Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. God Damn it russ, stop cheating.
 

The latest in the Call of Duty line, and back in the hands of developer Infinity Ward. Taking a brave, but sensible, step to move the game out of WWII and into the present(ish) day.

[ official site ]

I managed to get myself into the UK/Ireland part of the multiplayer beta program and downloaded my copy last night.

Had a bit of a session last night and I must say I'm loving it. The game's received a fair amount of positive press and praising comments so there's always the danger of something like this being a bit too talked-up. Thankfully that doesn't seem to be the case and I had an absolute blast (no pun intended) playing my way through the three maps on offer. The levelling up, perks, challenges and create a class all work wonderfully to enrich the multiplayer experience.

To me the game felt like a bit of a mix between elements of Battlefield 2 and the previous Call of Duty games (the Overgrown map particularly feels like something that could easily have come from CoD 2 or 3).

I know there's a few other GFFers who've had a go on the beta, so just curious as to what everyone's making of this one.

I'm not in the program, but excited about this game nonetheless. I'm not overly interested in the multiplayer part but judging from the previous two Call of Duty games by Inifity Ward, the single player experience is going to be amazing. I'm loving the modern setting, the time to finally move away from WWII was long overdue. Call of Duty 4 is actually the only war game I'm interested in ever since Battlefield 2.

Would you mind explaining how these things work in detail for those of us who haven't had the chance to play the beta?

Your multiplayer profile has associated with it a rank (or level) and a number of points within that rank. So you start off as a Private (I believe) at level 1 and go up in rank as you earn points in the game. Basically every kill/assist you get earns you points, and at the end of a round you also get points, I assume, based off your performance. This isn't the only way to get points (see challenges below), but is the main way you will do so.

Going up ranks can open up new options, new equipment, new challenges or new perks; so, for example, level 4 opens up the 'Create a class' option in the beta.

Equipment is as you'd expect, the weapons and attachments for weapons that are available to you. At various points new weapons within each of the main gun classes (assault rifle, SMG, light machinegun, shotgun and sniper-rifle) were unlocked, as well as some attachments and camo options. Attachments modify the weapon, so stuff like silencers, red dot sights, or, for example, a couple of the assault rifles could have a grenade launcher as an attachment (though this was in place of the perk 1 group). The five preset classes have predefined load-outs, but in the create a class option you can define your own.

In create a class you essentially you pick your whole setup. Your primary fire-arm and a side-arm, with the option to select from your available attachments and camo options. You pick a special grenade to carry (flash, stun or smoke) and then one perk from each of the three perk groups. The equipment you choose affects your mobility, accuracy, range, firepower, etc.

Perks are little modifiers on your performance. Perk group 1 is mostly concerned with explosives and gives you access to 2 x C4, 3 x your special grenade choice, or an RPG with 2 rockets, and other things (I unlocked a perk which would allow me to see enemy explosives). Not sure whether the other perk groups have themes, but include a range of things and from one that would allow you to sprint for longer, one hides you from the enemy UAV (see kill streak info below), deeper bullet penetration (as you can shoot through stuff), increased hip-fire accuracy or last stand which allows you to pull a pistol before dying.

The game also rewards you with more than points for kill streaks. 3 kills in a row and you can call in UAV. This lasts for a little while (maybe a minute at most) and scans over the map highlighting the enemy, at the time the scan passes them, as a red dot on your map. 5 kills and you can call in an airstrike at a location of your choosing. 7 and you get to call in a friendly attack chopper which hovers about mowing down anyone foolish enough to be seen by its gunners (it can be shot down though).

The other way to get XP points is to complete challenges. These range from getting X number of kills with particular weapons to stuff like killing people whilst crouching/prone or slightly more random achievement-esque ones like jumping and falling more than 30ft to your death. These get you XP points but can also unlock attachments and camo options (meaning if you prefer a certain gun you will unlock bits for it because you use it more often).

I think that covers everything and I've probably rambled on far too long. If you can I'd recommend trying to find any left-over keys and get a download token, it's worth checking out.

For more information the official site is worth checking out for a load of details on the game, including the multiplayer beta.

Omagnus's post is awesome, but I wanted to clarify a couple things. UAV lasts for 30 seconds, but it activates for your entire team. You'll also know when your opponents have a UAV, as a voice over comes on and lets you know.

Perk group 1 is focused on gadgets, Perk group 2 is focused on escape, movement, and the like, and Perk group 3 is focused on either being able to take more hits or making your shots more powerful.

One of the best ones is Last Stand, a perk wherein when you die from something other than a headshot or explosion, you fall down onto your back with your pistol out and, similar to Gears of War, you bleed out but have the opportunity to fire back. You get double XP when you kill someone in Last Stand, and my favorite part about it is that it's not overpowered. It would've been easy to make it so that you essentially got an extra life, but because your point of view shifts downward when you fall down, it's disorienting enough that you can't just keep firing the direction you already were, but still doable enough that it doesnt feel useless.

I can't wait for the achievements to come out for this game: Because of the challenges system, I'd love the achievements to be related to rank and then just say "Complete 20 challenges." A more freeform achievement like that would be neat.

