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Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

User Rating:

ESRB: Blood and Gore,Intense Violence,Strong Language
Publisher: Activision
Genre(s): Shooting
Home Page: http://www.callofduty.com/

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By: Antti Summala Nov 26, 2007

As good as they come

Call of Duty 4 has the best of both worlds: a tight, fast-paced single player campaign that never feels like a chore, and a fleshed-out multiplayer game with dozens or hundreds of hours of gameplay in it. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend COD4 to any first-person shooter fan, aged 17 or older; there's no question that some of the single player campaign scenes warrant the M rating (ESRB).

All Ghillied Up: one of COD4's most exciting campaign missions features little shooting and a lot of sneaking

There's no visibility indicator, which makes close encounters even more heart rate raising

Where COD4 isn't a huge step up technologically, it's a prime example of a genre - again in both single and multiplayer. Smooth, enjoyable gameplay is the key here, accompanied by first-person shooter storytelling at its best. There's one repetitive sequence in the whole campaign, and the rest is all highlight reel - compare that to almost any other shooter, where a rare highlight breaks a teeth-grinding monotony.

Add to that COD4's reasonably accessible (read: not Crysis-like) system requirements, and you have a recipe for success. If you want to enjoy a first-person shooter at its best, right now, do yourself a huge favor and buy Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Summary of YouGamers Hardware Testing

The publisher of this game state the following specifications for their minimum and recommended requirements:

Component	Publisher's Minimum	Publisher's Recommended
Processor	Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz / AMD Athlon 64 2800+; Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz / AMD Athlon X2 1.8GHz	2.4GHz dual core or better is recommended
Memory	512MB (768 MB on Windows Vista)	1GB for XP; 2GB for Vista is recommended
Graphics Card	ATI Radeon 9800 Pro / NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better	3.0 Shader Support recommended
Graphics Card Example	Not specified	NVIDIA Geforce 7800 or better or ATI Radeon X1800 or better
Free Disk Space	8 GB free space (plus 600 MB for Windows XP/Vista swap file)	8GB
Net Link	Broadband	Not specified

To learn more about how YouGamers performs its hardware testing, click here. Through our extensive gameplay and hardware testing across the full spectrum of PC configurations, YouGamers suggests that one should use the following guidelines for an appropriate minimum and recommended setup:

Component	YouGamers Minimum	YouGamers Recommended
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 3800+ / Intel Pentium 4 630	AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ / Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Memory	768 MB	1 GB
Graphics Card	ATI Radeon X1950 256 MB / NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT 256 MB	ATI Radeon HD 2900XT 512MB / NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB
Free Disk Space	8 GB	8 GB
Net Link	Broadband	Broadband

Scores

To learn more about our scoring methodology, please click here.

Gameplay	96	Call of Duty 4 nails both single and multiplayer in a way that few games accomplish. A worthy addition to the series, and a must have for any FPS fan.
Graphics	88	The graphics shine because of polish and attention to detail, not necessarily technical excellence. However, I prefer a game that runs smoothly and looks good over a game that runs like walrus with a limp and looks fantastic.
Audio	89	The sound effects and voice acting are top notch throughout. The music is very action movie style without going into Jerry Bruckheimer territory.
Technology	83	Tech is a mixed bag, with something new: nice lighting effects and a great looking, well-performing particle system. Some of the tech is a bit aged though, and water effects are a disappointment. Performance scaling works all the way down to the publisher's minimum specification, although just barely.

OVERALL

Call of Duty 4 is a great online shooter, and welcome competition to both Counter-Strike: Source and Battlefield 2. The single player campaign is everything you can expect from a Call of Duty game and then some.

If you wish to comment on this review or talk about the game further, then click right here (registration not required).

Patch info

The most recent patch to Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare is v1.2, released on November 21, 2007. The patch fixes a problem with the lean functionality and prepares the game for the upcoming COD4 Mod Tools release. Curiously enough, COD4's in-game Auto-Updater does nothing but open the Infinity Ward COD4 update page in your default browser.