Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - Remastered Review

CoD4 is an interesting game. I'm not the biggest fan of the series even though I mildly enjoy most of the games but there is something alluring about the earlier mainline Infinity Ward games before the 2009 Modern Warfare 2. CoD4 is considered to be the game in the series that a non fan has the highest chance of liking before MW 2(2009) would come along and would slowly morph the series into what it is now. It also reginited my my interest in the series when I beat the PS3 version of the original game back in 2016 after being burnt out by the series resembling Hollywood action movies with it's over the top tone and bombast. I also strongly dislike the way their multiplayers are designed but that is a different topic. CoD4's campaign is a game I enjoy but it does feel like a title if I were to raise the difficulty or try to make it more challenging, the illusion would be broken. It did feel like the illusion started show it's cracks with this latest playthrough.

Before I officially start this review, I'm obviously playing the remastered version and Raven Software did an outstanding job here. Everything feels alive and the updated charcter models look fantastic. I also like the additions of modern animations like seeing the weapon model weave around when the player is moving in a prone position.

The tutorial is an interesting concept on paper but the execution is strongly lacking. The tutorial is framed as a speedrun obsticle course where you have to kill enemies as quickly and efficiently as possible. It encourages you to switch to pistol rather than reload but this is never an effective tactic in the actual missions since it's more about shooting and waiting for health to regen when at critical than sprinting interiors clearing out rooms of bad guys. It doesn't do a good job guaging player skill level for the rest of the game like intended. You could play on Recruit which in some ways is the best difficulty more on that later.

CoD4's story is solid especially when acknowledge that "early installment weirdness" I hinted at earlier. What made CoD4 interesting was how grounded and gritty it was. After the turtorial, you have an entire level where you are controlling a prisoner as he is about to get executed and seeing for yourself through his eyes how much the nation has torn itself apart.

Half the time you never really feel like an action movie hero where the only thing your enemies fear is you or will regret crossing your path. It starts with you infiltrating a ship just for it to explode and barely escape with your life. After you need to rescue a capture informant with the help of a group insurgent that isn't very reliable or trust worthy. When you actually control a chracter part of a militaristic force, they are fairly incompetent and often made for fools. Then later in the game, the Task Force gets hunted by a helicoptor then needing to be escorted the an AC-130. Then of course there is the famous nuke scene and All Ghilled Up which furthur illustrates what I'm saying.

Out of all the games after CoD2 post WW2 that captures the spirit of being an underdog against an overwhelming force. CoD4 is one of the biggest outliers that captures that feeling the most.

There is of course the slick presentation and how the cutscenes which mask the load times for the levels do a great job delivering exposition while the game needs to of course, load in the level.

The atmosphere in with the loads bombast of the U.S missions with quieter country sides of the SAS and with the absolutely impeccable ambience of All Ghilled Up and CoD4's campaign is still memorable even now.

This transitions to the negatives. While the sound design for the guns are great and damage animations are solid. CoD4 can really feel like one of those games where it doesn't feel like I'm geniunely good at the game but more so I'm waiting for the checkpoint system to eventually kick in and be an save scumming tool with a mind of it's own.

You got the regen health and hitscan weapons which means combat is ADS, shoot, get hit, duck behind cover, regen rinse repeat. This is fine when enemy count is low and the game favors you. When the count doubles and you aren't being favored, combat really can become a game dying enough times until you get furthur and the checkpoint system starts feeling nice. You got grenades and flashbangs but the former isn't reliable at quickly killing enemies as just shooting due to pause between throwing and detonation. The latter is hard to tell the distance if your vision will be obscured or not and unreliable in the heat of the moment. When at critical health, it can also be hard to see due to color red being everywhere

It's why playing on recruit is better since the wait times for health to regen is greatly shortened.

Also amusing how one rifle butt by an enemy can instantly kill you on normal.

Overall, CoD4's campaign is solid and is endearing now even with it's glaring combat problems.