI, and while they are difficult opponents to fight in open spaces, they still try to charge you when you are shooting at them. While this may be fine if they all charge at once (which sometimes happen), but you often see them charge one at a time, allowing you to easily pick them off. If they could have put in some intelligence for the AI such as letting some of them use suppressive fire (unloading their entire clip to keep the enemy in cover) while allowing their allies to rush it, it would be a much more satisfying experience. But I do concede that they effectively use grenades to flush you out.
The graphics were a good point, allowing a immersive environment that utilized weather such as rain to give a better feel to the game as well as put very minute detail on locations that you would only probably see once in the entire game. The voice actors were superb and carefully chosen. The mission introductions makes you feel like you are getting a briefing from a superior on the objective of your mission. Not to mention that the sound effects of the weapons and explosion gives off the feeling of a true battlefield. All of these factors give the game a great immersion rating in my book, and truly makes the experience worthwhile.
Overall, this game comes as one of my highly recommended.
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