Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Studio	Infinity Ward
Publisher	Activision
Erstveröffent- lichung	November 8, 2007 November 5, 2007 Wii November 10, 2009 November 10, 2009
platform	Windows macOS PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Nintendo Wii Nintendo DS
Game engine	IW 3.0
genre	Ego shooter
Game mode	Single player , multiplayer
control	Keyboard, computer mouse, gamepad
system advantages preconditions	CPU from 2.4 GHz or from 1.8 GHz dual-core processor RAM: 512 MB RAM (768 MB Vista ) Graphics card: from Nvidia GeForce 6600 or ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
medium	DVD-DL , Blu-ray , download
language	German, English, French, Italian, Spanish
Current version	1.7
Age rating	USK PEGI
information	USK version shortened.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a first-person shooter developed by Infinity Ward and released on November 8, 2007 via Activision . The video game represents the fourth part of the Call of Duty series and was released for the Windows and macOS operating systems as well as for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game consoles and a modified version for the Nintendo DS . The game was also released for the Nintendo Wii , but much later than the other versions. On November 10, 2009, the sequel Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released .

action

For the first time in the Call of Duty series, a continuous storyline is told. The game is divided into three acts and starts in 2011.

The Russian ultra-nationalist Imran Zakhaev is helping the terrorist Khaled Al-Asad to take control of a fictional Arab state. Meanwhile, there is a civil war in Russia between the aforementioned ultra-nationalists (rebels) and the loyalists. While as an American you hunt down Sgt. Paul Jackson in Arabia, you intervene as Sgt. "Soap" MacTavish for the British SAS in Russia and Azerbaijan. The first act ends with Jackson being evacuated from a scene by helicopter together with his comrades, because the operations management team has received information about an atomic bomb in the city. The explosion of the bomb can be seen from the opened tailgate of the helicopter; shortly afterwards, the helicopter is hit by the pressure wave and crashes. Seriously injured, you drag yourself out of the wreck and die within seconds. Al-Asad, however, has long since flown out.

MacTavish tracks down Al-Asad in Azerbaijan , who is then shot by Captain Price after interrogation. At this point it is only at this point that the SAS people realize that Al-Asad is working with Zakhaev. For the following two missions, which take place in 1996, you slip into the skin of MacTavish's superior Cpt. Price. Zakhaev should in Pripyat the city next to the one Chernobyl nuclear power plant , with a sniper rifle are eliminated. However, the player only hits his arm and Zakhaev survives. Back in the present, as MacTavish, in whose role one remains from now on, one is supposed to capture Zakhaev's son. However, he shoots himself when he sees himself surrounded by SAS and USMC people. It turns out that the coup was a diversionary maneuver for a nuclear attack. Zakhaev launched two nuclear missiles from a captured base of the Russian army in the direction of the US east coast. At the last second you can destroy the missiles by entering abort codes in the air. While fleeing, the team was shot at by helicopters on a bridge, so that part of the bridge was destroyed; apparently all team members with the exception of soap are killed. Zakhaev can finally hand over a pistol to one of the dying Cpt. Price can still push, kill. MacTavish is rescued by Russian soldiers after killing Zakhaev and still sees a Russian soldier trying to Cpt. Revive Price. Whether this succeeds is not resolved in the game.

As an epilogue, there is a bonus mission after the credits, in which you have to rescue a VIP from a plane that was hijacked by terrorists and crashed. As a player you only have one to three minutes for this task, depending on the degree of difficulty, before the bomb explodes on board the aircraft. At the end of this bonus mission, one of the comrades blows open a cabin door. Then the whole team including the rescued VIP jumps out of the hatch equipped with parachutes. The player turns around in the air and sees the plane explode.

content

Game mechanics

In contrast to its predecessors, the game takes place in an alternative present or the near future, in which a civil war between rebels (ultra-nationalists) and the loyalists is raging in Russia. The game focuses on the techniques of modern infantry warfare and gives the player control over soldiers in very different scenarios, some of which differ from those of the previous Call of Duty games. Operations with heavy fighting alternate with quieter tasks and sniper missions. The change in content to modern combat management also enables the use of a number of modern handguns and technologies. In the 18 missions of the single player campaign you play the British SAS soldiers "Soap" MacTavish and Captain Price, the US Marine Paul Jackson and the gunner of a Lockheed AC-130H Specter Gunship .

Multiplayer

The Xbox 360 , PlayStation 3 and Wii versions of the game offer support for the multiplayer portion of Xbox Live , as well as the PlayStation Network service and Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection . A multiplayer mode for LAN and Internet is integrated in the PC version. The player earns Experience Points (EP for short) through kills, completed challenges and successfully completed multiplayer games .

