Like everyone in the Call of Duty community I was literally counting the seconds leading up to the release of the game. Excited about its impending arrival, I was also worried. After all there *was* plenty to worry about. The cognoscenti of the CoD community had been all hot and bothered about IW not supporting the PC community. After being courted by the developers and feted at their Encino, California studios, the mod community's communication lines were suddenly broken. IW's spokesman, 402, was nowhere to be found and the community elders feared they were being led to the slaughter like they were when CoD2 was announced.

Was CoD4 going to be an overhyped CoD2? Or would IW and their uberlords at Activision, get it right?

Well...with the game now out and having nearly developed carpal tunnel from playing it, I think I am ready to to attempt to answer that question.
 

Firstly, if I could sum up CoD4 MP with one word, that word would be: vicious.
 

This viciousness is due in large part to the no-nonsense, give-no-quarter attitude that awaits you in-game. The sense of fun, which was ample in CoD2, is gone. Tellingly absent in CoD4 is the humorous, and ultimate coup-de-gras, the "bash". Whereas in CoD2, one could sneak up on a fellow opponent and clunk (that is "bash") someone in the back of the noggin', CoD4 in contrast,  replaced it with the knife which now allows us to cut our enemy's throat - not simply give him a lump on the head. The resulting "slash" is a scary thing to behold. And when it is *you* that is doing the slashing, your hair will stand on end as you hear the knife you just plunged into your opponent tear into his flesh and the then rip its way out. No room for the timid in this battle arena.

Now, add a  bleak environment and you complete the overall sense of meanness that permeates the game. 

In CoD4, we leave the cobblestoned streets and gothic church spires of the French Bocage behind and we are introduced to our new environment: the cold, low overcast, gloom of Russia. A Russia of Marxist-era revolutionary art and post-Stalinist, cookie-cutter architecture.

Equally, the bright skies and golden-yellow sands of North Africa have given way to the dumpster-strewn, rubble-lined, back-alley-ways of "Anycountry-idad", Middle Eastistan.

Drenched in overwhelmingly monochrome tones, the whole game looks mean, angry and has an air of futility permeating through it.

Futile not because of gameplay (although my talents are very close to futile)...the futility comes from taking in your surroundings. You cannot help but stand at your spawn, readying for battle in the MP map "Bloc", gazing out trying to spot the enemy positions through a thick gray fog that swallows both you and the row upon row of what used to pass for modern urban living during the era when Breschnev ruled the Soviet Union and not be depressed. You feel like you will never leave the place. It looks forbidding. Cold. Dank. A place where evil lurks.

Welcome to CoD4.

Dorothy, you are definitely not in WWII any more. You will not be singing Tipperary. You will not be whistling Colonel Bogie’s March. You dare not make a sound. You dare not move.

Death is everywhere in CoD4. You move, you die. You stay still, you die. You spawn - and as surely as there is a solid iron statue of a fat, inebriated, comrade-apparchnik carrying a PPH in the midst of that Russian courtyard - you will die.  It's inevitable as it is futile. And there is literally no place to hide.

The carnage that you will experience is due in no small measure to the accuracy and lethality of today's modern arsenal of weapons. Low kick. Accurate optics and sights, and most of all...rounds that are loosed with outrageous Double-Tapped rates of fire that carry wall-ripping, Deep-Penetrating punching power.

The irony of this game is that, as bleak as the landsscape is and as lethal the environment, it is terribly fun to play. And that is due in no small measure the nuances of the character movements and the great feel of the weaponry which really makes you feel like you are there in the thick of the battle. 

The Rank/Class System 

One thing you will notice in CoD4 are the player ranks. All fifty five of them.

Tapping into player aspirations to achieve a higher and higher rank is something that Infinity Ward, CoD4's developer has succesfully discovered the gamer's most primal addiction. The popularity of rankings in BF2142 no doubt spurred on the Dev Team at IW to put the concept into the game and it has been greeted warmly.

While the Ranking System really works with me, completing the "Challenges" does not. Challenges are little exercises that IW has thrown our way as a cutesy way to giving us additional experience points. Problem is that most of the challenges tend to be completed purely unintentionally by the players. The challenges are not adequately advertised and there are too many of them to commit to memory. Running the length of a marathon or falling to your death from a second storey window are some of the challenges. It's no wonder that no one pays much heed to them.

In addition to the rank system, IW has added a class system as well. Certainly, the egalitarian communists on whose land we are now fighting must be turning and churning in their graves at all this. 

CoD4 comes with pre-set classes. That is you can modify your loadout to suit your abilities, predilection for fighting style and/or mission. You can grab yourself a sniper rifle and don a so-called "Ghillie-suit" (imagine Chewbacca after a long night of binge drinking) or you can haul around an M16 and tear up campers right through the walls they are cowering behind. The interesting part of the class system begins when you reach obtain enough experience points to achieve level 4 and you are allowed to create your own classes. The various classes in CoD4 are summarized here : Create a Class

The class system is simply an extension of the ability to choose your own weapon and is the current fad in FPS gaming. Options and freedom are what good gaming is all about and I love the idea and is a welcome idea.

