And finally as promised all that time ago, from the end of Season 1 of the podcast: Call of Duty 4 complete with nice pictures though slightly different to just having the first person view all the time because by now most people would have seen those plasterd all over the place. Oh and funny captions too. Please, enjoy!

Of course, what’s one more War game, we’ve got loads of the bloody things all with screaming people with various attire on their heads blowing themselves up and then you’re the elite squad sent into single handily win the world war, while winning the heart of your loved lady for the chance to make babies. Saving Private Ryan sums it all up, even including the unnesercary bloody beach battle.

But the Call of Duty series had prided itself on setting up fantastic set pieces along with tragic War music and little speeches by your computer pals to make you think it was just an interactive film. And up until now they have all been set during WW2, the sequel to the award winning war, WW1 where lots of people died and a certain Mr. Hitler was being very rude at crashing various countries parties, stealing all the beer and urinating on the rugs, uttering (German accent) “Voops, sorry, my bad”

But after Call of Duty 3 which was more of the same except effing rubbish, it appears the producers have decided they’ve had enough of World War 2, killing Nazis using set-pieces and dramatic War Music, and decided to kill modern day baddies instead using set pieces and dramatic war music.

At first you’d be thinking, they are just going to churn out the same crap but they’ve used different graphics and gun sounds, and you would be 100% right. You still have different lots of people to play as, you still end up taking the bad guys weapons because they are better than yours, and you still get the English captain Computer Player guy who clearly spent lots of time wandering around Oxford remarking on how charming everything is.

But wait gentle listeners, there are differences, for a start, the way the recommended difficulty is given to you is nicely refreshing for this series, challenging you to kill wood while throwing flashbacks around a British Training Camp course, and the faster you complete, the higher the level you’re recommended to start at. But being perfectly honest, after 15 attempts to get better than 35 seconds, I got annoyed.

The best time set by some arsehole is 19 seconds and I fail to see how that was achieved, because you have to wait for the instruction of the English captain before you can proceed through and it appears half the time the bloody thing doesn’t register where you are and therefore you have to keep going back and then waiting for the captain to shout “More tea?” sorry I mean shoot him, flash bang that, rape that village, sweep the chimney and any other thing he wants till you reach the end.

Then there’s the way the game loads, actually setting the scene with wizzy wireframe animations and talking while loading so you don’t feel like all you can do is scratch yourself in a happy place until the game starts. Nice touch there actually.

And I have to admit the way the game plays out after the first lot of British What-hoing, is most certainly different, and you have to see it for yourself. You are suddenly seeing the viewpoint of the former president of some crappy country where it appears everyone is getting shot and you’re next. You are driven through the streets and then dragged to a stake and executed on Television. I had never seen that in a Call of Duty game before, and it was most effective at grabbing my attention.

However from that, the same format from the previous got on its high horse and rode off to town, you had the brits doing things with only three people and being all noble and professional, but then you go to the yanks campaign side, where it appears the developers have gone out of their way to demonstrate what a bunch of f**kwits they are. Yes it appears they are that bad, as later on, one of them manages to get captured and you have to rescue his sorry arse before going onto blowing up stuff.

For a first mission you have to kill someone and it appears the go in with guns blazing approach seems to work because it appears that everyone is happy running forward head long into hordes of terrorists when you are an American, and yes they even go as far as making a joke in the crap accents: “So much for Military Intelligence!” So much for scripting methinks.

It does get better though, that’s the worst example in all honesty that you get presented with. But there was another mission which just got on my man boobs for more than 5 minutes so I may as well tell you about it.

There’s another mission where after running away from people, you end up in a helicopter blowing things up by looking through the camera pictures they show on the news when the Americans have bombed everything in sight. The problem I have with this bit is: Everyone looks the bloody same, so how are you meant to tell the difference between friend and foe. They are very helpful though saying don’t bomb them before restarting and you do it all again.

For the little niggles, and they are niggles, I must say I have been a fan of the Call of Duty series, and therefore the things I love in here are still in full force, for all the silliness, the interactive movie style of game playing is most certainly the best part of the game, and the graphics once again has been improved, the sound quality is superb and there is enough to make it different to Call of Duty 2, the last call of duty to appear on PC, well in single player, just.

However you cannot help to notice the full on cinematic quality and polish that the game has at those stand out moments with a few of the cutscenes leaving you with a slightly dry mouth after it’s been open for so long. OK you can close it now.

There are a few nice changes to the missions in the series apart from killing everything with a pulse, like sneaking past lots of naughty people while you’re dressed like a pile of dung. How no-one notices you crawling along is nothing short of a scratch the head job, but then again you were wandering around Chernobyl, so all their eyes would have melted by then. You can’t have everything.

The dogs that come along and love you so much they want to kill you, really just serve to p*ss you off as once they ground you, you are the next meal and it’s always a pleasure to see them ripping your digital throat out for the billionth time after the game tells you you should have been pressing V to snap their neck. Charming. All I say is: I’m not getting a dog. So there. (Hint there for the lady of leisure) 🙂 And also I am still amased the doo-gooders haven’t complained saying angry dogs who rip out various parts of your body are cute and don’t deserve to be shot, even in a game.

B*****ks.

It’s a lot of little things I guess could be the best way of putting it, which has kept the game fresher than just doing the same old WW2 shooter with a new robot Hitler or something else to keep the war going on longer than the real one.

In Multi player, once again. Just. With a good twist though I have to confess with the “leveling up” so you get a better sight etc the more you play, like what Wolfenstein: ET pulled off quite a while ago. But because I tend to be a girl when it comes to online playing, everyone running around heppy and shooting before you have chance to have a sip of tea, it will take time to get into if you are new to this. Or you just get annoyed and run away crying.

It’s all very close in my mind, but what puts it over the top was the fantastic intro which made me look at this game twice and encouraged me to carry on. Not even Hellgate: London managed that feat, seeing as Gamestation now has said copy of game.

So my rating using the fantastically strange 1-10 system with 1 being complete bollocks while 10 is the dog’s bollocks, and a special rating of 12 reserved for extreme examples of goodness, my rating for Call of Duty 4 is:

It’s very good, but don’t be fooled that it’s a complete remake on the older games. Still I haven’t put it down yet, which means it has more life in it than I first thought.