Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
One look at the opening scenes in Call of Duty 4 and you’ll be reaching for your wallet. You could be reaching for a bucket too because you’re out at sea on a cargo ship at the mercy of a turbulent storm. However we’d wager that adrenaline alone will help you find your sea legs. By adopting modern warfare as the theme, COD4 has discovered an arresting new sense of purpose.
Ahead of the game’s 9 November release on Xbox 360, PC and PS3, Activision has been brandishing a couple of single-player campaign missions. Our preview session with the game was divided between the first assignment of the whole story, featuring the SAS, then later a United States Force Recon team in the Middle East. You’ll spend plenty of time exploring the tactical limits of both throughout Call of Duty 4.
So to begin with you find yourself as the member of an SAS team fast-roping onto the deck of a cargo ship at sea. The vessel has an Estonian registration and is believed to have incriminating documents onboard that may provide leads to a terrorist organisation. It isn’t especially good weather for sailing. The deck rises and falls, rocks and rolls beneath your feet as waves smash across the hull. At least you’re going inside where it’s dry.
Because this cargo ship represents the first mission of the game your enemy is caught by surprise and is poorly armed. They lack your military training, so really this is mostly about showing off the gut-thumping ear-splitting sound effects of modern weaponry, and to get used to being blinded by flash grenades while your ears ring. This old tub is impressively rendered with rusting rivets and so much mechanical detail that you take its authenticity for granted while scurrying down corridors behind your team mates. Just as you achieve an adrenalin-high from all the rattattattat in the engine room something disorientates you completely. The objective immediately changes to emergency escape; hope you remember the way you came…
The closing sequence of the opening level is a masterpiece. The ship is sinking. It is still being tossed violently by the sea. You must fight to maintain balance as the horizontal errs toward vertical. At last on deck you spy your helicopter transport hovering just within reach of the rising stern (or was it the bow, impossible to know!). Your last act is to leap to safety, which we missed several times of course.
After the cold and wet SAS slap across the face you’re introduced to life in Force Recon in the hot and dusty Middle East. It’s night time but nobody is sleeping, instead an entire bombed out city is engaged in the mother of all gunfights. Missiles fizz close by trailing curls of smoke. Helicopters spin out of control overhead before exploding into the side of a derelict building. You’re tempted to dash to cover behind one of the burning cars, but this is a bad idea as cars are likely to explode.
Force Recon’s task is to explode a convoy of M1A2 Abrams tanks. This is another set piece waiting to happen, but beforehand the inaugural Middle East mission is themed around the effects of high-calibre weapons. Yes, now you can shoot through walls to pick off targets! From your point of view as a rookie in fight-or-flight mode this means you can’t squat behind walls indefinitely until your buddies save the day. This entire mission – viewed mostly in nigh-vision cabbage green and surrounded by smoke – is played constantly on the hop. You need to buy yourself time to nail those tanks, and line up possibly the best weapon ever featured in a first-person shooter: The Javelin anti-armour missile.
The Javelin is shoulder-fired in a similar fashion to a bazooka. Once locked on target the missile flies high into the sky instead of scooting directly toward the target. Upon reaching height the missile then nose-dives onto its target – of which there is very little remaining after the explosion. Hooah, indeed!
Call of Duty 4 is the finest showcase of present-generation gaming tech yet seen. Our demo was carried out on the Xbox 360, and it was incredible to think that the comparatively sterile Halo 3 environments are produced by the same console.
We are confident in saying that COD4 will exceed all expectations on 9 November.