The challenges consist of:

• Weapon challenges: With a certain number of kills or hits with a weapon, upgrades (e.g. silencers and special paintwork) for the same weapon are unlocked and experience points are earned.
• Other challenges: With certain, mostly particularly difficult moves (e.g. killing two opponents with just one shot from a sniper rifle) Experience Points can be earned.

As the number of Experience Points earned increases, the player rises through 55 ranks, which are modeled on those of the US Marine Corps. With increasing rank, the player has a growing selection of weapons and extras (see: Class Editor).

Class editor

A class in CoD 4 describes the configuration (equipment, weapons and skills) with which a player enters the multiplayer game. Regardless of his rank, the player has five standard classes with standard equipment available from the start. With increasing rank, however, weapons and extras are unlocked, from which a new class can be put together. From rank four the player can open the class editor and create classes there. A class consists of a primary weapon (including a weapon attachment such as a silencer), a secondary weapon, a special grenade and three extras (e.g. longer sprint endurance, more ammunition, higher penetration power, etc.).

Technical note on the ranking system

Unlike in games like Battlefield 2 , the data of the multiplayer results are not stored on the server, but on the client side. The ranking data are located on your own hard drive, but are encrypted by the game's serial number. By storing the ranks on your own system, the function is sometimes described as unsafe against manipulation, as in the majority of other games cheating attempts are prevented by saving the scores online.

Prestige mode

In the game versions for consoles, upon reaching level 55, the player is offered to surrender all of his weapons, skills and rank in order to start the prestige mode. The changes in prestige mode are limited to a new rank symbol in multiplayer mode, apart from the loss of previously acquired weapons and skills. This can be repeated a total of ten times until you get to the last symbol, the golden Navy Cross . This results in 605 different ranks (1 × 55 "normal" + 10 × 55 "prestige" = 605).

technology

The proprietary graphics engine of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare , which was already used in the predecessors, can display dynamic lighting, high dynamic range rendering , dynamic shadows and depth of field . The penetration behavior of bullets is also calculated by the engine, taking into account the hardness and strength of the material, which is why wooden and thin walls offer insufficient cover. Certain objects such as vehicles and barrels are destructible and can become dangerous themselves if they explode. In contrast to previous Call of Duty titles , the game has a physics engine that, among other things, simulates inanimate human bodies using a combination of ragdoll physics and pre-made animations.

development

Call of Duty 4 was developed by a team of 100 people over a period of two years. After Call of Duty 3 , the Infinity Ward team decided to move away from the WWII scenario of the previous games.

While working out the background plot of the game, one avoided making references to current wars. To make the game as realistic as possible, the development team attended a combat shooting session in Twentynine Palms , a United States Marine Corps training ground in the California desert. The team also spoke to US Marines who had recently been in action to get a feel for the background, emotions, and behavior of Marines in action. Veterans were recruited to oversee the motion capture sessions and help design the artificial intelligence .

The music for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was largely by British composer Stephen Barton created that even the soundtrack of Harry Gregson-Williams has contributed. Gregson-Williams also composed music for the game, such as the theme . Several pieces of music from the game are available on the Infinity Ward's 7 Days of Modern Warfare website and some on Barton's own website. The rap song that can be heard towards the end of the credits comes from the main animator Mark Grigsby.

distribution

publication

On April 27, 2007, the "Charlie Oscar Delta" website went online, with the first comprehensive information on the game. The name is derived from the ICAO alphabet and represents the first letters of Call of Duty . A day later, the first trailer with game scenes appeared. A public beta test for the Xbox 360 version of the game was announced on August 30, 2007. This testing was used to test the server bugs to find and balance the gameplay. Originally this promotion was only planned for people from the United States, but later it was also available for other countries. A single player demo for PC was released on October 11th as a Yahoo- exclusive download, but is now also available for free download.

By 2013, the game had sold more than 15.7 million times worldwide.

Sales versions

The game was released as a standard version and as a collector's edition . The Collecters's Edition includes the normal retail version as well as a DVD with a 168-minute documentary entitled Great SAS Missions , a making-of and a level walkthrough by the developers. In addition, a limited poster and an exclusive hardcover art book are included , in which concept, development and in-game artwork that has never been published can be seen.

German version

In Germany, CoD 4 was only released in abbreviated form: In the mission "One Shot One Kill" you have to kill a terrorist boss with a large-caliber sniper rifle. It is important to correctly estimate the wind strength and direction. In the German version, some blood was touched up. In addition, the arcade mode has been removed, in which you get points for killing enemies.

