After being told by everyone with enough functioning braincells to facilitate speech that "Call of Duty 4 was totally different and better then all the other games. You'll like that one." for the past eighty years, I decided to finally sit down and give it a try. Let's start with the Singleplayer review, as I feel Singleplayer should be the part of the game where developers put most of the work, if they intend to include a Singleplayer campaign.
It's bloody stupid. There, you can ex out of this review and go do something else now.
...Alright, fine, I'll tell you why it's stupid. In short, the answer is "For the same reasons every other Call of Duty game ever made except the first are also all stupid". In long, it's:
My first complaint is that, like every game anyone has ever made, the grenades have the explosive power of a warm cup of tea. I decided to count how many steps away from one you have to take to be safe, and the answer is "Eight". All of the explosive weapons in this game are completely useless, and I never use them with the exception of the automatic grenade launcher in the helicopter. The only thing they're good for is the AI spamming them at you as if you're the only valid grenade target in the game.
My second complaint is that the AI makes me want to pull my balls out through my eyes. My SAS squademates will run into a room and shout "Clear", which I take to mean "I have checked this entire room and it is now free of enemies" when it really means "There's a guy standing right next to me just outside of my cone of vision waiting to turn your balls into strawberry jelly the moment you step through the door". Besides that is the fact that the enemy AI seems to be precognizant; Every time they run around a corner and I'm there, they start shooting literally the instant they've turned that corner. They spend zero time searching before they spot me, zero time trying to make sure I'm not one of their allies, and zero time doing anything but murdering me before I can even aim at them.
My third complaint is that the silencers sound like The Iron Giant having sex with Bender from Futurama.
My fourth complaint is that it feels like you're always on a very slow moving conveyor belt in a perfectly straight line. If you lag behind too much (Because you like the sniper nest you're in, for example) the game stubbornly refuses to spawn any more enemies until you take two more steps forwards and fall off of your position. It's like the game was designed by an oversensitive drag queen who throws a tantrum and denies you sex every time you turn down their offer to go to their bi-weekly party for the fourth time in a row because you've got shit to do.
My fifth complaint is that there is literally never more then one way to tackle any objective. Yes, I know the path deviates mildly in one or two places, but it's just another straight line leading back to the larger primary straight line. All you can do is run face first into the infinite hoards of constantly respawning enemies.
My sixth complaint is that none of the AI snipers are even remotely as good at sniping as me, and I'm not even a very good sniper. I can shoot five people before they can take out one.
My seventh complaint is that the story is "Meh". A lot of times I didn't feel motivated at all to do any of the objectives I was given, especially later in the game when the nuclear missiles you were supposed to be rushing in to stop launch and then the man in your earpeace goes "Oh, don't worry, we'll just get the abort codes from the Russians!" Are you fucking kidding me? You had us literally invade a foreign country to stop one nuclear silo from launching two missiles (With twelve warheads) when you could have just asked the Russians nicely and they'd have given you the codes?
My eighth complaint is that most of the environments are very underwhelming, with a few exceptions, namely: Pripyat, because it reminded me of STALKER, which is a much much better game assuming you have a mod to fix the awful weapons. The boarder area around Pripyat when you're sneaking in: Because it was dark and foreboding and generally rather nice. Anything else relating to Pripyat that I missed.
My ninth complaint is that the game just got monotonous after a while. People dressed all scary-like run out of doorways yelling at you, you shoot them. Repeat for about nine million iterations. This was broken up nicely by short stealth segments, but there were very few of them and they were more just interactive cutscenes where you watch your squad leader do everything.
My tenth complaint is that I shot the major bad guy square in the chest with a .50 Caliber sniper rifle, and he survived when his body should have been literally cut in two.
My eleventh complaint is that the coolest part of the game, where you get to use the .50 Caliber sniper with cool bullet physics, lasts for literally a few seconds and only happens once that I know of in the game. To be fair, I haven't gotten past the part where you're taking the nuclear missile silo back yet, but I doubt it's going to happen again near the end of the game for some random reason.
My twelfth complaint is that the SAS acted nothing like the real SAS would. They repeatedly jeopardize their mission to save civilians who are entirely useless to them, which just isn't realistic.
Alright, so, that's the Singleplayer, but what about the Multiplayer? ...Well, it pains me to say this, but it's actually pretty good. I do have some complaints about it though:
The class customization has way too few guns, and a laughably tiny amount of attachments.
All of the gameplay flaws (Like teacups for grenades) are still present, and cannot be changed with Hardcore mode.
The shotguns are a bad joke. You have to be standing almost close enough to knife someone to use one... Which is also present in the singleplayer, and I'm not sure why I didn't mention it. They're literally even more useless then the explosives.
Buildings made of quarter inch plywood can apparently repel carpet bombing.
THE END. Now go do something useful, like playing STALKER.
Go Yiff in Hell.
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