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 Single Player Playlist The Game We all know what Call of Duty is. It started life as a World War II shooter that made a sudden jump to the modern day back in 2007 with this game. Modern Warfare ended up killing WWII as a viable setting for military shooters for a little while, and let's be honest, that was a good thing. By that point there were three major franchises in WWII (Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Brothers in Arms) often featuring the same battles, same weapons and same enemies (read: Nazis) year after year, game after game. WWII shooters were popular, but getting stale fast. Looking back, it's kind of hilarious that CoD killed its major competitors in the market not through a war of attrition that seemed to be the strategy companies were employing in the WWII market, but by just completely ignoring the market and forcing the other franchises to adapt. Medal of Honor had two disastrous attempts at modern shooters and Brothers in Arms has basically been AWOL for the last six or so years mostly because the WWII shooter market has dried up considerably. Despite the changes being brought about by the modern setting, if you played CoD2 you know how to play the single player in CoD4, the controls and aiming and everything are the exact same. The big change is the way the game is presented. WWII CoD games have you fighting as Russians, Americans and UK soldiers against the Germans, but the campaigns are often quite disconnected from each other. Not the case in CoD4. The SAS is waging a shadow war against Russian ultranationalists, the US is invading a country on the Arabian Peninsula, as the story unfolds on both ends you start to see how these things are interconnected. The "Tom Clancy's Wet Dream" line isn't a joke, this game is written and plays like a Tom Clancy novel at times. The thing most people remember about the game is the multiplayer, which changed a ton about how CoD multiplayer worked. This is the game that added Perks, Killstreaks, weapon customization and a leveling up system to the franchise and it has never looked back. Not all of these ideas were new, Rainbow Six Vegas the year before had weapon and character customization and a leveling system. CoD4, though, had something going for it that just clicked with millions of people who spent dozens if not hundreds of hours playing the game alone or with friends. I was one of those people and I'm going to mention it in like every video. The LP I'm going to go through the entire single player on Normal/Regular difficulty. I could do Hardened, but I want to be able to get through this with minimal frustration as the game is kind of old at this point and there are things it does that make no sense and I don't want to yell at it because I get caught on a tiny object I can't see when trying to cross a room and then die. Speaking of old, the game's been out for nearly a decade now, we're going open spoilers in the thread and videos. Otherwise, the plan is to talk quite a bit about the game, why I think it's as good as it is and bring in some information about the multiplayer mode when it is relevant as the designers did take inspiration from the single player maps to build multiplayer maps and vice versa. On occasion I'll be bringing in guests. I'm going to try to keep videos between 15 minutes to half an hour, sometimes that's going to mean doubling up on missions. Maybe we'll see some multiplayer, but it is a complete shitshow on PC with most servers running Battlefield numbers rather than the six on six competition the CoD games are known for. Why are you doing this I did LPs of the first two Black Ops games a while back and always intended to jump back and do this game just because it's so fun. I find myself remembering specific weapons in specific rooms nearly seven years since I last played the game. The campaign is probably the second strongest in the CoD franchise (I'm going to give the title to Black Ops 2 because it was an off the rails fever dream at times), and the level design and pacing is still the gold standard in the franchise. The game is still fun as well, and I hope to convey some of that through the LP. Videos            
Lazyfire fucked around with this message at 01:56 on May 11, 2016 |
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Mar 5, 2016 01:55
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Multiplayer Videos: In A single convenient playlist      
Lazyfire fucked around with this message at 01:57 on May 11, 2016 |
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Mar 5, 2016 01:55
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First mission drops you right into things, in my opinion. Yes, the fights are pretty simple and yes, there is a training session at the start, but the game does not gently caress around with getting you up to speed and killing large quantities of men fast. Something you'll hear me mention throughout the LP is the fact that the game loves to subvert expectations and change scenarios up on you at a moment's notice. Towards the end it isn't so much a thing, but early on you may find yourself doing five or six different things over the course of the mission that aren't simply "kill enemies and move up." This is a huge strength for the game as the basic combat is fun and fast, but if you are just shooting the same people in the same hallways all the time it gets old quick. Towards the end you still get new stuff thrown at you and some fun scenarios, but the totally new experiences get thrown out the window as you spend most of your time just trying to survive the onslaught of enemies.
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Mar 5, 2016 01:59
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I still have fond memories of this game.