Cheers for the clarification Mo0, I didn't realise that's how the perks were grouped, awesome.

One thing I really like is how balanced the Perks are. No one perk felt like it was much more of an advantage, it was all down to tweaking my character the way I play. I like to sneak into enemy lines and take people out, so the UAV hiding perk works brilliantly for me. But it's not an uber-stealth option, because another important thing to note, and really cool, is that whenever you fire a shot on a weapon that isn't silenced you show up on the enemies maps as a red dot briefly. So basically, you have to pick you shots carefully otherwise you'll give your position away. And while a silencer fixes that it also reduces your range.

It felt brilliantly balanced to the point where being level 1 and picking a default class doesn't put you at any sort of disadvantage. It's just about opening up options and tweaking things to match the way you play, which I love.

Also Mo0, I can't find confirmation anywhere (at work so can't look too extensively), but I'm pretty sure they said CoD4 was going to have no multiplayer-based achievements (though one could argue that with the challenge system in place there are, just not 'official gamerscore' ones).

Additional Spam:
Just after posting that, looky what I found:
Xbox360Achievements.org - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Achievement List (warning: may contain some spoiler-ish stuff)

No obvious MP achievements, though given some of the descriptions they could be (though I'm pretty certain about hearing they were just going to be all single player achievements).

Also, one thing about Last Stand. As well as shooting back you can hold X to 'take the coward's way out' and shoot yourself (which deprives the enemy of their 10 points XD).

Ok, that's AWESOME. Is there any detriment to using it though? You lose points or anything for doing that? It might be a piss off if EVERYONE starts doing that and you're unable to acquire any points for your team.

Or does it only limit the guy's XP gains, and not his team's score?

Still waiting on my key in the mail. Hopefully the UK one you gave me Omagnus will be valid here, although I don't think there's any implementations of region checking built into the Redeem Code function. So it should work.

As far as I could tell there was no downside to doing. However, you have to hold down X for a few seconds and the person who shot you can just keep shooting you to finish you off. I took to keeping on shooting until +10 (or +2) appeared. Similarly I only managed to kill someone from Last Stand once because most people would keep shooting me once I was on the floor.

Also, if you lie there for a little while without anyone shooting you you die anyways, and I believe no one gets points that way either (because they didn't officially finish you off), though I could be wrong on that.

I'm pretty sure it only limit's the person's XP gains. Since I didn't see any score that wasn't a multiple of 10, I'm guessing the team gets 10 points per kill regardless.

the guy who downed you will always get the full 10+ for your death if you commit suicide or die from bleeding. The only way the dude can lose those 10 points is if one of his teammates o kills you while you're in last stand mode. Which if that happens, the dude who originally downed you is awarded the 2+ points for an assist.

I personally love the Last stand perk as it helps me rack up so many kills. When i'm playing with a class that has the last stand perk, I generally average 5-6 last stand kills which does miracles for rank boosting as well as making it to the top of the matches leaderboards. They really need to dumb it down as if you possess an above-average skill level in FPSs, you will be godly in CoD4 with the last stand skill.

As th majority of the people who are in the beta, possess a skill level on par with mo0's and so this makes the game hilariously easy.

I have a custom class specifically tailored for each of the 3 maps and using these classes, i'm basicially guaranteed at least a 10+ K/D ratio every game.

for Overgrown i shuffle between a custom sniper class and an assault rifle class.

For Operation Islam, I use a SMG with red scope and last stand perk.

For Vacant, I use a shotgun class with last stand.

Besides that, CoD4 is absolutely brilliant and has gone from being a game I had no interest in whatsoever to being my most anticipated game to drop this fall, even ahead of Mass Effect and Ratchet and Clank: ToD. That says something about how awesome CoD4 will be.

I could have sworn a saw a message that said you get to deny the person the 10 points, but having played again for a bit last night I'm unsure. Wasn't paying attention to loading screens and I did get a few random +10s appear a while after I shot someone. At this stage I'd err on the side of Iwata and assume that the person does get the 10 points after all.

I was originally not interested in this game, but all this mulitplayer jambalaya makes it different. I'm interested in seeing the last stand, that makes things interesting.

Wow, even the Halo beta didn't have this many technical issues. It's now frozen on me three times, in random situations. (Never in the same place or doing the same thing when it happens), and there's some issue with "downloading game settings", which is some sort of error message box that appears when trying to join a game, for random people, at random times.

There's supposed "fixes" for this, like clearing the cache and shit. Of course it doesn't work, so I've deleted the thing and am redownloading it, so I can hopefully have this fixed.

Fun as hell when it works, but there needs to be improvements made to the matchmaking system. The guy with the shittiest ping should not be randomly chosen for hosting duties, for example, and I wish there was an H3beta like option for choosing to be put into the game with the best connection to the host, instead of something hosted and filled with people from Europe.

Otherwise, pretty fucking great so far.

So the GFF group ended up having one of our usual epic sessions last night on CoD4.

Firstly, the session just included me and skills and we played about for an hour or two before he had to book it. Matches were awesome and alot of laughter was had on both sides, especially on Crash.

