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| From: Activision
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $34.90
You Save: $15.09 (30%)
New (6) Used (10) from $26.95
Rating:  239 reviews
Sales Rank: 1320
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows Xp
Genre: military_and_espionage_action_games
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Edition: Standard
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 33169
UPC: 047875331877
EAN: 0047875331693
ASIN: B000TTFLS8
Release Date: November 5, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 239
 The length of a movie for five times the price. December 23, 2007
David A. Porter (Sydney, Australia)
18 out of 32 found this review helpful
I have not played any of the Call of Duty series before but picked this up on the advice of a friend. Everyone seems to think this is amazing and PC PowerPlay even gave it 9/10 (though PC mags reviews often mean little). Overall I found the game to be a fairly average offering, and here are my reflections for those considering a purchase.
Stability: Stable, did not experience any crashes whilst playing. Played on Vista 64, Q6600, 4GM RAM, 2x 8800GT in SLI.
Graphics: For those with powerful systems COD4 is the equivalent of games coming out in late 2004/early 2005. The strength of the graphics are in the textures, but there are limited shadows, lighting effects, or any of the more advanced graphical techniques that we see in more recent titles. The reduced effects means that the game will scale very will on almost any system but as a result looks similar to titles from two years ago. Graphically it reminds me of the second splinter cell game, so that's the comparison and while not up to today's standards they are still reasonable.
Sound: For the most part actually pretty weak but it serves its purpose. Grenades make the same sound no matter what substance they land on and guns sound very light and unrealistic but nevertheless it is passable for what it is trying to achieve.
Gameplay: Now this is where I have struggled to get the concept. In most games to move forward you have to complete the objective, kill the bad guys, complete some task etc, and this is true from Half Life 2, FEAR, Crysis, FarCry, Quake etc. In COD4 this is different, in COD4 the objective is to move forward, in fact actually completing any other task is pointless and often counterproductive. You can kill all of the bad guys that you want but they just respawn in an endless supply. The way to eliminate your enemies and to stop them from respawning is to simply move forward. If you move forward then the enemy stops respawning and your team mates (of which you have no control) kill cover. For me this meant that I never felt like I was contributing to the actions of the story, but rather following it along and hence wrecking the immersion factor. If you shoot anyone then you risk being shot, so better not to shoot anyone. There is a sniper level where you have to wait for a helicopter whilst being swarmed by never ending enemies - since it is pointless killing anyone since they respawn what to do? Simply lie down in the ticket booth until the helicopter arrives - and solutions like this are on almost every level. There are some levels that where quite good, namely taking over the gunners position from an AC-130, this reminded me of a youtube video of such an action and was well done, however the shooting component of the game was merely a means to tell a story, but a passive story rather than one that you get the write.
Length: I played through the single player on Hardened mode and managed to finish the game in about 5 hours. There was little challenge as it is more of an experience rather than something that you have to work for. Multiplayer can extend it a little more but due to the missing Coop play I found multiplayer to be inferior to that of R6V, so unless someone at a LAN party wants to enforce this game there is more fun elsewhere.
Replayability: Negligible. They provide an arcade mode so that you can replay with cheats and the like but really the whole game is arcade. The more impressive cheat is unlimited ammo but Since you are carrying around 4000 rounds of ammo with two weapons anyway, this seems kinda redundant as I was never in danger of running out of ammo in single player.
Verdict: I really want to give this a 3/5, but I gave Bioshock a 3/5 and Bioshock is a better game than COD4. Maybe it is just me, but I like to feel that I am actually contributing to the outcome of the game rather than just being taken along for a ride. Hence, I feel like I was being taken along for an overpriced movie presentation.
My current FPS Ranking (of recent shooters that I have played):
1: Crysis
2: Rainbow Six Vegas
3: F.E.A.R.
