Call of Duty 4 mini review

I've found I like to write about the narrative of the games I play and share what I think and how I feel once I've reached their end. The narrative and characters in a game are much more important to me than the game play or graphics. Game play and graphics are important but it's the story that will capture my imagination and keep me playing a game.

I've never been into the Call of Duty franchise. In all honesty I got tired of WW2 and killing Nazis after playing Return to Castle Worlfenstein.  I'm just generally happier playing shooters that pit the player against fictional enemies in a fictional setting.  Games that pass the Lego test or are at least close.  Gears of War was borderline but still completely fictional. So when almost all of ART of WAR started playing CoD4 I was a little skeptical.  Still I broke down and rented the game to give it a chance.

I won't really go into what I think of multi-player since I really haven't played enough matches yet.  It seems like halo in a sandier setting.  The multi-player in this case got me to try the game, but the single player narrative grabbed me and kept me.

***SPOILER WARNING***
This is all the warning you will get.  From here out I have no choice but to spoil CoD4.  If you like games with strong story and cinematic presentation please go play the game already and come back and see if you agree with me.
***/SPOILER WARNING***

From the word GO it is obvious that CoD4 is all about scripted encounters and playing the game almost on rails.  I would say that the single player game is closer to an interactive movie than most games.  Halo 3 plays like a game with cut scenes for telling the epic story.  Bioshock encouraged you to play the game on your terms, would you kindly.  Call of Duty 4 is definitely an action movie where you get to pull the trigger, but the game unfolds as the directory wanted.

And it works very well for the story.

Where Halo would use cut scenes and Bioshock would use inline audio, Call of Duty uses first person events.   During these events, movement is generally restricted and combat isn't participatory. They are used sparingly throughout the game but there are three big moments that I'll remember. at the start, midpoint and end of the game.  Near the start of the game, you are the deposed president of a fictional middle eastern nation.  You are being driven around a city watching the coup unfold.  At the end of this opening scene, you are executed by one of the antagonists.

The end of the game really drives home the point that war sucks, especially when it's a covert war that the public will never really hear about.  It's definitely a bitter sweet ending, although I do wish it had more of a real epilogue to it.  I really did find myself caring about the other members of the squad by the end of the game, and caring about "Soap" since you spend most of the game controlling him.

In the end there is the satisfaction in getting the kill shot(s) on the main protagonist, and the bitterness in knowing that the rest of the squad is dead.  Infinity ward did a good job of making each of the characters seem real enough to allow you to care about them.  They didn't take things as far as they could have in that regard but they definitely opened the door to allow it and did nothing to prevent it.