When Skills got back a couple of hours later. Basically the entire GFF xbox crew sans for a few got online. The team this time around consists of Me, Skills, Mo0, Tails, Eleo, and some other dude that is skill's buddy. We filled up every slot for our own team and didn't have to deal with any randoms and played for like an hour and a half just having a Ball.

Until McDonalds decided he had to go to bed and that is when our night basically went down the shitpipe. Our glorious squadron of hilarity was penetrated by a random; An extremely annoying one at that. Dude was loud and obnoxious and was constantly screaming through his mic and using gay as an insult like it had gone out of style.

So that killed the enjoyment quite a bit. So we decided to regroup in the lobby and play again,but i think we were all dreading another random. So we couldn't really get engaged in the game like we did prior. Plus another factor is we couldn't crack mo0 jokes because he wasn't around.

Overall, it was an amazing game session for those couple of hours until we ran into that MandoX faggot who ruined it for us.

We need to do this shit again. This time with sir England and acid on our teams.

I was actually wondering if it was an open beta. I might like to start out on this =o

Nope, unfortunately. Look around for someone who has a beta key, they're apparently not that hard to get their hands on.

Iwata, I'm sorry, I was literally falling asleep when I left, I believe I spent maybe 30 seconds awake after the xbox turned off.

The "Downloading Game Settings" issue is on their end, not yours, which the official forums don't really discuss much about. (One mod who doesn't work for IW goes so far as to say it IS your end, and it's a cache problem), so there's nothing to prevent that from happening or anything you can do to fix it.

Also, I haven't had any freezing issues since the rapid fire ones I had in the beginning there, right before I made my last post.

That said, Iwata's got it down. if most of the crew buys this, it'll be a bonafide blast when it's out. We need to get more of us into it.

If there's another session going on I'm up for joining in, though given you lot are in the US I guess it'll have to be a Friday or a Saturday so I can stay up til crazy o'clock.

Wow, its been nearly a month since anyone has posted in this thread. Was the CoD4 beta that uneventful (aside from Iwata's post)? Guess I didn't miss out on as much as I thought I did. Either way, up until this point it was only Xbox players who got the goods, but it appears CoD's loyal PC fanbase will get their fair share of CoD possibly this Thursday

In the meantime there is really nothing else to do other than to twiddle your thumbs and to start the countdown until the demo is released, then a month later, the full game. Which if the previous CoDs are anything to go by, is going to be full of epic and win.

Well it's only been three weeks since the last post, and there's only so much I could post about the beta (I think I said a fair amount), especially since most of what was said about individual games was done so over Live or in IRC.

Plus, I don't know if you spotted, but there was another 360 game (an FPS no less) released which sort of took everyone's attention.

OXM has given it 10/10.
No shock though, this game looked awesome at E3.
Can't wait to get my hands on it.

PC single player Demo now available at Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Demo - FileFront.com

Thank god because the Yahoo afternoon launch was a dissaster. The link was broken for over two hours before anyone got a solid download.

But can't wait to get home and try this thing out. Especially after all the E3 hype, and awards it recieved.

Sorry, gotta bump this one up. (Yes I know it's oldsauce)

Friggin' intense game. <3 to bits.

It's so annoying that this doesn't hit stores in Europe until the end of the week. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in with this game. I'm thinking, since I played CoD2 on Veteran I might brave that difficulty on 4 (or whatever they call the equivalent difficulty).

Fingers crossed I'll be online with you US lot who pick this game up in the next few days sooner rather than later.

Intense is definately the word. Some people try to call it an epic game, but epic doesn't really fit. However intense is 100% accurate, thoes who've played it know what I mean ;)

Man, if these terrorists were NFL quarterbacks, or MLB pitchers they would win every time. Cause if they can throw a 1.5LB grenade hundreds of yards, imagine a simple leather ball.

Last thing is I must have the worst luck in the world because whenever a grenade is thrown at me, I usually manage to pick it up and throw it back, but when I do there always seems to be another one right next to it that gets me, WTF?

But that's all the negativity I've got on the game. After I'm done single-player I have a feeling that I'm going to be reliving my 1 year of CoD2 all over again... can't wait ^^

It's called Veteran here too, and if it's anything like COD2, just go straight to that difficulty instead of bothering with the overly easy normal mode first.

I'm hesitant to get the game because of one reason:

The history of stupidly-short single player campaigns. I'm talking like 3-4 hours long, tops. If its longer, I'll be glad to pick up the game and emerge from the WW2 era.

CoD4 clocks in around 6hrs if you gun it straight to the end. There's lots of optional conversations and things that you can participate in which can extend the play another hour or so in total. Also some levels have a few different paths that you can take which creates different firefights entirely.

Also after you beat campaign mode you unlock Arcade Mode, which is the campaign, except you are given points based on performance, kill chains and multi kills. Which is linked to a leaderboard.

Then there's the multiplayer which makes for 70% or so of the total package. So if you're not planning on playing it online, then make sure to rent it for the intense firefights.

