Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a first-person shooter video game, developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii video game consoles and the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. A separate handheld game was made from scratch for the Nintendo DS. The game was released in North America, Australia, and Europe in November 2007 for video game consoles and Windows. It was released for the Mac in September 2008, then released for the Wii in November 2009, given the name Reflex Edition.
It is the fourth installment in the Call of Duty video game series (excluding expansion packs), and is the first in the Modern Warfare line of the franchise, followed by a direct sequel, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The game breaks away from the World War II setting of previous games in the series and is instead set in modern times. Call of Duty 4 was in development for two years, and it uses a proprietary game engine.
The story takes place in the year 2011, where a radical leader has executed the president of an unnamed country in the Middle East, and an "Ultranationalist" movement starts a civil war in Russia. The conflicts are seen from the perspectives of a U.S. Reconnaissance Marine and a British SAS commando, and are set in multiple locations, including the Middle East, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Prypiat, Ukraine.
The multiplayer portion of the game features various game modes, and contains a leveling system that allows the player to unlock additional weapons, weapon attachments, and camouflage schemes as they advance.
Critically acclaimed, the game received an aggregated score of 94% from both GameRankings and Metacritic. The gameplay, multiplayer, and story received particular praise, while criticism targeted the failure of the game to substantially innovate the first-person shooter genre. The game won numerous awards from gaming websites, including IGN's Best Xbox 360 Game. It was the top-selling game worldwide for 2007, selling under 7 million copies by January 19, and over 13 million by May 2009.
Gameplay:
The game's move to modern warfare introduces new weapons and technology to the Call of Duty franchise, including the M14, M4A1 carbine with SOPMOD accessories, M40A3 sniper rifle, the M203 grenade launcher, the AN/PEQ-2 target pointer for use in conjunction with night vision goggles, the MP5SD submachine gun, the AK-47 and AK-74u variant, and the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). Weapons from fallen foes can be picked up to replace weapons in a player's arsenal. Players also have additional abilities, including a grenade launcher attachment, Claymores with tripwire-like detonation, C-4, and the ability to call in air strikes and an attack helicopter.
The gameplay of Call of Duty 4 shares several features with previous iterations of the franchise. Once again, players fight alongside AI-controlled teammates. They help during the game's missions by providing suppressive fire, shooting enemies, and clearing rooms for entry.
A character can be positioned in one of three stances: standing, crouching, or prone; each affecting the character's rate of movement, accuracy, and stealth. Using cover helps the player avoid enemy fire or recover health after taking significant damage, as there are no armor or health power ups. When the character has taken damage, the edges of the screen glow red and the character's heartbeat increases. If the character stays out of fire, the character can recover. When the character is within the blast radius of a live grenade, a marker indicates the direction of the grenade, helping the player to either flee or toss it back to the enemy.
Campaign:
The player takes on the role of various characters during a single-player campaign. The characters' involvement in the plot occurs simultaneously and overlaps the events in the game. As such, the player's perspective can change from one character to another between missions.
Each mission features a series of objectives; the player is led to each objective with the heads up display, which marks its direction and distance. Some objectives require that the player arrives at a checkpoint, while other objectives require the player to eliminate enemies in a specified location, stand their ground to defend an objective, or plant explosive charges on an enemy installation. After the credits, a special epilogue mission is unlocked for play, featuring a four-man squad retrieving a VIP from terrorists who have hijacked an airliner. The SAS rescue the VIP and escape before the plane is destroyed.
Multiplayer:
Call of Duty 4 features team-based and deathmatch-based multiplayer modes on various maps. Each mode has an objective that requires unique strategies to complete. Players can call in UAV reconnaissance scans, air strikes, and attack helicopters, when they achieve three-, five-, and seven-enemy kill streaks respectively. A game ends when either a team or player has reached a predefined number of points, or the allotted time expires in which case the team or player with the most points wins. If the points are even when the time expires, Sudden Death mode is activated in which there is no re-spawning and the team who either has the last man standing, or achieves the objective first are the winners.
If the player is in either of the two matches, then there is an Overtime match, in which the next team to win is rewarded the victory.
The player's performance in the multiplayer mode is tracked with experience points, which can be earned by killing opposing players, completing challenges, completing objectives, or by completing a round or match. As the player gains experience, they advance in level, unlocking new weapons, perks, challenges, and gameplay modes. The highest obtainable level is 55, but on the console versions of the game, the player has the option to enter "Prestige" mode, which returns their level to one and removes all accumulated unlockables. This process can be repeated up to 10 times with a different insignia being given each time.
Completing a challenge grants experience points and may unlock weapon attachments. As a player's level increases by gaining XP within online games, it unlocks new weapons, perks, or challenges. As the player advances in levels, they earn the ability to customize their classes; this includes selecting their main weapon, side arm and special grenade type. Additionally, the player can select 3 perks, one from each of the three "Tiers", that can customize their character further. Perk effects include, but are not limited to, extra ammunition, increasing bullet damage by the player, or dropping a live grenade when the player is killed. The player is also given the choice to complete challenges in order to receive even more experience points; challenges include achieving a certain number of kills with a specific weapon, shooting down a helicopter or performing a number of head shots.
Additionally, when the player attains a certain amount of headshots with a specific weapon, excluding sidearms, the player unlocks extra weapon "camos", or camouflage, to use for that specific weapon. There are also snipers that come with ACOG scopes when a player gets a hundred kills in the challenges. When going through prestige mode, the player starts their level all over again but is noticed by other online players.