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The guys over at RocketXL were nice enough to send over a copy of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on the PC for us to review. Actually, they were nice enough to send over the Collectors Edition which also has a art book inside that goes over the process for creating the visuals for the game. Very cool stuff indeed. I would also like to apologize for getting the review out late, but personal issues came up that put me behind schedule. Now after the slight delay, I finally have a review for all the readers and it is well worth the delay as the game is amazing. Anyway, onto the review.

With an amazing visual style and a flair for the dramatics, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare takes players on a wild roller coaster ride that will keep you engaged from beginning to end. Add in the addictive multiplayer modes into the mix, and you have a title that gives far beyond its price tag.

With Infinity Ward back in the saddle (they did not work on Call of Duty 3), the team has taken Call of Duty out of the World War II era where its bread and butter was made and moved into the present day, complete with terrorists and rogue Russian agents. You play through several missions as an SAS British soldier and as a US Marine, alternating through each storyline as the plot advances. The plot is pretty standard fare, involving an Arab country hijacking nuclear weapons, but things start to get twisted, when we find out that an ex-KGB agent may be pulling the strings on things to help overthrow the Russian government.

The story is really good, but that is not the reason that you want to play this game. The game is a series of set pieces that are strung together to dazzle the viewers with awesome visuals and lots of action. A good example of this is the first level as you are plundering around a ship looking for a particular crate that has nuclear material in it. At one point, the ship starts to list and you have to escape from the ship, all the while, the ship is turning over as you run through it. It is breathtaking and exciting as you start to have to move sideways to keep from falling off the walkways as you run to escape. Every level has several of these moments and they are quite memorable, every time you play the game.

Speaking of visual flair, Call of Duty 4 is just drop dead gorgeous. From facial animations to background locations, Call of Duty 4 looks as good as the Playmate of the Year that you wish you could ask out. It is an amazing game. Running the game at 1920×1200 with all details set to high; this game looks superior to the 360 and PS3 versions of the game due to the amount of detail that is put into the game. Infinity Ward rewards the PC players that have all the bells and whistles installed with great fog and smoke effects, red strobe effects when you are on the verge of dying that has superimposed veins on the screen to make it look like you are viewing the world through real eyes. Foliage moves around as you move your way through it. It is all just a gourmet meal for the eyes. Even little things like wood chips that fly through the air as people shoot your cover locations will catch your fancy.

Enemy AI is a little off at times as I noticed that people would duck and cover, and sometimes flank you from all sides, but it was still a little too predictable. Soldiers that cover would seemingly bob their heads out of cover in a rhythmic fashion. All you needed was timing and you could easily wipe these guys out. That being said, it is easy to get into a lull and then get swarmed by troops as they do sometimes coordinate well. This seemed true during later missions when you started going up against Russian troops.

Bullet thumps, artillery explosions and helicopter propellers all immerse you in this world of Call of Duty 4. Detail to all this aural seems to have been a priority for the guys at Infinity Ward as voice overs are solid, never having a phoned in performance. Weapons sound brilliant with each having a satisfying, and unique sound every time they are fired. Music is always in the background, but it does not have the same feel as it did in earlier versions in the Call of Duty series. This game had more of an MTV feel to it with a lot more rock vibes than the classical score from games in the past. It probably fits with the timeframe of the game, but it is something that is missed. The sound will be summed up when you play through the AC-130 level due to its eerie silence as you rain down death from above with nary a sound, except when you are reminded of someone dying from your firepower.

Multiplayer is an excellent add on to the already wonderful campaign mode. The game features several modes of play, and is as much fun to play as multiplayer was in previous versions of the game. The newest mechanic that they seem to have added is the perks system that will allow you to tailor the game to your play style. Perks are statistical boosts or events that you can make happen during the course of a map. For instance, you can select Stopping power to give your bullets extra damage factors. Or you can select Air Strike, which will allow you to call in airborne support to take out enemies. As you play and get better, you gain ranks. Top rank is 55, but you can opt to roll over and re-earn level 55 again. You can do this five times, each time you will get a marker that will let people know how many times you have gone through the leveling process. Server lag is minimal at this point in time, with a lot of servers available for the player. The game will support 32 player matches which are more than the console versions at this time.

The biggest problem with the game is the enemy spawning system. In the Bog level where your tank gets stuck, you will start to notice a ton of soldiers that keep coming at you no matter how many you kill. On one level, you have a door where endless streams of bad guys come out of, no matter how many of them you kill. This will only stop when you reach the next trigger point. Yeah, every action is a trigger point waiting for you to pass. In this sense, the game is more of a FPS rail shooter. You are always forced forward by the game, which is a bit irritating at times in a game this good. You wish you could explore a bit more, but doing so means that you will never stop the flow of Russian soldiers coming down the mountain at you. A smaller issue with the game is that the single player experience is over long before you want it to be. It is not a huge detriment, because it is a solid storyline, but you just wish that there was a little more to it at times.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is an amazing work for the PC. It offers unique level design, a sharp story and a bounty of multiplayer goodness. There are some minor rough spots here and there, but in the end, you have a highly entertaining game that could be ripped straight from the headlines. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare gets 4.5 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.