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Mar 5, 2016 06:42
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Ah, the first Call of Duty game I ever played. This game was my introduction to the phrase "setpieces."
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Mar 5, 2016 07:45
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oh yes oh god yes form the head FORM THE HEAD unghhhh...
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I still have fond* memories of the TV station. *gently caress that place, grenades popping out of the goddamn walls while I'm trying to take cover
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Mar 5, 2016 08:03
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Ah, getting back to boots on the ground. I've been getting AR camos in Black Ops 3 lately so it's good to see some of my favorite of the CoD scenes in this game.
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Mar 5, 2016 08:49
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Ah, I remember thinking, with how the first modern warfare turned out, with certain set-pieces, that maybe there was a critique of war in general in the game. Nope. No there wasn't.
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Mar 5, 2016 09:03
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Samovar posted:Ah, I remember thinking, with how the first modern warfare turned out, with certain set-pieces, that maybe there was a critique of war in general in the game. There was but the later games in the series which threw it away altogether.
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Mar 5, 2016 09:58
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<Your PC just gets done mowing down yet another squad, shifts to third-person, and looks down at the carnage> PC: "When you think about it, war really is hell." <Proceeds to engage in an awesome motorcycle chase sequence that ends with him blowing the bad guy's limbs off in midair>
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Mar 5, 2016 10:05
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Its really depressing that this is the height of the call of duty series, no other game in the series even comes close to this game. I only played this game on the PC back in the day, did anyone even play 6v6 or whatever numbers I only remember 32 player bloodbaths.
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Mar 5, 2016 10:17
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Good luck and God speed, friend. Maybe the third time really is the charm.
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Mar 5, 2016 14:48
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I put thousands of hours into the multiplayer of this... I was in high school and had the 'gently caress studying' mentality. If you didn't play hardcore you can get all the way out.
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Mar 5, 2016 15:03
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Sword and Sceptre posted:Its really depressing that this is the height of the call of duty series, no other game in the series even comes close to this game. I only played this game on the PC back in the day, did anyone even play 6v6 or whatever numbers I only remember 32 player bloodbaths. I always thought World at War did a pretty good job, but it went back to WWII stuff. So in the MW-line, yeah. This one's the best.
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Mar 5, 2016 15:32
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I was one of those guys who shoved hours into Hardcore mode Multiplayer as well. I was really soul crushed when MW2 and beyond turned to the arcadey-console style multiplayer in the Halo vein rather then what MW had going for it. I loved sitting for 30min at a time, in camo gear, belly down in a bush in the middle of the map crawling around while everyone else did the same thing trying to be stealthy buggers because one bullet meant death.
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Mar 5, 2016 15:39
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Gridlocked posted:I was really soul crushed when MW2 and beyond turned to the arcadey-console style multiplayer in the Halo vein rather then what MW had going for it. I loved sitting for 30min at a time, in camo gear, belly down in a bush in the middle of the map crawling around while everyone else did the same thing trying to be stealthy buggers because one bullet meant death. I enjoyed playing CoD 1 and 2, though. They were pretty fun, shame you didn't get to shoot Russians.
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Mar 5, 2016 15:43
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You guys might like Insurgency
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Mar 5, 2016 16:11
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Bananas
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Mar 5, 2016 16:17
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Samovar posted:Ah, I remember thinking, with how the first modern warfare turned out, with certain set-pieces, that maybe there was a critique of war in general in the game. There's a "the world isn't black and white" sort of thing going in the game. Though you are clearly on the side of the angels, you still do things like summarily execute hostages for example. The first two CoD games and Wold at War make it clear you are doing terrible things because war is terrible, and Black Ops sometimes hits on that as well. Pythonicus posted:Good luck and God speed, friend. Maybe the third time really is the charm. I'm gonna do it, I swear. Gridlocked posted:I was really soul crushed when MW2 and beyond turned to the arcadey-console style multiplayer in the Halo vein rather then what MW had going for it. I loved sitting for 30min at a time, in camo gear, belly down in a bush in the middle of the map crawling around while everyone else did the same thing trying to be stealthy buggers because one bullet meant death. I always saw Halo moving more towards CoD than CoD moving towards Halo. One of the major criticisms people level against MW and later CoD games is the fact that some of the stuff you see here, perks and killstreaks and what, started popping up in other games. Battlefield has been a good example, with people getting upset at the inclusion of smaller, tighter maps like Locker and Metro that are clearly meant to appeal to CoD players. It's funny how much people hate those maps when they are the most played/most frequent 24/7 maps.