Well, Veteran's a bit more difficult this time around, but that's more due to the hilarious situations you get put into where you have no option outside of getting hit once or twice. And that's all you can get hit by on the harder difficulties, so it's really more an exercise in frustration than anything else.

Multi's still awesome though.

Edit: Thanks to a really really BAD bunch of design decisions, SP is kinda annoying. The infinite respawns combined with the whole push forward to make them stop mechanic takes hilariously obvious scripting to another level entirely. Thankfully this is limited to three or so areas in the game where it's really noticible, and the rest works pretty well.

Can anyone tell me why headquarters is one of the greatest online modes ever? Just spend 3 hours playing it nonstop with Gelb 1 and 2 and BigBlah.

Me, tails, and skills all did modestly well. Although, let me tell you about the biggest shit wrecker you will ever meet! Bigblah fucked shit up and basically decimated the opponents like no other.

so more of you gffers need to get CoD 4 ( preferably 360 version ) so you can see the legend in action.

I picked this up this morning and have had a chance to play a little bit of it. As I expected, the campaign mode is shaping up to be lame, but since somebody here said the multiplayer was so good, I figured I would pick it up and see. I played one match and got some kills, so we will see how it goes once I start playing with GFF people.

Really? I've only played the prologue and first mission of the campaign so far. But just that small part was the best experience i've had with a SP FPS for years.

From the dialogue between the S.A.S members from the subtle details like the drunken sailor/sleeping dudes and escaping the sinking cargo ship. It is just full of awesomeness. Not to forget the fact that you get to experience certain cutscenes through the eyes of one of the victims is just awesome as well.

In terms of presentation, yeah, it is interesting, but in terms of actual gameplay, why can I not take cover when everyone else can?

You can take cover. It's called the B button.

Ducking isn't a cover system, buddy.

I'm dodgy on the issue of first person cover systems. It works well in Gears because you've got a full 360 of everything around you. I haven't played R6 Vegas but I'm under the impression that taking cover in first person would greatly limit your FOV greater than it already is, making some of COD4s frantic gunfights even harder to get around.

Can't take cover, wtf? You get behind an object, and if it's small, you press B. I've had no problem with getting out of gun fire, other than when you get surrounds, or when I tried to take cover by what turned out to be a door, which opened as I was sat there reloading.

They're talking about taking cover ala Gears of War where you could "snap" onto any solid object big enough to cover your character and use it as protection, allowing you to swing around, jump over, or just sit behind it as long as you saw fit.

Do any of you idiots know what a cover system is? Because honest to God.

Also, in Vegas, the camera pulls out and you don't lose your orientation or nothing. It's quite useful. Wether or not such a system is useful for a call of duty game is up for debate, though.

While I like it for single-play, in multiplayer I find the ability to shoot through walls a little cheap. I got a 4 kill spree by aimlessly shooting through a wall and I had no idea that they were there. I knew someone was there, but not 4.

Doesn't break the game. Just makes it more of a short-lifespan game, rather then the long lives you could live in CoD2.

What do you guys think. Do you love the shoot through walls mechanic or hate it?

P.S.
Cover in Vegas was masterful. That's all I've got to say on that.

It counters a lot of normal camping spots, and makes you think about what you're hiding behind. No longer will assholes hide behind chairs. It's is great.

Especially since I kill a lot of people that way.

Skills: I didn't realise we were talking about 'cover systems', so whatever. But on the subject of them, I don't think one in a fast-paced, intense shooter such as CoD4 would work all that well. I could see myself getting annoying that you couldn't 'snap-off' a wall quick enough, or similar.

Slayer X: Shooting through walls works fine. I see no problem with it. If you're dumb enough to stay put behind a bit of wall seemingly getting shot out of nowhere, well you deserve to die.

But what FPS game utilizes a cover system like gears besides RS:Vegas? ( which i think is horribly implemented ). I would take the cover/duck system in CoD4 anyday over the shit in Vegas or gears.

Cover in CoD4 works like it was intended if you know how to utilize it to your advantage. Its just that you can't use thin walls or metal as cover anymore and if you do, you will get shot to death like no other, which i think is awesome as fuck.

OK, so I've not completed the game yet (I've made it to the start of the mission where we're about to go after that guy's son), but from what I've played so far, this game is awesome. Some bits are bastard-fucking-hard on Veteran level (I honestly don't know how I survived the Ferris Wheel bit), but it's brilliant. The story is completely involving, I actually care about my team mates, certainly the SAS squad, and there's been a number of occasions where I've been completely surprised by what's happened.

And on top of that there's the multiplayer, which I've already ploughed a large number of hours into because it's just so damned good. The ranking up system works like a charm and just gives you more options. Yes, you get new guns and stuff, but no weapon out does anything else, it's just about styles of play. The P90 is a brilliant SMG with a crazy fire rate, but it's got a slightly shorter range and longer reload time than some of the others.

Much like Iwata and others, the Headquarters game mode is an absolute fave of mine, though others are pretty great too (Sabotage is a pretty cool game mode). And it's a pretty strong set of maps. Some don't suit certain game types all that well, but there's no map that I outright hate; Bloc is probably the weakest of the bunch.

