Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

just an phenomenal game all around. one of the best first-person shooters of it's era and it still holds up extremely well. they just don't make games like this anymore. surely almost 20 years later this franchise would continue taking risks and breaking boundaries for how an fps game should be made, right? right?

It is a decent COD game, nothing particularly outstanding, to be honest, and I expected it to be a bit longer, as I finished it in 4 hours on average difficulty. I had only played COD 1 and 2 back in the day, so I decided to catch up on some of the older entries in the series. I think the most annoying issue was the enemy spawning. Sometimes, the enemies seemed infinite until you moved far enough forward to reach a certain point, which was definitely confusing at first. Another annoying problem was the enemies’ hitboxes (they can take a lot of hit in the chest) and the fact that they could fall without actually being dead. In the heat of a firefight, it was easy to miss an enemy lying injured on the ground. You might think everyone was dead, yet someone would still be shooting at you because one injured enemy was still alive. If you play it on harder difficulty, it is definitely challenging game and probably will take a bit longer time to beat it.

I firmly believe that Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare is one of the greatest games ever made. I have played this game's single player more times than I can count. I have conquered that campaign on Veteran difficulty including the infamous Mile High Club more than a few times along with completing the game's list of achievements and reaching 10th prestige legitimately on the Xbox 360 version back in its heyday. I have also put a decent amount of time into it's PC version so I feel very confident in my earlier statement regarding this particular game. I also have found that despite what followed after this title's release, it is still the best game in the entire franchise. The story is absolutely iconic. It's mission structure and sequencing are perfect. It's visuals have a slight cartoonish yet gritty 2000's edge that emanates pure artistic sauce. It's characters and dialogue birthed the most critically acclaimed sub franchise of a video game series that I can think of in recent times. It's weapon sandbox was absolutely stellar introducing what would become fan favorites such as the AK47, MP5 and M16 to the franchise and delivering a fleshed out arsenal of modern day weapons alongside the earlier mentioned givens to really drive player choice with the pacing of the game's combat. And it's combat? It's moment to moment gameplay? Absolutely revolutionized first person shooters as we know it, and ushered in the now depressing age of modern gaming. And it could be played online. And it was peak. I could go on about the legendary map design or the revolutionary create a class system with the personal XP progression system and prestige and the camos and the perks and the game modes but since it is all still currently online on PC via a super duper easy client patch you should just see for yourself. Despite what anti consumer business practices this franchise's overwhelming success would eventually allow into this industry through greed and assembly line bare minimum effort yearly released "premium" titles, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare was and still is peak, and if you have not played it you need to correct that.