War is good -- for games. Infinity Ward's latest, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, hits the shelves with resounding applause. It really will be a good quarter for publisher Activision. Call of Duty 4 drops all that feel-good WWII stuff and goes straight for the modern war quagmire resulting in an even more intense experience than the series is known for. Modern combat apparently brings out modern intensity.
Game Daily(100/100): "Combat is visceral and unrivaled. You've never experienced anything more vicious and unforgiving. Rockets zip past your head, attack choppers shred nearby houses with gunfire, jets carpet bomb an area, tanks blast through walls and soldiers fall by the hundreds. The insanity, coupled with your character's inability to absorb as many hits as in other games (Halo 3, Bioshock), causes you to question your actions and rethink strategies. Bottom line, if this game represents even just a fraction of the hell actual soldiers deal with on a day-to-day basis, we have a newfound respect for the armed forces."
IGN(94/100): "The single-player experience is easily Infinity Ward's best work to date. Calling it intense may be an understatement. The overall story is standard action movie fare, but the relationships built over the short five hours of play are surprisingly strong. Though the single-player lacks length, the multiplayer should keep you invested in COD4 for the long winter. This is a truly fantastic multiplayer offering that's as deep as any other online game available."
GameTap(90/100): "COD4 grips the imagination and finds a way to impact the player's emotions. And though we've seen a ton of games on similar subject matter, COD4 distinguishes itself with a washed-out gritty look and profound attention to detail. That same level of detail carries over to the online campaigns, which are just as vast and in-depth as anything found in the single player missions. From beginning to end--especially the end--COD4 is an amazing immersive experience. All other first-person shooters coming out definitely have to step it up at this point, because the bar has been set high."
Gametrailers sat down with Lead Character Artist Joel Emslie at the recent Call of Duty 4 hands-on experience, and the video above doles out most of what you'll be encountering in the beta, whenever it finally comes out.
He gives out some of the goods on the create a class feature, what types of maps are in the beta, and how you can level up your weapons. His weapon of choice? A silenced AK-47, which sounds (or ... doesn't sound) particularly nasty. Check out the video and keep pining for that beta to drop soon.
We've already had a first look at Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and we've seen the multiplayer video that was pre-alpha, but this was the first chance for us to snatch up the controller and get our hands dirty in the actual game. Sure, it's a beta build, but the first thing we can say is yes ... it does look that good.
The second thing we can say is yes ... it does look that good, and then some. Activision had an event at a trendy bar / club in Los Angeles yesterday, and we were among one of the first groups to get our game on outside of Infinity Ward. Despite some major router issues on their end that delayed things by a couple of hours, the game still managed to blow us away thoroughly.
E3 hasn't even officially started yet, and the trailers are already ankle-deep from Monday's appearances alone. Just wait until it's raining assets later in the week and you can't keep up with anything. You'll feel a bit like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. You won't want to watch anymore, but you won't be able to help it.
Viddy everything that popped online Monday after the break, with the added bonus of the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare E3 trailer. Even though it came out a couple of days ago and is a total mouthful, it's well worth a second look.
Infinity Ward's studio head Grant Collier, who we reported yesterday was unhappy with the overuse of sandbox gameplay and destructible environments, told IGN in an interview that there was no interest in using Live Anywhere for PC and Xbox 360 cross-play.
The Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare developer put it bluntly: "We said no and they didn't call back." Clarifying, Collier said "[it's cool] if you're playing online poker, but who wants to be playing an RTS on a console and have some guy on a PC clicking and dragging all his troops, attacking your base while you're sitting there with your thumb sticks." The keyboard/mouse vs. gamepad argument is a long-standing battle, and clearly Collier feels that they cannot be equals for fast-paced strategy or first-person shooter titles.
Unfortunately, we can't attribute Michael Pachter's warning to Activision as a direct quote, as analysts are forbidden from saying "Hey" and are forced to substitute the informal greeting with "pardon me" or "pay attention to me, please." In commenting on Activision's glowing fiscal report and strong NPD presence to GameDaily BIZ, Pachter draws attention to several challenges Activision faces in the coming months. "All things are not perfect in Activision's world," he says.
Pachter predicts that the glaring imperfections (to put it mildly) highlighted by reviewers in the Spider-Man 3 games will curtail sales, and that Call of Duty 4's proposed Iraq setting may prove to leave an equally bad taste in the consumer's mouth. More interestingly, the analyst notes that if Harmonix's EA-published Rock Band is fully playable with just a guitar controller, it will "compete quite favorably with Activision's [Guitar Hero]." He suspects the instrument protagonist genre will remain kind to RedOctane's owner, but adds that "new entrants will impact future growth of the band." Or did he mean brand?
Once the dust settles in the battle of the fake bands, will Pachter still stand by his belief that Activision was right to buy RedOctane over Harmonix?
Nay, the traditional adherence to a mere two dimensions simply isn't modern enough to convey the frenetic excitement and danger found in Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat Warfare. Frequent publisher of mass destruction, Activision, has blasted out this 3D screenshot depicting the upcoming shooter in all its gritty glory. If the above video leaves you unsatisfied, you'll also find a series of stills and the original 50MB Quicktime file at Xboxyde.
Perhaps this dimensional expansion should be interpreted as a statement of sorts, further highlighting Infinity Ward's movement away from thematically flat World War II shooters. Check back with us when we hit the point where modern war games are considered passé as well.
Sure, you could wait until the NFL draft on ESPN today to see the "exclusive worldwide reveal" of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare ... or you can just click the movie above. CoD4 was pseudo-announced earlier this week when advertisements for the game showed up on our own little piece of the intertubes. Now game announcements can come in many forms, either from the actual company, ESRB, Gamefly or even the advertisements on our own website.
It definitely looks like Call of Duty is going in a different direction, for better or worse will certainly be determined by sales. It looks like we've got some nasty "Eastern Europeans" and jihadists. Fighting Nazis is pretty cool across the board, but delving into the modern political climate may hit just a little close to home. Check out the trailer above to see if it reminds you of a stylized version of the six o'clock news.
Infinity Ward's