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Mar 5, 2016 16:17
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Granted, Halo 4 started borrowing CoD's "sudden QTE/gameplay change" for its' campaign, which... Honestly felt like it clashed enough with what most of the series had done beforehand that it lowered my opinion of it even further. ...On the other hand, that's probably also because so many of them were poorly executed. gently caress that flying mission at the end! 
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Mar 5, 2016 16:49
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I started up COD4 on my 360 about a year ago wanting some of that fun MP experience that I had on release. Every game I managed to find was hacked to hit, rapid fire tube grenades flying everywhere, etc.
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Mar 5, 2016 18:45
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Regalingualius posted:Granted, Halo 4 started borrowing CoD's "sudden QTE/gameplay change" for its' campaign, which... Honestly felt like it clashed enough with what most of the series had done beforehand that it lowered my opinion of it even further. gently caress Halo 4 in general. They made some nice improvements to the graphics of the game (especially on the Xbox360), but the story was really poorly handled and the multiplayer was a joke.
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Mar 5, 2016 19:56
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gently caress Halo in general. Only reason it ever got popular was the lack of shooters on Xbox.
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Mar 5, 2016 20:18
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ohrwurm posted:I started up COD4 on my 360 about a year ago wanting some of that fun MP experience that I had on release. Every game I managed to find was hacked to hit, rapid fire tube grenades flying everywhere, etc. Fun note, this is exactly why I gave up on MW2 multiplayer on PC. Could never find a game that didn't have at least one aimbotter or some guys boosting each other to end each round with a nuke - I don't think I ever saw a legit nuke in that game. Then there was that one game where weird random poo poo happened like one-shot kills and billions of experience per kill. Good to see this is happening now. I got into the series with MW2, but I picked up this one as soon as I could and I have to say I probably enjoyed it more than the other two in either mode. I mean I had to run the .exe directly and skip Steam to play multiplayer properly because Punkbuster made it crash all the drat time and my ammo count would keep getting blocked with notifications from my friends going into a chorus of "why are you playing cod you know i hate that", but still it was fun. I ended up leveling up from the start to level 55 twice thanks to my save somehow corrupting itself and I only really minded it because one of my favorite guns is, as always, drat near the last thing unlocked. I won't have much to contribute to the thread in the manner of Databases of poo poo or whatever, unless people really want to know stuff about the M4 or whatever (I LPed this game myself for LPF on Viddler, was thinking of redoing it on Youtube and put together stuff for all the guns in the game before I lost interest). Though I do have some thoughts on some of the missions and intel and stuff.
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Mar 5, 2016 20:46
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Lazyfire posted:gently caress Halo 4 in general. They made some nice improvements to the graphics of the game (especially on the Xbox360), but the story was really poorly handled and the multiplayer was a joke. And the Prometheans had to be the single most aggravating NPC faction in the entire franchise the one time I played through H4's campaign.
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Mar 5, 2016 21:06
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Hackers turn any online FPS into a crapshoot. It's why I eventually stopped playing Counterstrike. Folks just zipping around the battlefield, headshotting everybody. Having never played the Modern Warfare series, it seems like it's going in a more gray direction with this first installment. There's always time for an "Ooh-RAH!" or two down the line, of course.
