Obviously, the Wii port of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was going to have a few setbacks visually. However, Digital Foundry's recent hands-on with the game suggests developer Treyarch was successful in recreating the overall feel of the original game. "Texture detail and geometry levels are savagely hacked down, lighting effects and shadowing are brutally pared back, frame-rate is cut from 60FPS down to the more manageable 30FPS," the preview notes. However, "it does a good enough job of capturing the look of the original," Digital Foundry concludes.
Of course, visuals aren't the most important aspect of Modern Warfare's transition to the Wii. Digital Foundry answers the hard-pressing question: how does it control? At times "beautifully," although "awkward button placement on the controller makes things difficult for anything other than running and gunning."
It may be watered down, but Reflex will finally grant Wii owners the ability to see what all the fuss was about. While the port is deemed "functional," we can't help but lament the fact that this Wii port still can't best some games from the last generation of consoles.
Reader Comments (111)
Posted: Nov 11th 2009 9:51PM EatMoreBread said
Like fitting a round peg in a square hole.
Posted: Nov 11th 2009 10:42PM rowd149 said
Question: Is the reason these 3rd-party Wii games look so bad (like, in all seriousness, they look WORSE than a lot of Gamecube games) because the developers making these types of games don't have a lot of experience pushing the hardware to its full potential? HMM. Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me.
Posted: Nov 11th 2009 11:50PM (Unverified) said
Will this be coming to the Lynx?
Posted: Nov 12th 2009 12:10AM (Unverified) said
Just got CoD4 in July for PC and I love it( I don't have to PAY to play online,EVER!!!), but I am impressed with this Wii port. Expected MUCH worse, I knew graphically the Wii could match the other versions, but the sound and vibe of CoD4 remains intact.
Posted: Nov 12th 2009 1:04AM (Unverified) said
I use my wiimote on my PC via Glovepie and PPJoy. Best of all worlds for playing PC games from the couch.
Posted: Nov 12th 2009 1:11AM (Unverified) said
wow, some of these commenters are dicks! seriously, this looks ok. if it had come out 2 yrs ago looking just like this, i would have been all over it. (all i had at the time was the Wii). seriously, i expected it to look significantly worse. also... i've been asking for this for several years now, but maybe Criterion will listen... please make a new Black. please?
Posted: Nov 12th 2009 1:36AM Giroro said
Did anyone really think that this would look better than Black?
I thought everyone knew that the Gamecube is weaker than the Xbox1.
I thought everyone knew that the Gamecube is weaker than the Xbox1.
Posted: Nov 12th 2009 7:34AM (Unverified) said
"It may be watered down, but Reflex will finally grant Wii owners the ability to see what all the fuss was about."
We don't need to play the game to know what the fuss is about. My roommates won't stop playing it (at painful levels of volume on all FOUR FUCKING TV'S WE HAVE IN THE LIVING ROOM) and my coworkers won't shut the fuck up about it. This game isn't some hidden treasure. Everyone talks about it. Everyone knows what it is.
And on the topic of the graphics, of course the game looks bad. Instead of rebuilding the game from the ground up like a decent developer would have, they took the models from the original and dropped the resolution. I won't be buying this game for my Wii, but it's not the Wii's fault. Maybe if the developers actually put forth the effort to make the Wii version decent, but even then, I already can't stand the franchise because of the amount of forced exposure I've had to deal with.
And seriously, what is up with this generation and first person shooters? Almost every game that gets any exposure or praise is an FPS. I don't hate the 360, far from it. There are plenty of games on it that I like and many coming that I'm looking forward to, but none of them seem to get any of the respect that any degenerate shooter will get in droves. Seriously, shit gets old really fast.
We don't need to play the game to know what the fuss is about. My roommates won't stop playing it (at painful levels of volume on all FOUR FUCKING TV'S WE HAVE IN THE LIVING ROOM) and my coworkers won't shut the fuck up about it. This game isn't some hidden treasure. Everyone talks about it. Everyone knows what it is.
And on the topic of the graphics, of course the game looks bad. Instead of rebuilding the game from the ground up like a decent developer would have, they took the models from the original and dropped the resolution. I won't be buying this game for my Wii, but it's not the Wii's fault. Maybe if the developers actually put forth the effort to make the Wii version decent, but even then, I already can't stand the franchise because of the amount of forced exposure I've had to deal with.
And seriously, what is up with this generation and first person shooters? Almost every game that gets any exposure or praise is an FPS. I don't hate the 360, far from it. There are plenty of games on it that I like and many coming that I'm looking forward to, but none of them seem to get any of the respect that any degenerate shooter will get in droves. Seriously, shit gets old really fast.
Posted: Nov 12th 2009 9:43AM (Unverified) said
I'd probably purchase a length of rope to hang myself if I owned a wii right now.




