Amazing, simply amazing. Fantastic single player and atomic multi-player!!
It's moved out of the WW2 setting and blown straight into modern warfare. The controls and shooting system is the same as before if not a little more refined, it rewards the player for aiming down the gun and also online has an arcade points style system to it notably seen in Battlefield 2: Modern Combat.
The single player has totally left me speechless. The CoD series has always had a great opening level to it, CoD3 did this incredibly well and from a different developer, this one however opens as you assaulting a ship as an S.A.S. trooper. I won't spoil it with details but it's a shooter, a cinematic experience and totally involving, simple great. The intro credits are quite a thing too. The more you play the better it gets, its still rock hard on veteran difficulty and as satisfying as ever to do, maybe not as hard as CoD 2 on veteran difficulty. I remember 'hill 440' I think it was being so, so hard in that, anyway.
If you played the Beta you'll know what I mean when I say its mind blowing, way better than halo in so many ways. Ok Halo is good online, it's good in that easy to play sci-fi shooter way, you can have a lot of fun and customisation; however CoD4 is just something else.
Essentially its CoD2 multiplayer, bigger maps, more people, more guns and more customisation. That alone is enough to show how good it is if you played CoD2.
The lobby system and searching for games is pretty much a direct copy of halo, it's a great system so why not. It also has a ranking system based on EXP earned in each game you play, the better your performance the more points you get.
For each kill you get +10 points, for each assist you get +2 points. Getting killing streaks also benefit the player; 3 kills in a row grants you a UAV which shows enemy positions on radar for a short period. 5 kills in a row grants the ability to call in an air strike to a desired location on the map, this combined with a team mates UAV can be deadly accurate. If you reach 7 kills in a row then you can call in a friendly attack helicopter, this is a deadly ability and if you're caught outside it will eat you alive!
Calling in any of these three grants you a further +10 points, the same goes for each kill the air strike or attack helicopter gets you get +10 points.
These points are converted into EXP at the end of the game, you also get bonus EXP for being on the winning side and by how much you win by. The further you rank up the more weapons you can unlock eventually special challenges and weapon add-ons. Completing any of these challenges grants you quite a hefty amount of experience. Also the more you use a specific weapon the more you unlock for it. For example, using the M16 and getting 50kills with it will give you an accessory for the weapon, like a scope or silencer, these will be in tiers, the next being 75 kills and the 100 kills etc.
There is a lot to this game; all achievements are offline which is a good thing in my view. You can personalise your player in weapons and accessories but not visually, not that this is a problem.
If you love the CoD series then you probably already own this, if you're a FPS kind of person then you SHOULD have this, if you're a halo fan boy then you got to widen the horizons and try this out, it's something else.
Simply put:
Fantastic single player even though its not co-op.
Mind blowing multiplayer
Plays great, looks great, and is great!
Enjoi people!
Snozzeltoff