4: Quake 4
5: Halflife 2
6: Bioshock
7: Call of Duty 4
 pc gamers beware November 23, 2007
Patrick Huss
14 out of 29 found this review helpful
I am not going to review the action, graphics, or plot of this game. I would like to, but I can't. The reason I can't is because the dvd that this game is published on will not play in my dvd player. In fact, many people own dvd players that will not work with the secret anti-copying voodoo included on the dvd, and if you are one of the owners of these drives, you can't play this game either. In fact you can't read the dvd at all, so you can't even install the game. If you are one of the unfortunate owners of these unsupported dvd drives you may, like me, turn to activision tech support for assistance. Then you will find, as I have, that activision tech support is as usefull as a third shoe. I have been repeatedly told to reboot my computer then run the game to see what happens, this despite the fact that I have explained repeatedly that I can't even read the dvd or install the game. If you have surmised that I have some exotic dvd drive and that I should expect some difficulties, I can assure you my drive is as vanilla as they come. It is a LG manufactured dvd drive that was standard install from Dell on my Dimension computer.
Being as I purchased this game from Amazon, I was not able to see the various labels on the box, but now that I have received it one label stands out..."This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disc and virtual drives."
So, beware pc gamers, just because you have a fast enough processor, and a powerful enough video card, your machine may very well not be able to read the dvd, install or play this game.
 CREAM of the CROP November 6, 2007
Jason Morris (Los Angeles)
13 out of 18 found this review helpful
Hands down this shooter is the most intense COD to date. If your a fan of the COD series this game will not disappoint at all. Intense, intense, intense to say the least. Good work Infinity Ward.
Disappointing: Falls way short of the mark set by CoD2 November 20, 2007
JoT (Corner Cafe, Carrollton, GA)
13 out of 21 found this review helpful
In CoD4 I have found a wonderful game, very similar to the previous FPS hit CoD2 (Call of Duty 2), which I absolutely love. These games have generally solid mission pacing, and throw you for loops by yanking you out of the FPS Playable Character and dropping you behind a machine gun, or cannon, or .50 sniper rifle (very cool). The graphics are phenomenal, and the flashback sniper missions in Chernobyl were really fun.
Yes the scripting can be annoying, but if you want to play through a "make your own war movie" game, you're just going to have to put up with some scripting. At least the CoD teams are really, very, absolutely excellent with scripting. Their pacing is wonderful, and the intensity they can bring to the game is downright astounding.
Unfortunately, I'm done with the good stuff.
Here's my disappointment with CoD4. Outside of an admittedly impressive graphics upgrade, CoD4 offers absolutely nothing new. The single player missions aren't even long enough to make a good expansion pack for CoD2, and at least two of the missions feel like reconstructed mods of CoD2 missions. There are only two really new, really fun missions in the whole game. So I found that, given three to five minutes to be impressed by the blazingly gorgeous graphics and twelve to twenty minutes to complete those two film worthy, heart-pumping, sniping in Chernobyl missions, you have between fifteen and twenty-five minutes of really new stuff in this game.
So, CoD4 essentially plays like a graphically beefed up repeat of CoD2 with a horribly shortened story-line.
CoD4 introduces no legitimate game-play upgrades, and shows little or no attempt at offering even an illusion that the game isn't entirely linear. (I understand the difficulties of having both cinematic scripting and non-linear game-play, but at least try for an illusion. Ok?) The multiplayer upgrade is ridiculous, and arcade-like. I don't see how any long time FPS fan could really support a multi-player game that could potentially bias against a more skilled player in favor of one that just had more time on his hands to level up, but what do I know. I still play the CS titles.
All in all, if you like the multiplayer, who am I to judge. I loved the CoD2 multiplayer, but the new stuff in the CoD4 multiplayer seems kind of juvenille and video-gamey to me. I guess I'm just a little surprised, since I've never seen anything so arcade get such a positive response from the serious FPS PC gaming community.
