Call of Duty 4-Game info

[AI Psychosis IA]

GAMEPLAY

Many were concerned that Infinity Ward would stray too far from their roots with a Modern Warfare title. What some people do not know, is that the concept for a modern warfare game has been discussed within the Infinity Ward team for years. Due to publisher requests, and politics, the team have not been able to fulfill their dream, until now.

While we all know that Call Of Duty 2 was a spectacular game, Call Of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare is pretty much like CoD2 on crack! Imagine everything you loved about CoD2, being taken back into the studio, and improved upon, stuffed full with extra's and the most breathtaking graphics to ever grace the xbox 360 console. Are you picturing it? Well you are only starting to scratch the surface on the potential of this game.

The gameplay is classic Infinity Ward style. Intense battles, excellent user interface, and second to none visuals.

For those of you who were worried about a Battlefield 2 style release, chillax! The game plays in a very similar war to previous Infinity Ward titles, only this time around they seem to have taken everything they do to the next level. Im not talking about just improving on the previous IW titles, Im talking about raising the bar for the entire First Person Shooter Genre.

IMPROVEMENTS

CoD4 boast a huge number of weapons both in single and multi player. Some of the weapons I saw on the single player campaigns include;
Mp5, M9, Mini uzi, RPG, M-16, and an AK47

Another brilliant improvement is the melee attack. Instead of simply beating an enemy down with your rifle butt at close range, you will now sling your rifle, and shank your enemy with a combat issue knife. Your player model will execute one of three different knife attacks, depending on the distance and angle of the melee attack. This new knife melee is used in both single and multiplayer.

Gone are the binoculars. You will now sprint using the left analog stick. The amount of time you can sprint for has an overall limit, but you sprint speed will vary, depending on the weight of your weapon.

You can now wall players during both SP and MP. The days of camping corners are somewhat limited now, as a well organized team can lay down suppressive fire onto an entire building that may be concealing an enemy. The bullet penetration will vary, depending on the type of material you are attempting to shoot through and the ballistics of your weapon.

A pistol will not do you any good while trying to hit an enemy through a wall, but a well aimed assault rifle can take out a camper with relative ease. You can shoot through walls and floors. So now when you go into a building, and hear those floorboards creaking above, you no longer need to risk attempting to advance up that awkward staircase. You can simply light up the entire room above, from below. A great touch that I think will work really well on a competitive level.

Another cool touch was the destructible vehicles. You can now shoot out lights, windows, and tires on vehicles before finally blowing them up.

Graphics are amazing. The transition from single player to multiplayer is seamless. 60 frames per second all round. So basically that means that all the HD videos you have been seeing (like the trailer, etc), is exactly how it looks in multiplayer.


SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN

The single player campaign has been very cleverly designed. Instead of a linear approach, you will flashback to different squads, in different theaters all over the world. Another clever design feature is the transition from different squads on the battlefield.

For example: you may start a mission as an infantry soldier advancing through wooded areas to your destination, with helicopter squads flying overhead providing covering fire. Once you have completed the checkpoint on foot, you will be whizzed up into one of the helicopters that were just helping you, and you will then take on the role of an airship gunman, providing the covering fire for the infantry squad that you were just a part of. This unique approach provides the gamers with a constant change of pace, and force the player to adapt to their new task.

Infinity Ward have also spent alot of time making sure that you never get bored during the SP. Almost every mission is different from the previous level, in terms of theater of operations, job description, and overall approach on how to successfully complete a mission.

In 'Cargo' you will rappel onto an ocean tanker, tactically eliminating the enemy crew before completing your task, while in 'Death from above', you will play the roleof an airship gunman, laying down some serious fire power on the enemy units using night/heat vision. 'Bog' challenges you to change your approach yet again, with hundreds of enemy fighters working together in an urban environment to bring your squad down.

You dont want to be sneaking around too much in this kind of situation, so you end up unloading clip after clip into buildings, while enormous heated gunfights errupt all around you. IW also brought in professional hollywood stunt doubles to perform body movements for the on screen explosions.The word Intense does not do this game justice. Its just plain crazy!

The first level I saw is currently labeled 'Cargo'. While some of the names and details are subject to change before the final release, I can confidently say that you will probably get to play this level sometime in the near future.

You will start out in full SAS assault gear, riding into battle on a helicopter, on a rain filled night. If you watch the reveal trailer closely, the opening scene shows a helicopter approaching a large ocean tanker in the middle of the night. This is your approach to the beginning of the Cargo mission. Also, if you watch the very last scene of the reveal trailer you will see Captain Price pulling down his night vision goggles, before you follow suit, preparing for battle.

Once you are prepared for battle, your squad will rappel down onto the top deck of the tanker, engaging enemies almost instantly. A nice touch is the surprise factor that comes with your night attack. Just like in real life, you will find the crew intially unaware of the breach, so it is easy pickings for a short while.

Another nice touch was sneaking through a cabin to watch one of your squad members quickly dispose of some sleeping enemies. One second they're counting sheep and sucking on their thumbs, next second a badass SAS dude is pumping rounds into their bedsheets. A very nice, realistic touch, that really helps to immerse you into the game. You can imagine a similar situation in real life, where the enemies are surprised, and take some time to gather speed and begin to organize their counter attacks.

After clearing the top deck, you head over to a storage container that looks to be holding some kind of explosives, possibly a nuclear warhead. You grab a manifest and begin heading through the ship, eliminating enemies on sight.

While you are heading back to the surface deck, the ship is riddled with explosions, causing the craft the capsize. The visual effects are absolutely amazing during this part of the mission. Fire spreads throughout the ship, with smaller explosions, gas leaks, broken lighting, all adding to the realism.

