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Call of Duty 4 PS3 Review

Call of Duty 4 is an all-round winner on the PS3.

It’s another game to take on this trend of a “movie” experience as you play through the single player campaign. It’s short and sweet. It’s all action. I probably haven’t been this excited about a single player experience since the Normandy Beach landing in Medal of Honour way back on the PS2.

Time has been kind to this brand of war simulation.

Call of Duty 4 takes us into the modern era rather than the WWII scenes of previous games. While the plot is not exactly unique or exciting, the execution of this game is simply awesome. You get to do many cool things, like shoot a mini-gun, fly over cities in helicopters, be a gunner on a attack aircraft, see a nuke go off (in game) and lay low in long grass in camouflage while waiting for enemy patrols to pass within inches of your position.

The graphics and audio are simply breathtaking. In comparison to prior releases like Call of Duty or Rainbow Six, you can really compare and see how game developers are starting to get to grips with how to utilise the PS3. Framerate is smooth as, audio attention to detail is excellent. All those small things you take for granted are there, and plenty of innovation to provide a refreshing and pleasurable experience.

Something I find particularly pleasing is the way the game loads. You never feel like your far away from the action and it makes it very difficult to walk away from the game until its done. You’ll be waiting for literally a few seconds before your being entertained by a clip scene as the game elements load in the background. The load times are also very reasonable and it does put other games to shame how much detail they load up in such a small amount of time.

But 8 hours of a single player campaign doesn’t cut it in this day and age.

Fortunately Call of Duty provides some serious replay value, with what looks like substantial “hidden” content that is unlocked as certain achievements have been met. For example after completing single player, I discovered a handful of arcade missions were now available, as well as the ability to replay any mission from single player. The arcade missions take a sortof Time Crisis appeal, where you are challenging yourself to be accurate and fast to get a big score.

There is a co-op mode I have not even tried, they are usually a barrel of fun.

The online multiplayer action is quite interesting from the limited time I spent with it (had to return the game to the video store!). Sure it basically encompasses the standard Death Match and Team Death Match, however they have an interesting take on things, where, if you start getting a kill streak going you steadily unlock better and better things.

In my couple of games I managed to get a radar a couple of times, but clearly more kills equals being able to call in attack choppers, air strikes and who knows what else. What an excellent idea that was! I suspect it could add some serious replay value to the game.

Congratulations to the team behind Call of Duty 4 on PS3!

Add this game to your Christmas Wishlist! Or just buy it now!