Absolutely top notch game this.

No. weakest of the bunch would be Wet Works.

But I got Mile High Club today. Took a fair bit of trial and error to figure out exactly how to do it on vet in under a minute. I'll spoiler what I did, if anyone's trying for it.

Weird error, though. Seems like when I was playing the last stage before, at the infamous double tunnels part, I didn't get a checkpoint between them the first time I was playing. Turned game off, and the next day when I tried again, boom, checkpoint, and then I got past the whole thing and finished the game. Weird.

As for Mile High Club;



1000/1000'd SO BAD SON

I think I prefer Wet Works to Bloc, but it is one of the weaker maps, true. To be fair though, out of the 16 maps I can only think of two or three I'm not a massive fan of, most are really very good.

So the question for people like russ, Tails and Iwata (and myself I guess), who are creeping up on that rank 55, is will you be going for prestige mode? Having spent time unlocking things, I like having options, so I don't know as if I want to. Does anyone know if the challenges reset too? I'm guessing the do as if you lose all your equipment you'll need a way to unlock things like the red-dot sights, etc.

Does this game support DX10, and if so, does it make a noticeable difference?

It's made to work with DX9, but I'm sure there's bound to be subtle differences in terms of shading and lighting with DX10 running.

I've just got the game, and am slowly working my way up the multiplayer ladder. Anyone else kind'a got the feeling that it's almost impossible to put down, how addictive it is? I'm absolutely just loving crouching in a building on the Crossfire map, and sniping everyone that gets into my cross!

Very. Very, very, very. I'm sat at work counting down the hours (of which there are far too many to go) so I can get home, do a little single player and then hop back on the MP.

I assume you're using a silencer on that, either that or you're playing some dumbass people. If I get sniped then I'm paying attention to the kill-cam and telling my team where the sniper is. If someone's sniping teammates then they show up on the map as a red-dot, and you can be damn sure I'm going to shank that bastard if I can (and have done so on many an occasion).

I unlocked the M14 last night and I don't know as if I'm that impressed. It doesn't feel as elegant as the G3. For a single-shot gun it feels a little more hap-hazard, which isn't great.

I haven't decided about prestige mode yet. Honestly, I am so locked into the G3 right now that I'm simple not sure if I could switch back to a less precise killing instrument. And with Mass Effect coming in a week, I will probably be putting less time into this, at least for a bit, so I don't know that I would want to give up my weapons. Maybe once I have played through Mass Effect once, and can put more time into Call of Duty, I will do the prestige mode. That, or I will just wait until my Kill/Death ratio is comfortably above 1.00 enough that I can absorb some bad games en route to level 25 and the G3.

I'm joining you there sir, just got in now. I did things a little differently, but to the same effect. Got to the last bit with 6 seconds to spare. That is quite insane, and hats off to anyone who pulls that off. In-fucking-tense that is.

I've noticed that the M14 simply packs more of a punch and for me it seems steadier while aiming down the sights. For that reason I prefer to field the m14 with a red dot scope.

Also some minor things I've noticed:

- Other than with snipers, headshots don't seem to actually one shot anymore, they seem to just deal critical damage, although if you do shoot someone in the head who already has damage its a one hit kill then. I know this because on numerous occasions I've shot someone in the back of the head, point blank, only to have them still be alive.

- ACOG scope: useless (except for a few select weapons, usualy SMGs). It adds zoom, but I've noticed it also adds movement to the weapon when aiming similar to snipers. But without the ability to hold your breath. ACOG scope unlocks for snipers is also retarded, worthless.

- Speaking of holding your breath, it seems now sniping is even harder, as holding your breath now doesn't seem to steady the scope as much or as fast as before.

- LMGs seem to be very powerful, decent accuracy, awesome penetration and excellent rate of fire. Its super large clip means that waiting for the gunner to run out of ammo is not really an option when you'll probably die while waiting. Sounds kind of overpowered.

I'm interested in buying this and joining the GFF team for some gaming, but I also hear that this game is so much better with teamwork.... This is kind of a subjective question, but how do well do you guys play together? Do you use mics?

Yeah, we all use mics and work as a team, but if we aren't alerting someone about potential danger, we're chatting away about random bullshit, like how much fried chicken Eleo eats on a daily basis.

TEAM MEAT does not need to discuss objectives or strategy. We discuss things like fuckcrap, negros, and how tiny my cock is for using the RPD.

Keep in mind we're all on Xbox, Free. Not the PC. If you knew that already, I didn't know you had an Xbox, so I apologize~

I don't, and now I'm sad :(.

Due to its accuracy issues I wouldn't pick it over the G3. I was using it + stopping power and steady aim and it was still taking three bullets to down people (one/two only if I got a headshot). With the G3 it's more often than not two bullets, russ will testify to that one.

Going on pure in-game stats, the M14 should be more powerful, so I can only assume it's down to the accuracy. I can't say I'm a fan particularly. I'm somewhat taken with my G36C to be honest.