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Mar 5, 2016 21:14
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I just remembered something I wanted to note about The Coup. There's an interesting bit that's pretty notable, but also pretty easy to miss the importance of. Alright, scene setup, you're in the middle of the capital. Al-Asad is surrounded by his own people, all armed and on the lookout and all that poo poo. Zakhaev, in the middle of what is soon to be Al-Asad's capital, surrounded by his bodyguards, points his gun at Al-Asad. Al-Asad steps back in surprise and worry before Zakhaev turns the gun around to hand it over for the execution. It's a nice little detail showing how their business relationship actually works, and who's really in charge. Also,  EDIT: I've also just remembered one other thing that I really like about CoD4 compared to the other games. The M21. It's essentially the best non-assault rifle in the campaign - often silenced, pretty much guaranteed one-hit kills, little recoil. And unlike the later games, you actually get to use it more than once! As I've noted in other threads, I have A Thing about the M14 and its ilk, so every other game in existence only letting me use it for five minutes once or twice across the entire game kind of pisses me off. Here, drat near every time the game expects you to snipe people it gives you the M21, and it never loses its effectiveness so you can use the thing for the entire mission if you like. It's an early unlock in multiplayer, too (like before level 10), and with the ACOG scope it works pretty well as a lower-capacity alternative to the regular M14 until you grind out to like level 45 or so. Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Mar 5, 2016 |
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Mar 5, 2016 21:57
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Kadorhal posted:I just remembered something I wanted to note about The Coup. There's an interesting bit that's pretty notable, but also pretty easy to miss the importance of. Yep, I always thought that was a neat touch that only becomes sort of relevant later in the story. Actually, having Zakhaev's son in the car is another nice touch that doesn't become relevant until like 3/4ths of the way into the game. The entire Zakhaev side of the game was pretty well done simply because you had no idea stuff from the credit screen had anything to do with the rest of the story, though the game hints at the Ultranationalists helping Al-Assad, the mechanics and motivations of it don't make any sense until Price links everything together in the flashback mission.
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Mar 6, 2016 04:58
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It's almost like foreshadowing can be a clever way to hint at an overarching story without spelling it out. Nah, let's just include more explosions and dumb setpieces.
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Mar 6, 2016 05:04
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It was mentioned in the video (on several occasions) but looking back it really is amazing to see how much this game shaped the genre for the next decade and how much it was just plain ripped off in other studio's attempts to grab a piece of the pie. Most people these days just roll their eyes when they hear of yet another CoD coming out, but there was a point in time when these games weren't just rehashed shovelware. I still enjoy playing through this and some of the WW2 era CoD games just for some nostalgia; never bother with MP any more though.
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Mar 6, 2016 05:48
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SirSamVimes posted:It's almost like foreshadowing can be a clever way to hint at an overarching story without spelling it out. It's really sad that this was the way the CoD games sort of went. The twist of Black Ops was something you could see a mile away and there was zero characterization in the game. BLOPS 2 did a much better job of throwing weird story stuff at you, but because your actions determined the fine details of the story there wasn't much in the way of plot twists to foreshadow. Even the other MW games had terrible plot points that seemingly came out of nowhere and made almost no sense. Psychotic Weasel posted:It was mentioned in the video (on several occasions) but looking back it really is amazing to see how much this game shaped the genre for the next decade and how much it was just plain ripped off in other studio's attempts to grab a piece of the pie. Most people these days just roll their eyes when they hear of yet another CoD coming out, but there was a point in time when these games weren't just rehashed shovelware. I still enjoy playing through this and some of the WW2 era CoD games just for some nostalgia; never bother with MP any more though. I'm never not going to talk about the fact that this game basically killed Medal of Honor and Brothers in Arms and made future WWII games non-viable. MoH going into the modern day was probably what killed the series more than CoD going modern, though. The comparisons between MoH and CoD were just unavoidable and suddenly it was MoH trying to force their way into a hot market with a not-overly-good game and multiplayer that was troubled even before it launched, what with one side playing as the Taliban in the demo.
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Mar 6, 2016 21:06
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This was the last CoD game I bought. What came after it was just too much streamlined action movie stuff to be really enjoyable for me. This game is pretty good though, all things considered. Except for the defense under the ferris wheel in Pripyat. That part is bullshit and got me killed a million times E: Also the first level left another mental mark on me. Like, back in the day I thought the part where the ship twists and turns while you run through it was the coolest poo poo Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Mar 7, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 00:16
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Tin Tim posted:This was the last CoD game I bought. What came after it was just too much streamlined action movie stuff to be really enjoyable for me. This game is pretty good though, all things considered. Except for the defense under the ferris wheel in Pripyat. That part is bullshit and got me killed a million times That's the thing, I think: CoD4's story was relatively more nuanced than anything they've put out since. I mean, it goes to some lengths to point out that a lot of the major conflicts ultimately boiled down to blowback from the U.S.'s interventions/actions in the closing years of the Cold War.
