Short barrel

    Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

    Genre: Cinema first-person shooter
    Publisher Activision
    Publisher in Russia New Disk
    Requires Pentium4-2400 +, 512+ Mb, 3D
    Recommended Core2Duo, 1024+ Mb, 3DPC
    platform , Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
    Multiplayer I- net, modem, LANCustomizable
    complexity
    Knowledge of English is not necessary The

    number "4", which is behind the name of the game, suggests that Call of Duty 4 is unlikely to surprise us with its novelty. The worked out scheme “look how cool it is to fight” does not know a mistake, therefore - is it worth it to invent something else?
    Another thing is the quality of the project. The Call of Duty series has always been able to delight and impress - talentedly having done it for the first, second and third time. Will the fourth attempt be just as successful?


    A good but unloved
    Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (hereinafter Call of Duty 4 or CoD4) - the game is really very good. She came out on several platforms at once, playing it, you get real pleasure, Call of Duty 4 demonstrates very good sales dynamics. What else is needed?
    This is not an easy question. Talking with developers and publisher representatives, I always slip into the same topic. Briefly, it can be characterized by a meme "why are you poisoning us"? In fact - why? Why about a game that is interesting, sold, entertaining, which is liked by millions of gamers in the world and, damn it, you yourself, write nasty things? Well, not nasty things, but criticism. Moreover, which is especially offensive to developers and publishers, criticism in your review takes a lot more than praise. Even if we have a very good game.
    So why are we journalists doing this? To be honest, then - according to the childish, naive belief that everything should be beautiful in beauty. When a game is bad, a lot is forgiven. When the game is beloved, everything is forgiven to her. If the game is just very good, interesting, and most importantly, confident in its “goodness” and “interestingness”, then it’s probably not a sin to recall - what exactly did she do that, having jumped the bad status, she couldn’t become loved ...


    sort the Russians
    So, what prevented Call of Duty 4 from falling in love with me? Pretty few things. To be precise - four, one of which is clearly far-fetched - the plot. The three remaining claims relate to technical implementation, the duration of the solo campaign, and also, in fact, that Call of Duty 4 is not a first-person shooter at all. What is it? About it - at the very end.
    In the meantime, let's start with the plot. As you know, the current political situation puts foreign developers in a very difficult position. It lies in the fact that the developers, damn it, are completely incomprehensible: how to show Russians in games? Enemies? It seems that they have not yet reached this point - especially since it is not the Russians who are blowing up NATO soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not the Russians who pose ultimatums and go to cut the Kurds. Not Russians are building (or not building) an atomic bomb under the guise of a power plant. And most importantly, for some reason, these Russians are also fighting world terrorism. Moreover, sometimes much more fiercely.
    On the other hand, the right word, it is impossible to believe that the Russians are good. One has only to look into their eyes, at their fighting bears with a nose ring, and at their nesting dolls - similar to nuclear warheads and their balalaikas, instantly turning into skilled Kalashnikovs in skilled Russian hands - and immediately everything becomes clear. If you still remember what Russians usually write on fences and Reichstag - doubts are completely dispelled.

    As you probably already understood, the plot in Call of Duty 4 is a traditional anti-Russian cranberry, sweetened by reasoning that, unlike dirty Arabs, Russians are both good and bad. Well - as in that joke about policemen and coffins.

    Mannequin death
    What saves Call of Duty 4 graphics from ordinaryness are textures. Thanks to their clarity and quality, you somehow believe in the world behind the glass of the monitor. True, the other nuances of the picture of this faith thoroughly interfere.
    This is not to say that I am a big supporter of the new fashion for hypertrophied physics, where from the slightest touch the polygons, like fluff from a dandelion, fly apart in the corners. However, when you come across physics such as in Call of Duty 4, you involuntarily start thinking: let it be at least some - but there will be progress.