Steady Aim only works when you're firing from the hip. It does nothing on recoil if you're aiming.

That said, I love the M14. It's like the G3, but kicks more ass.

Thanks Mr Patronising. :p

Yes, I know Steady Aim is only for firing from the hip, but the issue seemed to be in general, whether using the sight or not, it feels a far more sloppy gun compared to the G3. I might give it another go tonight (providing Xbox Live is working properly) now that I have the red-dot sight for it.

The G3 is the most awesome gun on the game for people whose play style is more about precision than spamming bullets through walls and whatnot. When I hit level 25, my kill/death ratio was in the Mo0 range of .60 - .68. Now I am something like level 46 with a kill/death of .95, which includes an absolute bullshit round last night where I had a 5/22. With the exception of last night, during which more bullshit was going on than I can even understand, at least during the public match that I played, the G3 + Stopping Power is a two shot shot kill, unless the target has Juggernaut turned on. Then it is a three shot kill. I will frequently two-shot people's legs to kill them. I know that they are mad when they watch the kill cam and see this. Last night I was putting 4 shots into people with the G3 and not killing them. I was royally pissed off about that. The main downfall that the G3 has is that if you happen to find yourself in close quarters with an enemy, if that enemy has weapon with a high rate of fire, he will almost always win. If you're a run and gun person, the G3 isn't for you. If you are a supreme flanker, the G3 may be the gun for you. For example, on the Countdown map, bad teams camp the hangers, good teams have four guys keep their attention to one side while sending a pair of flankers around to pick their exposed flank apart with beautiful precision.


And Team GFF? There is so little strategy being discussed in the typical Team GFF game that anyone simply eavesdropping on the voice chat would expect us to get destroyed every time out. The fact is that the worst person that Team GFF will run out there on a full six man team will rate out as an "average" player kind of bodes well for our chances, especially since all the GFF people I have played with seem to understand what is going on, and don't run around like idiots. And the fact that most of us have played together a lot, on this game and other games, and you don't really have much need to talk about anything further than fried chicken, or the weird sounds that Kostaki is making when he gets shot, or Jap mode's Fire Emblem progress. Also, it helps that Skills, Tails, Iwata, and Omagnus are all really good.

Precisely. Everyone knows Tails is going to run in and shoot shit all the time, that you're going to hang back and pick people off from a distance, that Omagnus has skills with the knife, that Skills has a small penis and uses the machinegun, that Kostaki sounds like Mr. Bill, and that I will usually run in first, start the capture, and die.

That way, we can all talk shit to each other and still know exactly what our strategy's going to be, which is why I LOVE playing with you guys.

However, I'm thinking of trying a different tactic next time we play so my k/d ratio can go up and you guys can all SHUT THE FUCK UP about my k/d ratio.

Also, definitely trying out G3 with Stopping Power today. I've become too set in my ways with perks (sleight of hand or double tap, martyrdom, and RPG/grenade launcher attachment). I've gotta try some new combos!

Honestly, with guns like the G3 it helps to have a second, rapid fire weapon, which is why I fucking LOVE the Overkill perk.

I roll with the M14 as primary, but a lot of times you'll gun down several people only to have someone else come around the corner just as you're about to get caught reloading. This is where most people would die, but with Overkill, I just whip out my G36C or the P90 (I switch the two out depending on the map), and mow them down, go back to business. It really makes a big difference in stuff like Headquarters where being able to assure that EVERY ENEMY getting to the capture point gets mowed down. It only takes one person slipping by me in order to give them a capture.

I don't know, the Desert Eagle + stopping power packs a hell of a punch and is pretty fast. I would say that I am fairly attached to stopping power, but I guess I should test it to see if affects the number of shots needed to kill a target before I eliminate the possibility of switching away from it. I've also had instances where the G3 didn't seem to be penetrating a wall, and I really needed to eliminate a sniper behind said wall, so I whipped out that big chrome piece and handled business. He was probably mad.

I stand corrected, with the red-dot sight and some patience, the M14 is a fucking killer. I had it on Stopping Power + Deep Penetration and I one/two-shot kills were the order of the day. I got some brilliant kills where people retreated behind walls thinking they were safe. Oh no, not today son.

Mind you I still think I prefer to roll with my G36C and UAV Jammer. I'm using the silencer to give me some sneaking opportunities. It works pretty well. I'm going to give Overkill a try, pair an M14 with the G36C, that sounds like a good plan.

QFT, Overkill is friggin awesome. Once I got that perk I instantly converted 4 of my custom slots to have it. I also run the G36/P90/MP44 and another slightly more accurate long range weapon, either the M14 or sometimes I'll pack the .50 cal sniper. I'll then either throw on a grenade launcher or take the extra grenades or Bandolier perk and then Steady Aim and I'm good to go.

Losing stopping power sucks but having the peace of mind knowing that you can handle pretty much any situation with just one kit is pretty awesome. Only reason I still even bother with the other kits is because the guns in those kits I want to complete the challenges for, oh that and my close combat centered kit for the likes of Vacant or Shipment.