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Mar 7, 2016 00:33
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Huh, I've actually never really thought about the deeper levels behind the plot or whatever. What makes this game good to me is that the cinematics and the missions just flow so well into each other and form a tight experience from start to end. It's just very well designed in that regard, I think. Current CoD games of course still have this design formula, but it became much more explody and over the top just for the sake of being over the top, you know? Also the game and gunplay is real sweet and punishes you for the most part when you rambo it up too much. It hits the sweetspot between you being a badass soldier mans or just the bullet chewing plot carrier. Also nice try blaming the game, Lazyfire. I saw how you placed that mine on the stair below the top
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Mar 7, 2016 01:01
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Oh, fun. I didn't play CoD until MW2 as I didn't get a PS3 until 2009. MW2 was the only campaign I ever completed too. 6 years after the fact I'm still buying the yearly iteration because I'm retarded. Having said that, Majere posted:Bananas
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Mar 7, 2016 01:14
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I played this game ways back. Played the single player, thought it was good. Played the Multiplayer, loved it, sunk a couple of hundred hours in before getting tired. For various reasons, didn't play any more games till BLOPS2. I tried the multiplayer, discovered the only significant change from 4 games ago seemed to be the grenade arc. A truly depressing lack of any attempt to change the formula.
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Mar 7, 2016 01:28
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COD4 is an odd beast in that it's the first step towards the franchise becoming what it is today, which is something that is often derided for its repetitive structure and lack of creativity. Yet at the same time, it's very different from the installments that followed it. COD4 at least seems interested in constructing a coherent story, and actually has some interesting things to say about the futile and often obscure nature of modern warfare. It doesn't necessarily land all of its points cleanly, but I give it props for trying. MW2 essentially throws away any sense of subtlety in favor of shock and direct Michael Bay homages. The Modern Warfare series is often described as being "cinematic," and ironically, it does tend to follow the tropes of successful big-budget action trilogies. The first is a big, fun crowd pleaser with some genuine heart. The second is overindulgent, and obsessed with escalation. The third installment kind of limps across the finish line more out of obligation than actual determination.
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Mar 7, 2016 02:27
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SubponticatePoster posted:Oh, fun. I didn't play CoD until MW2 as I didn't get a PS3 until 2009. MW2 was the only campaign I ever completed too. 6 years after the fact I'm still buying the yearly iteration because I'm retarded. Having said that, The fun thing about MW1 was that Activision thought that this game was going to fail so Infinity Ward built it to be as self contained as possible. When it went and became a megahit they basically had to invent a new bad guy and prove how evil he was by having him gun down an airport full of civilians. That was loving ham-handed as gently caress. A jargogle posted:I played this game ways back. Played the single player, thought it was good. Played the Multiplayer, loved it, sunk a couple of hundred hours in before getting tired. For various reasons, didn't play any more games till BLOPS2. I skipped Ghosts and Advanced Warfare after I built my PC and so BLOPS2 was my last experience with CoD before I picked up BLOPS3 when it was on a deep discount a month or two back. I think the success of the CoD franchise relies on the base gameplay remaining essentially the same (back to CoD2 the core mechanics and functions have been the exact same) and letting games live and die based on gimmicks. BLOPS3 has both the stuff like slides, wall running and boost jumping (Titanfall had all that a couple years ago), but also has the character types thing which is a nice idea, but they are super poorly balanced.
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Mar 7, 2016 02:47
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I played this one and I liked it, I played World at War and liked it, but I still think the first one was the apex of the CoD franchise. It was a very cool Counterstrike killer and I played it more than any non-Battlefield shooter. I consider the most recent entries in the series to be a lazy and unforgivable chain of cash-ins that don't enrich the genre and don't advance the art of game design at all. The only video game franchise I can think of off hand that might be lazier is Madden.
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Mar 7, 2016 02:52
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Magically regenerated health aside, MW1 tried to stay somewhat grounded back before we had cyborg ninjas in BO3. It's easy to make fun of the "wipe raspberry jam off your face" trope now but back then it was considered a step away from blatantly video-gamey health packs lying on the ground. And there's the nuke level. People were reloading that mission back then because they assumed they must've done something wrong. I'm so good at quickscoping that I'd never get killed randomly in a war and be unable to do anything about it, right?  So I clearly remember my dawning horror at the 2009 E3 MW2 debut trailer. Sneak into rogue Ruskie base, good so far, OK the mission's gone south and you're running, OK OK... wait, now we're outrunning helicopters on snowmobiles and gangsta styling machine pistols? It's a shame too because as weak as MW2's story was, the third act still tried to say something antiwar-ish with the reveal of General Shepard's cabal/motivation.
DeusExMachinima fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Mar 7, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 03:51
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!