Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Written by Jason Cisarano  on October 19, 2007

Hands-On Preview: It hasn't shipped yet, but it looks like Call of Duty is going to deliver yet again.

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Smoke rises over the broken city of Al Asad as a Marine rifle squad assembles on what must have once been a bustling highway. The only remnants of the former traffic are burnt-out shells of automobiles that litter the pavement.

Yes, it's time for another addition to the Call of Duty family, the franchise that set the standard for the World War II shooter. Who could forget crawling up the shore unarmed in the Battle of Stalingrad level and then acting as bait as a skilled sniper picked off German machine gunners one by one? But now, moments like that have passed into the stuff of gaming legend now that Infinity Ward has hung up their M1 Garands to update Call of Duty to a fictional, present-day conflict. In this outing, you'll still play as U.S. and British soldiers, but with the promise that the separate campaigns are all part of a larger storyline involving rogue Arab and Russian warlords with a grudge against the world. Apparently, they've gotten their hands on some very nasty weaponsЧthe opening cut scene in the demo shows a pair of missile launchesЧand it's up to the player to keep the world safe for democracy, as it were.



The demo gave us a look at one level from the point of view of U.S. Marine Sergeant Paul Jackson, a man armed with some serious firepower. He carries an M4A1 rifle with an under-barrel M203 grenade launcher in addition to a pistol, hand grenades, and what looked like flash bangs. There wasn't much call for the flash bangs in the demo mission, but perhaps their presence means that other missions will reflect the conduct of current conflicts and require the player to capture or subdue targets without killing them. That's not the case in this mission, howeverЧthis one is all death and destruction. A lone M1 Abrams tank is stranded in hostile territory, and it's up to the Marines to get them out. It's a mission set in urban terrain, and a good chunk of the danger comes from snipers on rooftops and in dark windows. The game's graphics are certainly up to the challenge of making this feel like a real city: there's plenty of clutter all over the ground, amazing detail in all the walls and buildings, and a stunning light effect that makes the sky seem to be illuminated by a city on fire. Even without all the graphics settings maxed out, this is a good looking game. With everything turned up, there are some cool lighting effects, including a bit of glow that shows at the edges of characters as they approach brightly lit areas. It's tough to describe, but it looks sharp. Call of Duty has always been great at giving atmosphere, and this game is no exception.

The gameplay will feel very familiar to anyone who has played any of the previous Call of Duty installments. There's the usual WASD layout and the familiar Уlean left,Ф Уlean rightФ with the Q and E keys. It does seem that the guys at Infinity Ward have been playing some other modern shooters in the past few years, thoughЧthe lean keys don't seem to lean as dramatically as the older versions did, giving the game a more realistic feel. The game retains the Уshift-to-sprintФ mechanic introduced back in the United Offensive mission pack, but this time out there isn't a visible stamina gauge that drains as the character runs. Overall, HUD elements are much less intrusive than before, since only the compass is always present on the screen. Other items, like ammo reserves, only appear as needed before fading out again. The compass might be a bit less useful than before, since it no longer shows the locations of friendlies. To get that kind of info requires hitting Escape to get to the game menu where there's also a minimapЧbut with the hassle involved, it seems like the designers don't want you to use that minimap. One somewhat drastic change to the control scheme is that the number keys are no longer bound to specific weapon types. To throw a grenade in Modern warfare, there's no need now to hit the У5Ф key and then aim and click with the mouse. All you do now is aim and hit УG.Ф So that means no more equipping grenades in multiplayer to run faster.

Other new elements include hardware like Aimpoint-style sights for the U.S. weapons instead of iron sights. There's also an effective night-vision goggle setup, though it wasn't needed in this mission. In fact, it's really the technology that sets this game apart from its predecessors. On the Stalingrad shore, there was something amazing about a sniper armed with a weapon of wood and steel dinging targets from a hundred yards away. In this one, the mission starts with a satellite's-eye view of the whole country where the battle is taking place before it zooms into an overview of the city where the fighting is to take place. It shows the location of the tank and then the location of the squad in what turns out to be not only an effective mission briefing, but also a cover for the level load screen! The level loads so smoothly and quickly in the background that it's almost imperceptible the first time through. The demo mission didn't give much sense of the overall storyline of the game, though it did give the feel of a slick, modern presentation that promises to smoothly bridge the gaps between the missions.

Every Call of Duty installment has promised players that УNo one fights alone,Ф and the Modern Warfare update sticks to this tradition. Sgt. Jackson fights alongside a squad of U.S. Marines, though like the earlier games, it was impossible to get any sense of personality from the different characters. The game still uses the conceit of showing the names of friendly characters when under the player's sights, but there's no other way to differentiate between them. Unlike other recent squad-based shooters, there's no way to control friendlies or even to give them any orders. Like the older versions, they know where they're supposed to go (i.e. they're scripted to know), and if the player strays from the set path, they either follow blindly along or simply wait until Jackson returns to complete the next objective on the list. Still, if the demo level is any indication of the level design in the overall game, Modern Warfare looks like it will do a really good job of disguising the fact that there's only one path through the level. There are open spaces that allow some freedom, and it seems like the way enemies behave in these open areas might have some room for variation. They tended to show up in similar spots on multiple play-throughs, but they didn't seem to do exactly the same thing each time.

There are also things like alleys and alternate doors that help give the illusion of choice, but it's hard to forget that it's all there to funnel the player from one area to the next. In some games, this would be damning criticism, but in a Call of Duty game, this is nothing but a means of delivering an amazing cinematic experience. Sure, the player may sometimes be an actor responsible for hitting his mark at a the right time to set off another chain of scripted events, but there really aren't many other games that do it this well. The demo level ends on a literal example of this: the player has to run to a glowing mark on the ground in order to drop an IR beacon that will mark friendly territory for an incoming air strike. The glowing circles on the ground pretty much spoil the realism and atmosphere that the game has created up to that point, but maybe the designers can be forgiven since it precedes an impressive bit of close-air support as a couple of Cobra helicopters use volleys of air-to-ground missiles to knock huge chunks out of an enemy-held building. It's a typically dramatic Call of Duty payoff to a level, giving the player a breather while ramping up the devastation to levels both terrifying and exhilarating.

If there's any criticism to be leveled at Modern Warfare, it's that the demo level relies on some familiar set pieces to make the action happen. For instance, there's the usual shooting gallery moment, where the bad guys are on one side and the good guys are on the other, each behind some kind of wall. Completing that challenge isn't much more than waiting for the bad guys to pop up from behind their cover like so many ducks in a barrel, or however that saying goes. Of course Modern Warfare adds a twist to that by making some walls penetrable to gunfire, so sometimes you can cut things short by putting a couple of rounds through the drywall. And then there's the impenetrable fortress moment. The building those Cobras take out is packed with bad guys, butЧto quote Jesse VenturaЧthey're dug in like an Alabama tick. What's worse, they seem to be scripted to be invincible, and no matter how much lead thrown in their direction, they stay safe behind their barricades. The only way to win is to hit that mark and let those helicopters earn their pay.