360 gaming blog.

We are all well acquainted with the Call of Duty Series now but not everyone played the game that effectively started it all. Call of Duty 4, Infinity Wards masterpiece was released in November 2007. The online FPS was very different before this monster of a game appeared and wiped the floor with everything else.

Both COD 2 and 3 had online multiplayer but weren’t lauded by critics for game play or originality. They were class based much like the Battlefield series and didn’t have any real customisation options. Infinity Ward really introduced the current style of COD multiplayer with the fourth instalment.

It’s hard to express how influential this game really is, I would say it’s my generation’s Goldeneye. It’s such a milestone in online console FPS that it should forever be remembered as the game that changed it all. I really can’t remember what I did before this game; it ate up so much of my time. It was the game that made me join Xbox Live and I know that’s the same for many people I know, this is what started my obsession with online shooters.

Some people will obviously be too young to have really played it but I was just at the right age when this came about to start enjoying blowing people up online. It introduced the perk system that we all know and love (or not), customizable classes, custom weapons and Prestige! Of course it wasn’t all brand new ideas but Infinity Ward moulded it to create a new experience never seen before. The maps were (are) the best of any COD game and the Prestige system kept people hooked for a long time. I only reached the 5th prestige but that’s because I stopped to get some gold guns, the gold AK47 and Dragunov were my favourites.

When this game was released Xbox Live was very different from what it is now. There was no party chat, no real dashboard and no avatars. Compared to XBL today it was very limited and there weren’t as many ways for people to get into contact with each other. It felt like this game really brought people together. The only way you could talk to people was through private chat or playing a game online. If you went into any random game there were people talking, laughing and messing around, unlike now where everyone is in a party. It felt like a proper community where you could have fun with random people. I think that is one of the reasons that it was so successful. I definitely made lots of great friends on this game.

The single player is also the best of any COD game by a long way. Infinity Ward lifted COD out of WW2 and into a a bright new modern era. The story was complex yet didn’t have so many unnecessary twists as recent entries into the series. The characters were memorable and the missions were varied. I will never forget the first time I played the excellent mission all ghillied up. IW tried to recreate a sense of this with a Spec Ops mission in MW2; it was a nice trip down memory lane even though it didn’t spark the same excitement as the original.

Notable maps: Crash, Pipeline, Vacant, Broadcast.
Best Assault Rifles: M16, G3, M4, G36C, AK47 (pretty much all of them)
Best SMGs: MP5, AK74-u, P90
Best Sniper Rifles: M40A3, Dragunov, Barrett 50.cal

If you go back and play online now you may not see what all the fuss is about, it’s still a sold online shooter but obviously the community is pretty dead and recent instalments in the franchise have modified and improved many factors that made the original so good. That’s not to say they are better though because without COD4 they wouldn’t have anything to improve on and out of all of the games in the series this one is probably the most balanced, the biggest issue at the time was that the M16 was considered overpowered, that's it.

2007 was a year packed with new and exciting games, notably Bioshock and Halo 3 but Call of Duty 4 shone above the rest and will remain known as one of the best games of this console generation.

Anyone else have fond memories of this game?

Ryan.
GT: Arctic Hydra 87