Just finished the Campaign on Veteran. Very Satisfying experience, but I know i won't do it again for a long time and if i do campaign again, i'm stickin to hardened. Why? because of two parts i would not like repeating.



Also Shock and awe and all ghillied up are some amazing ass levels. Some of the best levels ever to grace a FPS ever. Overall, CoD4 is definitely amazing.

Seconding that so very much. There were bits on All Ghillied Up where I held my breath as I felt so in the moment of it all. Also agree about the hard parts, they were pretty tough (the former much more so than the latter).

Live patch for CoD4 in the works:

[ source ]

Sounds like some sensible updates, especially the finding a new host thing as that's really annoying when the host decides to lame out and the game ends.

This game continues to kick major ass. Amusingly, my sister's boyfriend who is a complete Halo nut. I mean, major Halo nut, confessed to me last night that he's preferring CoD4 MP to Halo 3.

Really enjoying the game. Almost to level 40. Still tweaking my customer slots.

Been using the G36C, but not sure if it's worth it. It has absolutely no range for a rifle, so it works well in close quarters, but not as much as, say, the MP5, AK47u or P90. In tight situations, you have to fire from the hip to stand a chance and without Stopping Power turned on, the gun is nearly useless. There's just no power behind it, regardless of it's ranking in the stats screen. Developers should have just stuck with the G36. Longer barrel, longer range, and defaults with a 3X zoom as well as battery operated red dot. I suppose the choice to go with the compact was balancing issues.

As soon as I get some levels with it, and try it out using the red dot sight, and seeing if that helps me out any. The gun seems like it has some added weight or something to it. It simply takes a moment or two longer to pull it up for accurate shots. The iron sights are completely atrocious. Once I'm done with it, I think I'll go back to using the G3. Haven't gotten the M14 yet, but I've picked it up in multiplayer. I like it. Has a bit more of a kick to it than the G3 does, but I'm not sure how much that will impact my playing.

I'm currently the headshot king with the R700. As soon as I get the blue tiger camo for it I think I'll go back to the first sniper rifle and fill out it's headshot quota. Then I imagine I'll move on down to the 50. cal. It's no different than the R700 stat wise, it just has that threatening BOOM behind every shot.

I'm still working on my infiltration class too. Think I'm gonna either silence the MP5 to free up the slot that UAV scanner is in, or not. Dunno which would work best for me. Extreme Conditioning with Flash Bangs. Maybe go with the G36C with grenade launcher. Hasn't worked out quite as well for me yet, though.

Personally, everything about this game is better than Halo 3. It's only pulled out when company is over and wants to play.

Oh shit, Achievement Unlocked - Mile High Club 20G. God it was intense. I don't even remember how I got through the bottom floor, that is how intense the top floor was for me. I was running low on time, so I flashed that asshole hallway and blinded myself in the process, so I ran through, shooting blindly, got to the end and shanked the shotgun guy, saw that I had less than two seconds left to trigger the hostage. I sprint, it triggers.

So there I am, excited about just having gotten this far, because I had been working on it for a long time.

Slow motion. Whip out the pistol. OUT OF AMMO. RELOAD. TIME RUNNING OUT.

I see his forehead.

SPLATTER.

Achievement Unlocked.

I blind ran the asshole hallway.

As for me I got the game for PC yesterday and will get it soon for my Xbox. I was shocked that on my spec. I can run the game on everything to the maximum when Gears of War is still asking for one more GB RAM.

Game it self is a way better then CoD3 so I think I'll be spending some good time on Live with my friends to play on winter nights =)

Just beat the game. Is it just me, or did it seem a bit short? Maybe its because I've been playing nothing but lately...

However, it was an amazing experience. It has been a long time since a developer has put that much effort into a game. I love the extra stuff (enemy intelligence, cheats, etc) and they don't feel like tack-ons. It's a nice rarity out of the mounds of shitty titles lately.

I've only played a bit of the Multiplayer, but I will be getting into that fairly quickly.

It was shorter than other games that are longer, yes. However, I really don't think it was short, and I don't think it felt anything other than the right length. But maybe that's just me.

360 version talk here. IThe campaign manages to be on par with the multiplayer, with plenty of great scenarios. Sniper teams, pursuit, and choices that reflect well of military tactics without just throwing them together in some vanilla mishmash. My least favorite mission, excluding the prologue, to play is Charlie Don't Surf, simply because it is the most basic mission of the entire game. If you want to talk about length, play Veteran... there are points where you just want the goddamned thing to be over and done with.

I've done the Veteran run as well, and I have to say that All Ghillied Up is nothing compared to the Epilogue and No Fighting in the War Room with Checkpoint glitch running full force. I'd say my only gripe is how useless it makes your Squad support seem, especially given that the enemy will generally all shoot at you and throw grenades at you. The funny thing is that I didn't notice that the enemies are basically just as accurate in the lower difficulty levels, save for a few instances on Recruit where the enemy won't hit shit if you circle strafe around them and they're armed with an automatic weapon.

Still you know, All Ghillied Up was pretty damn fun. The other missions had you race against the clock, something usually seen. In AGU, not being spotted is the key.