In contrast to the German version, which received USK approval from the age of 18 , the original version was indexed in August 2009 .

Downloadable content

Infinity Ward released a chargeable downloadable map pack for the Xbox 360 on April 4, 2008 , and 20 days later for the PS3. The Map Pack contains four levels and was downloaded over a million times in the first nine days. On June 5, 2008, PC users could also download the Map Pack including the 1.6 patch. These campaigns were free due to a sponsorship from Nvidia .

Modern Warfare Remastered

A revised version called Modern Warfare Remastered was released on November 4, 2016 along with the game Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare on Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC. The game can only be purchased with the purchase of the Legacy Edition, Digital Legacy Edition, Digital Deluxe Edition, and Legacy Pro Edition of Infinite Warfare. The new edition was developed by Raven Software , which has already contributed to the multiplayer mode for several parts of the Call-of-Duty series in the past . The executive producer is Infinity Ward .

reception

Meta-ratings publication Rating PS3 Windows Xbox 360 Metacritic 94% 92% 94%

Reviews

On Metacritic , the PC version scores 92%, while the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions both score 94%.

Call of Duty 4 was criticized for some scenes . Comrades shoot sleeping people in one of them, the player can also do this himself. It was also criticized that the player had to shoot hard-to-identify people through the thermal imaging camera of an AC-130H and that the crew commented on this - cynically according to the critics - which should make the game look more realistic. In addition, it is possible to kill individual civilians and comrades despite the gunshot ban . The section must then be repeated. Killing these people should be punished with it.

“The dramaturgically extremely strong and in places also courageous staging of war and death sets new standards in the field of video game 'entertainment'. Some scenes are less impressive in the 'fun' than more in the 'sitting with your mouth open in front of the TV' sense. The fact that the spectacle is over after a good six hours is the only real disadvantage of one of the most terrific first-person shooter games of all time. "

- Andreas Altenheimer : Gamesworld

Awards

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare received multiple awards from video game magazines and websites. GamePro calls the game the Best Overall Game of 2007 . GameSpy named the game Game of the Year in 2007 . In the same year it received the Game Critics Award in the Best Action Game category .

Web links

• Comparison of the cut versions of the censored German version and the uncensored American version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare at Schnittberichte.com
• Official website of Call of Duty 4 (English) ( Memento of 4 November 2011 at the Internet Archive )
• Official developer site (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Application Systems Heidelberg: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Expected to be released in early July
2. ↑ Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Steam Shop . Retrieved April 19, 2012.
3. ^ Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4 . In: Game Developer . March 2008.
4. ↑ Stephen Totilo: 'Call Of Duty 4' End-Credits Song: The Story Behind The Rap, In GameFile. In: MTV . March 31, 2008, accessed December 27, 2017 . 
5. ↑ Reveal Trailer HD . Spike. Retrieved April 22, 2008.
6. ↑ David Craddock: E3 2007: Exclusive Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer Beta for Xbox 360 . IGN . July 11, 2007. Retrieved April 21, 2008.
7. ↑ Call of Duty 4 demo . Yahoo! Games. October 11, 2007. Retrieved March 17, 2008.
8. ↑ Call of Duty: A Short History. Retrieved November 10, 2017 . 
9. ↑ Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Limited Collector's Edition) . IGN . Retrieved April 21, 2008.
10. ↑ Indexing / seizures August 2009 at schnittberichte.com
11. ↑ Gary McLean: CoD4 Variety Map Pack Downloaded Over One Million Times in Nine Days. In: Voodoo Extreme ( IGN ). April 17, 2008, archived from the original on March 9, 2012 ; accessed on August 31, 2018 (English). 
12. ^ David Scammell: Modern Warfare Remastered is developed by Raven; first multiplayer maps confirmed. videogamer.com, May 2, 2016, accessed June 9, 2016 . 
13. Jump up ↑ Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered FAQ. Activision Support, May 6, 2016, accessed June 9, 2016 . 
14. ↑ ^{a b} Meta evaluation Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Windows). In: Metacritic . CBS Corporation , accessed April 23, 2015 . 
15. ↑ ^{a b} Meta ranking Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PlayStation 3). In: Metacritic . CBS Corporation , accessed April 23, 2015 . 
16. ↑ ^{a b} Meta evaluation Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360). In: Metacritic . CBS Corporation , accessed April 23, 2015 . 
17. ^ Andreas Altenheimer: Hollywood screen battles. In: Gameswelt . November 16, 2007, accessed December 27, 2017 . 
18. ↑ Best Overall Game of 2007 . In: GamePro .
19. ↑ Game of the Year ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: GameSpy . 
20. ↑ Best Action Game . In: gamecriticsawards.com .