Why Call of Duty 4 is Not Overrated and is Actually Quite Good

Yesterday one of our staff posted a blog regarding Call of Duty 4 and his recent experiences as a devout Halo 3 player. It seems that his experience left him a bit jaded and, as a strong Call of Duty fan, I felt it necessary to provide a counterpoint to his arguements. Take it away, myself.

Call of Duty 4 is by no means a bad game if you count the sales numbers the game has incurred since its launch just two months after Halo 3 launched last year. With ten million copies sold (though counted on two platforms) and it being the number one Xbox Live title for almost every week since December the writings pratically on the wall. I myself play Call of Duty 4 very religiously and have attended exactly 106 evenings (I looked it up) with my friends.

The problems with my fellow staffer's arguement is that, as a Halo 3 fanatic, it is made redundant when comparing the two. Halo 3 is far different in many aspects of play when compared to COD4; its like comparing apples to oranges. First off COD4 is a far more fast-paced game than Halo has ever been; the first kill of a match, depending on the gametype, occurs within the first 15 seconds of the round and the game is designed such that a bodycount of at least 75 kills will occur within a single team deathmatch. The requirement to kill an enemy is far less strict than in Halo; of course Halo involves heavily-armored and energy shielded cyborgs versus equally armed and dangerous aliens whereas COD4 involves Joe Schmo soldier with a helmet and a little bit of body armor. Thus killing a person only takes but a few bullets or just a single bullet to the head via any weapon whereas the only weapons in Halo that can achieve such a feat involve the weapon either being a sniper rifle or it being specifically designed to take out a vehicle.

My collegue addresses the perk ability Martyrdom, which drops a live grenade onto the ground when you die in the hope that your opponent is still next to your body when it detonates. While I detest the perk myself and never use it it is still an affective weapon and is not unlike tossing a grenade at your feet just before you die in Halo 3. His arguement that being able to step away from the game and still get kills does not account for the land mine in Halo 3, which is just as effective as any Martyrdom grenade or claymore mine if it is used in the right context.

My collegue also addresses glitches and cheating which, in my opinion, is present in every single video game our species has ever created. He is quick to fault glitchers who get outside of the map (which can be done; I've seen it before myself) and Infinity Ward is addressing these a-holes just as much as Bungie, though not nearly as loudly or entertainingly as Bungie.net (see any Whambulance or Letters to the Webmaster segments). I'm not defending IW for a few missed issues; I'm just saying that Bungie can't be cited for being a pinnacle of map perfection either.

I could go round for round with my friend here but I think the following sums this up: Call of Duty 4 is an excellent game by all standards but is not designed for anything less than fast-paced gameplay. Halo 3 is not nearly as fast-paced as IW's money machine but if you are going to compare the two you need to be prepared to make a counterarguement about Halo 3. Like every other game on the market if you don't get in on the ground-floor and stick with it its going to come back and bite you in the butt and unfortuntely that's what happened to MarvellousG. Sorry buddy, but you just had a bad night. Spend some time getting used to the game or play with us on a staff gaming night and I'll show you the true power of COD4.