    For physics in Call of Duty 4 - four years ago. Bouncing bottles on tables that for some reason do not break (plastic?). The indestructible walls of which material does not matter (but the baby flies and the “hole” texture is molded). Pre-animated explosions.
    By the way, the models of fighters and the death of enemies are animated very well. The variety that ragdoll technology gives to the auntless aunt with a scythe briefly allows you to drive away thoughts of the pathos theatricality of the action.
    Unfortunately, special effects and light do not stubbornly want to hide cardboard decorations from us. And if, where the lighting does not play a special role (streets of eastern cities flooded with sun), the textures stretch the image to the level of “I believe, I believe, I believe!”, Then just enter the house, light the corners or swim into the fog - immediately it becomes clear how toy the world of Call of Duty 4 is.


    Run, Don’t Think
    If everything is done correctly and skillfully, the Call of Duty 4 solo campaign lasts no more than 8-10 hours. This is despite the fact that no one will simply allow you to act here, but two excellent crutches are inappropriately provided for the acting ones - automatic restoration of vital energy (you just need to crawl out of the battlefield and catch your breath in the nook) and automatically save. Verily, the designers ’care that the gamer, God forbid, not be outplayed, not tired of thought, and drooling with rage on an impassable stretch of the path knows no bounds.
    As in all previous series of the game, Call of Duty 4 is built on the principle of a corridor stuffed with triggers and scripted events. As part of the squad, our hero runs around the places of military glory: the Middle East, Siberia, Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, by sea and by air - performing a variety of important tasks. In general, it looks just fantastic, without giving the gamer a second to think.


    With the wind!
    Call of Duty 4 is truly a top class attraction. While you go from start to finish, you will be shown a lot of interesting things. Hunting for tanks, rescuing a hostage, fighting in a swamp, storming a television company, bombing a city, executing with execution, massacre, and even a nuclear explosion. They will show me even give participation. A little bit ...
    Do you know why I could not fall in love with Call of Duty 4? I practically did not play it. They showed me it. All 8 hours of live broadcasting, I felt like riding on an escalator, on the walls of which the most fantastic battle scenes from recent history were depicted. Here is the attack of the terrorists. Here is the super tank. Here is a lonely tower crane standing near which a bomb falls. Here is the famous ferris wheel over Pripyat. I stand and stare. And I’m not doing anything else. Nothing ...
    I guess I'm an old-fashioned fool, but you know, I'm used to shooting shooters. Desirable a lot. And aptly.
    When in 1998 for the first time I was offered not to shoot directly from the doorstep, but to walk light for half an hour, examining the beauty and life of the Black Mesa research laboratory, I believe it, I was even glad of such an unusual move.
    Then there was Operation Flashpoint - where the hero of war was made of a hero. Then - Medal of Honor, where the cog of war was made the designers «favorite cog’! Finally, everything was completed by the Halo project - which showed that fundamentally the computer genre of shooters can be grafted on consoles. I will repeat the


    new genre
    for the third time: Call of Duty 4 is a great, very interesting, high-quality, exciting, sometimes very beautiful game. A game that I will never love.
    A game that I do not like for foreignness. The consoles took the original computer genre, adapted it to their gamers, to their technical capabilities, and now - as a handout - they are trying to return it to the PC.
    A game that I will never love for brevity. Yes, there are so many events in Call of Duty 4 that enough for three full-fledged shooters. So what? I want to play 40 hours, not 8. 40 hours to shoot monotonous monsters in monotonous interiors, and not to jump in the theater of operations with a squirrel, without really feeling anything.
    Call of Duty 4 I will never fall in love with contempt for me. It is only at first glance it seems that I am a hero. I am the tool that is needed in the detachment, just to click on the next triggers and occasionally shoot rabid enemies. The guys will do the rest themselves. Well-trained and beautiful - so that I can enjoy the sight and, apparently, self-satisfied with my hands free of mouse and keyboard.
    Call of Duty 4 is a good and colorful game. But this is not a shooter. Not our shooter leading a pedigree from DooM and Quake. This is a theater, an interactive action movie, a virtual diorama of eight hours in size. A thing combining carcass and uselessness. Strength and weakness. Ponte and stupidity.
    In general, a short barrel.

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