All I can say is that $50 is way more than I am personally willing to pay for an exclusively multiplayer game. Unless you can't wait to get on-line with this game, or unless some really good expansion mods come out to add more to the single-player mode, I can't see that this game is worth more than $30, and can only recommend waiting for a price drop.
 stupid design flaws drag down a potentially 5-star game November 14, 2007
David Smith
10 out of 16 found this review helpful
first of all, i haven't played the single player yet. i'm sure it's great, but i wanted to jump right in to what i always loved the COD series for - multiplayer. at first, everything seemed to be wonderful about multiplayer, but before long the negatives started to show.
for one thing, these maps are way too small. you will die. you will die A LOT. you will die A LOT as soon as you spawn. yes, you will. you will die, and die, and die. you will die by getting shot through walls (allowed in this game). i died once from being shot through a concrete block - not cool. you will die from helicopters overhead that you can't see. you will die from airplanes appearing instantaneously dropping bombs on you and your teammates (gee, this warfare must be modern for a plane to fly over and pinpoint bomb your location in 1 second). and this will happen many times in one round. these are the negatives you have to live with along with the positives of COD 4.
i have a big problem with that. the thing that always made COD great was you had full control over your fate. if you were skilled enough, you could stay alive forever. COD 2 didn't even have artillery strikes, so you were in full control. here? not so much. especially when you consider.... the GRENADES. my god, the grenades. they never end. everyone gets one grenade, and you can even get 3 with a perk. since they can be cooked now, you won't be able to avoid many of them, and you will have to dodge many more. don't get me wrong - cooked grenades are overall a GOOD thing and far preferable to the retarded uncooked nades of COD 2, but this many grenades on maps this small is a BAD thing. the ability to "throw back" grenades is mostly a crock - since most are cooked, you're almost certain to die trying to do that, so people don't even try it. why didn't the designers think about this??
another weakness - no room for snipers. in past COD games, plenty of people would snipe. in COD 4? hardly anyone, because it's not worth it. it's far too hard to kill anyone with a single-shot sniper rifle - hit them in the chest, and they LIVE! and guess what? since there's no health meter, your shot just did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! hooray! it's far too hard to get a headshot because you have to get a more precise headshot than past COD games, plus sprint is enabled so people just run around.
as if getting constantly naded, bombed and choppered weren't bad enough, there's also stun and flashbang grenades. don't get me wrong - just like shooting through walls, it's very fun to DO TO OTHERS, but not so fun when it happens to you. it's just another element of the game to make you feel like you're getting digitally raped!
i'm amazed the creators didn't make BIGGER MAPS, as many servers have up to 15 people per team!!! one map in particular, "shipment," is so tiny it's just absolutely unforgivable.
also - what the hell happened to capture the flag????? now we get "sabotage," which is cool, but quite hard to keep up with what the hell is going on. every 2 seconds someone gets killed and drops the bomb - a voice announcer keeps telling you "they set up the bomb" or "they dropped the bomb" but everything moves so fast, it's impossible to keep up with. that announcer needs to go!!!!!! in addition, the target location changes every time, and you have to keep looking at your map to know where to go - this game totally revolves around following a map. not very fun.
speaking of the map, the radar thing sucks. the idea was that when a player gets 3 kills in a row, they can enable radar which shows their team the enemy's position on the map - this makes it a lot easier to kill because you know where everyone is. this is a pretty good idea, except RADAR IS ALWAYS ENABLED, so how the hell can you call it a "perk"? it's one of those ideas that is good in theory, but bad in execution. how realistic is a war where you know where every enemy is?? not very.
speaking of radar, there is a "hardcore" mode that some servers use that cuts out radar and your map, and your weapons display. however, this is even more frustrating because it doesn't show you what weapons, grenades and special weapon you have. what the hell?? that's not "hardcore" - that's stupid.
anyway COD 4 is overall a wonderful FPS game and one of the best ever created SO FAR... yet still i've played COD 2 just to get away from all its frustrations. i'm sure just like COD 2, they won't make any additional maps, so we're just stuck with the tiny maps, blowing each other to hell all over the place. it's a great game - but it's sad it could have been so much better. the custom designed weapons is a great feature, but unfortunately you can't design weapons while playing a game, and you only get 5 slots. i would have liked an on-the-fly custom weapon design feature.
one more thing - if you like a particular game type, it's hard to find a server that only playes your game type. many servers have a rotation of search and destroy (which i hate) and domination and sabotage (which i like). there's no way to "weed out" these servers in the server browser.
also nightvision is ugly as hell and nobody uses it. i don't know why they included that crap. my final verdict: play COD 4, but stay away from servers with more than around 7 people per team.
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