The one thing that really stood out, was that after the ship does capsize, the entire runway, and surrounding environment tilt on a slight angle. So while your screen is still fixed in position, you are forced to approach your escape a little differently, as the entire environment is sways with the sinking motion of the tanker.

I will not spoil the entire mission, so I will go no further, but I will say that the way you depart the vessel is pretty freaking cool man!


MULTIPLAYER


Let me start out by quoting Grant Collier, one of the main men at IW. During his presentation he said the following "Our goal for Multiplayer, was to be the top competitive Multiplayer game on console". With that said, Ill start explaining what they have done to make this mission statement a reality.

16 player multiplayer - You will be able to limit room sizes in private matches though.

Spectator + Killcam are back!

CLASS SELECTION

You will have a choice of 5 starting classes (sniper, assault, Spec. Ops, Heavy gunner, Demolitions)

Once you have picked your class you will have a selection of different weapons to choose from, that fit into that description. You will start the game with certain weapons being available from the get go, but there will also be some weapons that will need to be unlocked by playing MP matches.

When selecting your class, you will be able to choose your primary weapon, side arm, and Special Grenade (choose from flash, stun, or smoke) You will always have frags

You will then have some different options to choose from regarding your weapon, such as attachments, and camo patterns.

You will also be able to make custom classes. This will allow you to select a class, and customize you player to fit your style, or the gametype you are playing. You can choose light weapons, and less attachments to create a scout/runner who can help to tip the balance in a CTF match, or set up a heavily armed assault guy, that you can switch out to defend the HQ. You have the option to change/browse the classes before each respawn, so you will need to constantly adapt during matches, to make sure you have a well balanced team in regards to what your enemy is doing.

RANKS

During multiplayer matches, you will be constantly scoring experience points. You will receive points for kills, assists, scores, etc. There is a small bar at the bottom of the screen that slowly fills up as you are playing. When you reach a certain point, you will rank up, in turn unlocking different weapons, and different perks (I will get to the perks shortly).

PARTY SYSTEM

You will now be able to party up with your buddies (Halo 2 style). You will then be able to travel from match to match without breaking up your group. Unlike Shadowrun, IW spent alot of time making sure that parties who join matches, will indeed be playing on the same team. You will be able to party up and play ranked matches all night with your friends if you wish.

PERKS

Perks are basically upgradable options you earn from gather Experience points during matches. Each player is limited to 3 perks in a match. You can adjust the perks you wish to use while creating your class. I think that the perks are a really cool way to keep the game fresh all the time. Depending on what perks your team mates and enemies pick, a match will always feel different. A few examples of some of the perks I saw were as follows;

Last Stand - When shot in certain areas of the body, you will no longer die instantly, but will have approximately 10 seconds to fire off some pistol rounds. Although another bullet or two will finish off any player working on a last stand perk.

Eaves Drop - You can hear enemy voice communications within a 30 meter radius of your position

Faster Reload - you will reload your weapons faster than a player who has not activated this perk

less noise - your player model will move around the map making less noise than normal.

There was also another cool perk I saw in action (forgot the name), where you dropped a nade when you died. It was pretty funny watching someone try to T-Bag a dead body, only to get blown to smithereens by the nade he dropped as he went down. LoL.

You will also be able to see what perks you enemy has activated by watching the killcam.

CHALLENGES

The challenges are pretty cool. You will complete them as you play through online matches. Things like getting a certain number of kills, or completing a type of shot, etc

Some of the cool options I really liked were the rewards for kill streaks, The most I saw was a 7 kill streak. 3 kill streak allowed Jason to call in radar air support. He selected an area on the HUD and a plane would fly overhead, revealing all of the enemies on the map for about 20 seconds. This benefits your entire team, as their HUDs will also display the enemy positions. 5 kills allowed him to call in an airstrike. 7 kills allowed him to call in a helicopter gunship.

I was a little sceptical when I first saw this, but the game has been balanced so well that you can easily counter any of these attacks with good teamwork and communication. Also, when some kind of Air assault is heading your way, you will get a voice warning, allowing savvy players to run under cover.

GAMETYPES

Now the gametypes I saw are not final, and some may be removed prior to release, some may even be added. What i did see/discuss are the following:

Team Deathmatch
Deathmatch
HeadQuarte rs
Capture the flag
Search + Destroy
Sabotage - Neutral bomb in center, must collect bomb, and arm at enemy base.
Demolition - I have no idea. The guys wouldnt disclose too much on this one.

Another cool touch is the HARDCORE MP option. Kinda like an overall option that you can add on top of your gametype. Hardcore option will turn off the radar display and crosshair, and will make the bullets much more deadly. Its like a super realistic way to play CoD4.

Although I didnt see it in action, Robert (fourzerotwo) did talk to me about custom gametype options. For example, he talked about a way to make a game Headshots only, so that only headshots will register when playing.

Talk of upgrades and unlockables always raises the question about level playing fields.

Rest assured that Infinity Ward have worked very hard to make sure that the game is extremely well balanced. This means that although you may be playing with upgraded weapons and perks, a starter weapon will still be able to compete with the rest of the guns on the battlefield. Also, even if you are playing against someone with an upgraded weapon, if you kill them, you will be able to pick it up, and give your enemy a taste of their own medicine. Grant Collier also stated that most of the higher end unlockables are strictly cosmetic/vanity items (upgraded camo choices, etc.)

When searching for matches, you will also be balanced against players with similar experience levels.

The IW team stated that they had four main cornerstones for the multiplayer aspect of CoD4. Fun, Community, Accessability, and Depth. This game looks to deliver on all counts.

[AI HoHo IA]

I have to go change my pants before I finish =o