For me, it's time to mess up with the multiplayer again. Gotta get that Overkill perk. But my mainstays were always Bandolier, Stopping Power and Deep Impact and usually using SMGs or Assault Rifles.

All Ghillied Up was never hard on veteran as the entire thing is basically scripted and it is impossible to fail unless you decide to go all John Rambo.

What was hard was the mission that follows All Ghillied Up which is One Shot, One Kill. This is mainly due to the absurd Ending part aka the Ferris Wheel, where one has to basically defend an open area for 6-7 minutes against an infinite amount of enemys. I've yet to hear from or see a single person beat this part of the game that didn't utilize one of the two cheap ass methods which are...

1. Setting up C4 all over the map and going prone behind the bumper car platform or in the corner of one of the buildings and then waiting it out.

2. Taking refuge in the ticket stand situated to the left of the ferris wheel, which for some reason guards can't nade or enter and thus providing you with safe cover.

This part is easily the Hill 400 of CoD4. In regards to War room and it's brother chapters, i found it to be extremely easy if you know how the checkpoints work. Unbeknownst to many who are quick to say the system is glitched, it is not. Instead it relies on the countdown clock. It is broken down like this...

First checkpoint ( stairs ) Won't activate if you have under 7:20 on the timer.

Second checkpoint ( corner ) won't activate if you have under 5:30 on the timer.

Third Checkpoint ( Slow moving door ) Won't activate if you have under 3:40 on the timer.

Once i knew this info, it was easy to breeze through the tunnels and i never saw how the epilogue was all that difficult. Just make shooting the drivers a priority and on the end end part, just go from left to right.

In terms of beating Veteran in CoD games, i personally think it goes like this from hardest to easiest.

Call of duty 2
Call of Duty 4
Call of duty 1
Call of duty 3

I know it's a general statement, just want to say that in my mind I had counted All Ghilled Up and One Shot, One Kill as one mission. Again I had no problems with them on Veteran. As far as the Checkpoint glitches go, you can explain the timer in No Fighting in the War Room... but I also ran into checkpoints not engaging in other areas. I've already beaten Veteran, it obviously wasn't a huge deterrent, just a minor annoyance. If you can explain away other areas, I'd be more than happy to hear it. Let me know if you need specific levels and such, my Veteran run is still in its infancy.

Checkpoint timers or no, they ARE glitched. I've been to the various parts a full minute before that limit runs up, and nothing pops.

While it might deal with some of the cases of people yelling "GLITCH GLITCH", it most certainly doesn't deal with them all. Both of my problems with checkpoints were fixed when I turned the game off and then on again. I am not sure of the cause of this.

http://i11.tinypic.com/7yhihic.gif

10 KILL STREAK

Digging up a bit of an older thread, but the Variety Map Pack (featuring four new maps for 800 MSP) is now available on Live.

[ source ]

While I haven't had too much time to test these maps, most of them highly, HIGHLY, encourage camping. Way more so than even Wet Work, Crossfire, or Overgrown. It's kind of annoying really.

What's worse is that Creek is the worst map in the game. By a mile and a god damn half. It's worse than Bloc for God's sake. The only viable strategy in it is to get a good hiding spot (of which there are too many, considering the ample foilage), and wait for the enemy to get bored of hiding and move towards you.

The map is broken from both a design and gameplay standpoint. There is zero redeeming qualities with it, it's absolutely fucking horrendous, and almost singlehandedly makes you annoyed at spending the 10 for the additional content.

Thankfully Chinatown is pretty good, and Broadcast is pretty solid.

None of these are good enough to be the best maps, like Crash or Countdown or something, so it's a shame that they merely range from abysmal to mediocre.

Having had a good amount of play-through of these last night, I figure I'll offer up my own thoughts, which aren't such as whiny as Skills's.

Creek: The obvious comparison is Overgrown, but only because it features a lot of growth, which makes it harder to spot people. There is the potential for camping, but those of us who don't sit and hide (unlike Skills) were quite able to sneak around and take mother-fuckers out. Overall I liked it.

Broadcast: At first I wasn't sure about this map, the first game I played was bloody confusing. Once I worked out the layout I started having a bit more fun with it. The outside element is larger than you might think at first and can add an interesting dynamic to the fight if one team takes up position out there. Reminds me, to an extent of Vacant, but yeah, another decent map.

Killhouse: Only played this a little in a private match, but it could be good fun. It's bigger than Shipment and more like the cargo deck of Wet Works, but good opportunities for sneak between things. Would have to play a little more with it to get a proper feel.

Chinatown: A remake of the old Carentan map from CoD2, this is easily the best map in the pack. There's a lot of scope for moving around, and no obvious choke points. Definitely a great inclusion.

One thing I will say, with all of these maps, it felt like there was more focus on vertical play in the maps, with more variation in heights available. Perhaps it's just a perception thing, but it felt that way.

As it's only four maps, with only three featuring in the Variety Pack Team Deathmatch list, we did go back to playing the standard maps for a while for a little more variety (oh the irony hey). It'll be good when these new maps find their way into the standard playlists though for sure.