The huge worries I had about "balancing" the gameplay between the various classes have not entirely been put to bed. For example, in stock multiplayer the snipers are in my opinion overmatched by the other classes right now, and this situation will most likely will stay that way until the modders start pumping out larger maps. For the rest of the classes, I think for the most part IW got it right. There is a nice distinction between the brutal offensive power of the assault classes (those with M16's and AK47's) and the nimble, light and deadly accurate "scout-like" classes (the suppressed M4's and MP5-carrying folks).

The Gametypes

The real story here is the gametype *not* included in CoD4: Capture the Flag.

The third most popular gametype in CoD-dom, Capture the Flag was not included in CoD4: Modern Warfare.

Robert Bowling from IW explained it this way:

Yep, no CTF at launch. We originally had Capture the Flag in the game but it didn't make the cut. We make sure only things we absolutely love make it into the final game, and Capture the Flag just wasn't to that point yet so we cut it. It's not dead though, we always still working on it and if it gets to a point where we think it's kick ***, we'll update the playlists and add it in there. We're going to constantly be adding and updating the game with new or changed playlists in Multiplayer based on community feedback so don't worry. Plus theres lots of brand new gametypes and playlists for you guys to fall in love with.

It is no surprise CTF doesn't mix with CoD4...the maps are definitely not suited for CTF (see MP maps section below). The gametypes that are in the game are as follows:

Domination - Capture three flags and keep them. There are flags at certain points around the map. All flags start neutral. Teams battle to hold the most flags. Game ends when the time limit is reached, or the score limit is reached.

Free For All - The Madison Avenue version of Death Match. Cut the hype...it's DM.

Headquarters - A radio spawns somewhere on the map. The goal is to capture the radio for your team. If one team captures the radio, they must defend it from being destroyed by the other team. Once the Headquarters is captured, the capturing team cannot respawn.

Search and Destroy -Destroy and defend objectives in Search & Destroy, no respawning. When thinking about S&D, you think CounterStrike. And like CS there are two teams: an attacker side and a defender. Attackers plant bombs at one of two bomb site locations, while defenders try to prevent the bomb sites from being infiltrated. If the explosives are planted, defenders must defuse the bombs. Players do not respawn. A round is over when all players on one team are killed, or when the bomb explodes or is defused.

Sabotage - Here, two teams fight over one bomb and try to plant it at each other's target.

Team Death Match (TDM) - Kill your opponents and stay together for protection is what TDM is all about. The most popular gametype in CoD. It's a great way to increase your skills. 

CoD4 is built for S&D, Domination, and Sabotage. Interestingly, these are also very 'tournament-friendly' gametypes and gives some insight into what IW might be planning on....to dominate (pardon the pun) tournament gaming and snatching business from CounterStrike.

The Multiplayer Maps

One of the more disappointing things about CoD4 are the maps. Too small by half is about the only polite thing I can say about them. Playing any of them with a full complement of 32 online players is uncomfortable to say the least. Servers with 10-15 players provide the best experience on these maps.

See the Multiplayer Maps  here.

The "feel" of the game

In stock configuration, CoD4: MW Multiplayer has smooth, subtly realistic avatar movements and IW has obviously paid meticulous attention to the "feel" of the weapons. The result is that the game is  immersive and will convince the player that they are really there on the battlefield.

Whether CoD4 would be able to produce a visually appealing game without suffering the expensive of lower playability was the biggest fear amongst most CoD players. The fear was unfounded as the game is not only visually superb, it also has the best "feel" of any modern day FPS game.

Almost every single weapon in the game has a wonderful ability to make you think you are physically carrying it. I never had that feeling in CoD2. In fact there are still some weapons in CoD2 I will never touch because of how cumbersome they are to hold and fire.

In contrast, everything from the M16 and M4 assaults rifles to the RPG...all the weapons in CoD4 are faithfully detailed and are great to handle.

While some sounds have been re-used from CoD2 (the shotgun comes to mind) by far the weapon sounds are pleasantly faithful to the real article and immerse you into the environment.

The Gameplay

Before even attempting to comment on CoD4's gameplay, I wanted to get some combat under my belt first - and that I did. Rising through the class system as high as my lowly skills would allow me. From Lieutenant to being promoted to CoD4's General Staff took about five days of gaming. Those with prodigious talents will make that leap much faster of course.

Having slogged through the mud at the Bog and experiencing the sudden death that spawning in Shipment brings confers upon me adequate levels of slash and dash that makes up CoD4.

With all this experience, and countless hours of CoD2 gaming for comparison, I am afraid that, I am somewhat disappointed with stock gameplay - the same gamplay that is now being played on the vast majority of servers today.

While I am not speaking about "Hardcore" mode or "Old School" rules here, the stock game has two fundamentally fatal flaws that literally kill the "fun" factor.

Airstrikes and Choppers

The most serious of these flaws is the Airstrike/Chopper combo (A/C combo). After five consecutive kills, players are awarded with Airstrikes. The mechanics of the airstrike are as follows:

Selecting "5" brings up an overhead map and the positions of all known combatants populates the map. By moving the cursor on the map you can request an airstrike. Death from above follows shortly afterwards brought to you by two screaming fighter-bombers that screech over the battlefield literally seconds after the selection.

The award of the Airstrike stays with you (unlike, in CoD2's eXtreme+ mod wherein, the airstrike would disappear if you were killed). 

Assuming a successful Airstrike brings about two more kills...you get an attack helicopter, which flies an orbit around your enemy and cuts to pieces anyone moving in the open with the efficiency of an aimbot. Which of course, sums up exactly what the attack helo is all about.

The parade of airstrikes and chopper attacks in any server with more than ten people in it begins to look like the one held by Macy's in New York right after Thanksgiving.

About halfway through any round in CoD4, the kills start to pile up and Airstrikes are called. From that moment on, it seems that the ground never stops shaking and the din of explosions never abates. It is impossible to aim, talk, breathe or even see thanks to the pandemonium wreaked by these "eXtreme+"-like add ons.

The skilled and the unskilled are both at the mercy of the relentless pounding everyone receives from Air Power.

Anyone with any pretense to having "pwnage"-skills will be seriously disappointed in the gameplay after the "whizz-bangery" and "gee-wizzardry" of the graphics wear off and you will find yourself pleading for the Airstrike/Choppers to stop.

In an act of complete noobophilia on the part of the Developers, server Admins cannot shut down this dyanmic-duo of dumb gameplay without having their server becoming "unranked". One of the great attractions to running a ranked server is that players will come flocking over to bump their rankings up and build up experience points to unlock the next weapon or challenge. Having an unranked server will not allow you to gain any experience points whatsoever. Who then would play on an unranked server? No one - well, not for a few months anyway. By then, everyone will be capped out and unranked servers may become popular.

Until then, there is nothing else to do but to suffer through this repetitive onslaught of death from the air - a mindless and skill-less way to be fragged.

Small maps and whacky spawns 

Anyone suffering through Freeforall matches on the tiny Shipment map will have experienced this second flaw. The maps are much too small for the weapons being used and the spawns are set too close. The time between you firing your weapon and subsequentally attracting fire is measured in milliseconds in CoD4.

You need to have an Exorcist-like capacity to swivel your head in this game as the enemy combatants seem to spawn from just about anywhere and fifty percent of the time, they are doing so right behind you as you walk past.

Weapons: a mixed bag 

As a bonus complaint...as I just mentioned, the fire-rate of the weapons in CoD4 require much larger maps - or smaller numbers of players, but the really galling thing is that there is no M1-Garand or Kar98-equivalent, one-shot-one kill weapon in this game (I'm ignoring the sniper rifles here as I'm looking at an assault - not a support - weapon). The M16 comes close with its realistic three-round burst and devastating power. But the weapon that was supposed to inherent the mantle of the M1 and the 98 was the G3. What a disappointment. The G3 couldn't be succesfully used in a squirrel hunt. It has no power and a wickedly annoying kick.

The mature, tactical run'n gunners out there who enjoyed taking out a whole squad of noob mg'ers in CoD2 with their trusty Garand will have few selections to choose from to display their superior gaming skills.

Conclusions

CoD4 MP for PC exhibits an arcadish quality to its gameplay. You can see this "console-port" behaviour by the fact that:

a) There is a lack of any single-shot kill weapons
b) The amped up "speed" of the game
c) The tiny maps which limit tactical maneuvring

and finally...

d) The very lame Airstrike/Chopper attacks.

Ultimately, IW seems to pander to those with five-second attention spans.

The CoD4 algorithm: Spawn, fire one burst, attract overwhelming counterfire from an orbiting enemy chopper, die, respawn. Repeat.

The only way CoD4 can be played, over a long period of time without developing an intense irritation to it, is with the removal of the above-mentione lamish Airstrike/Chopper combo.

Quite frankly, the next patch IW should be thinking about is the one where they would let Admins remove (server-side) items like the A/C combo and still allow the server to be ranked.

If this is not done, PC'ers will simply need to wait until the modding tools are distributed to the community and have the modders and scripters remove them for us.

CoD4 is an incredible piece of work, but there are a few tweaks that are needed to be made in the gameplay. The CoD4 community will undoubtedly be making those tweaks and providing the players with better maps and a varied experience overall well into the future. This does not take away the fact that IW, in the end, inspite of all the warnings about having them get the gameplay to a level that the mature PC crowd will enjoy, has given us PC gamers...a console game. 

I spur on the CoD4 community to get to work and turn this game into one that you will want to play daily for the next year. 

Having said that here is my score for CoD4's Multiplayer on PC: