Tuesday 31 January 2017

Modern Warfare 2 Review - The game that got me into Call of Duty.



By Sam Coles:

The Call of Duty series is something that a lot of people on the internet like to hate and make fun of and honestly I don’t understand why as they’re functional games with entertaining campaigns and multiplayer. The futuristic setting has turned a lot of people off because it involves skill based movement so you can’t use the standard tactic of sitting in a corner waiting to pick people off. Modern Warfare 2 was the game that got me into the series yeah sure I’ve played World at War and COD 4 before it but I wasn’t really into the series until this game.

The story of Modern Warfare 2 takes place 5 years after the events of Call of Duty 4 and a new threat has surfaced out of the ranks of Zakhaev’s ultranationalist party. Vladimir Makarov wants to take revenge on the US and British for killing him by starting a third world war between Russia and the rest of the world through a really dark and twisted plan of shooting up an airport full of civilians in Moscow and putting the blame on an undercover CIA agent. The plot is really interesting and very dark in places as this was the first Call of Duty game in the UK to be rated an 18+ due to its violent content especially with the airport level, characters return such as Captain Price and Soap and for the first time he has a voice rather than being a mute.

Modern Warfare 2 added in a few new mechanics for better or worse for starters this was the first game in the series where you could dual wield weapons something you’ll probably use once and not do it again due to how ineffective it is. It’s still very much a Call of Duty game where you point at the bad guys, shoot at them and they tend to die, but most people remember this game mostly for its multiplayer so let’s get into it.

The multiplayer was a huge step up from the original Modern Warfare as it added more weapons, game modes, perks and kill streaks. The perks were given an extra boost as they could be upgraded to pro versions with examples such as stopping power pro which could deal damage to vehicles or scavenger pro which lets you start with max ammo. There are a couple of pro perks that break the game such as commando pro which gives you a ridiculously powerful lunge for stabbing people. The most problematic perk was one man army where people could change their class on the fly and this resulted with people with infinite grenade launchers.

Kill streaks could be customised as you didn’t have to stick to the 3, 5 and 7 kill streaks from prior games. These can range from an AC-130 gunship to a game ending tactical nuclear strike which was great for the really skilled players. However my main issue with the kill streaks is that you can multiple gun ships and harriers on the map at the same time and it becomes this endless cycle of death as you respawn and die over and over again.

Graphically the game still looks pretty good considering the game came out nearly 8 years ago in the middle of the life cycle of the 360 and PS3. The environments look amazing from the slums of Brazil to the frosty mountains of Russia during the first act. The animations look great as enemies react appropriately when they get shot and crawl across the ground when they’re mortally wounded. The guns are modelled with exquisite detail looking like their real life counter parts.


Modern Warfare 2 is one of my favourite Call of Duty games and is still a blast to play today it does have balancing issues with the multiplayer but I remember playing hours and hours of it when I was doing my A-levels. The game is easy to find and is super cheap on Xbox 360 and PS3 I think you can find it for £2.50 in your local CEX if you’re from the UK so go and get it if you haven’t played it.

Monday 30 January 2017

Assassin's Creed Unity Review - A rocky start but a decent entry in the series now.


By Sam Coles:

Assassin’s Creed Unity was renowned for being a hot pile of mess at release back in 2014 and yes it was with bugs, horrendous frame rate and a constant online connection even if you wanted to play on your own. I recently finished Unity and I must say after all the updates it has had it is a decent Assassin’s Creed game as it goes back to the routes of the series.

Assassin’s Creed Unity take place during the French revolution and you play as Arno Dorian a French noble man who is looking to avenge his father’s death who was killed in front of him when he was a small child. He is adopted and falls in love with his adopted sister Elise but then her father was killed as well and she blames Arno as his father was an Assassin and Elise’s father was a Templar. The story is a classic revenge tale but we also see the struggles within both the Assassin and Templar order which almost makes you question the Assassin order and almost sympathise with the Templars as all they want is peace and order.

The gameplay is smoothest to date the free running is fantastic as all you have to do if you want to free run up is hold A and if you want to free run down you hold B and Arno will climb up and down seamlessly. The free running has always been a problem for me in the AC games as they’ve always been a bit clunky, but Unity sorts all the problems out with fluid controls.

Combat has been tweaked as well so you can no longer cheese it by standing there waiting for a counter and press one button. You actually have to play defensively and aggressively so you have to parry enemy’s attacks and then go in for the attack and this can get very challenging especially latter half of the game. The combat is animated beautifully and is extreme brutal with some of the finishers. It is vital that you upgrade Arno’s skills and weapons because otherwise you’re going to have some trouble in the later chapters, new pieces of clothing and armour will increase your maximum health and new weapons obviously will deal more damage so invest the money you collect from missions and side missions.

The Assassination missions go back to the AC 1 route where it will give you a target and you have to find information and kill him or her however you want. Unlike the original the information gathering missions are not boring and repetitive and the Assassination missions are set in big environments with multiple routes, entrances and opportunities to kill your target similar to Hitman.

The presentation in this game is a sight to behold they have nailed the recreation of Paris during the period coupled with the amount of NPC’s on screen makes the city feel alive. The animation from the character models are very convincing and this game has one of the most realistic kissing scenes I’ve seen in a video game it doesn’t look awkward at all. Facial animation looks fantastic although during cutscenes the frame rate has a habit of dipping below 30 fps but it stays at 30 (these days) which is good.


Assassin’s Creed Unity had a rocky start with its awful launch but know functions well I would recommend picking this game up on your Xbox One or PS4 as it is super cheap these days, it does come with a 6 GB patch but it irons out all of the issues it had. 

Thursday 26 January 2017

007: Blood Stone Review - The weakest martini Bond has had.


By Sam Coles:

I don’t why it’s difficult for game developers to make a really good James Bond game with a few exceptions like Nightfire, Agent Under Fire and Goldeneye. However most of the time they’re bad or painfully average it can’t be hard to make a game based on 007 he likes fancy drinks, driving expensive cars, sleeping with women and shooting bad guys it seems perfect for a game right? 007 Blood Stone was released in 2010 on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, this game looked like it was going to solve the problem but what we got instead was a mediocre title at best with a campaign that can be finished in just under 5 hours.

Blood Stone was released during time that James Bond got the reboot treatment after the abysmal film that was Die Another Day. So it has the likeness of Daniel Craig adapted into the game which looks pretty good although it can look a bit odd in some scenes. The story is really incoherent as it seems to jump all over the place as you seem to kill off villains like influenza did in the early 20th century. You never actually see the main villain in this story as it cuts to the credits when you’re about to find out, you basically chase the person who think is the head villain then Bond says the usual “Who do you work for”? Then you do the same again in the next chapter. The story is not the best but maybe the gameplay can make up for it.

The gameplay is split up into three segments you have your investigation moments where you scope a place out hacking doors open, combat/stealth sections and the surprisingly fun high speed chases. The investigation parts are the most Bondish moments you can get where it is subtle and you’re not blowing things up and these can range from mingling at a party to pretending to be an inspector. You have stealth and action sequences play like a poor man’s Splinter Cell and I mean really poor I’m talking Conviction levels where you can take a stealthy approach but the loud approach is more effect as you’re not penalised for it.

The high speed chases are the highlight in the game where you get to take control of Aston Martins and speed through the streets with oncoming traffic as you takedown your target with a hefty side swipe coupled with the sound of roaring engines.

The A.I during the combat segments are laughable they do seem to have armoured and non-armoured soldiers but you can take them down with a swift head shot with your silenced pistol even if they have a helmet on. You can also take them down instantly with a melee attack no matter what even if they are heavily armoured or not which sucks all challenge out of the game. 

The game visually is okay nothing special there are environments that do look good like a jungle area and a high speed chase in Bangkok with rain effects that look great, but there are areas that look drab and blurry. The character models are laughable with some questionable lip syncing and this came out the same year as Call of Duty Black Ops where the character models from that game still look pretty good. Another visual effect that I cannot stand in this game is the film grain filter, I’ll say this again film grain does not make your game look cinematic it makes it look terrible stop using it in your games as it is really noticeable on a big TV.


Overall Blood Stone is a painfully average game, it’s not terrible but average and I managed to finish it in less than 5 hours, luckily the game only cost me £3 so it was not too much of a sting on my wallet but I would have been annoyed if I paid full price. Pick it up if you’re curious but it’s not a game I would recommend.

Wednesday 25 January 2017

Games I'm looking forward to in 2017.


By Sam Coles:

Video games are off to a good start in 2017 with Yakuza 0 already firmly placed in one of my favourite games of the year, but I want to go other some of the games I’m looking forward to in the coming months.

Ghost Recon Wildlands

The Ghost Recon series has been in hiatus for a while as the last game we got Future Soldier came out in 2012 with mix opinions from fans; I personally liked it with the four player campaign when you play it on the hardest difficulty. Ghost Recon Wildlands takes the tactical shooter and throws it into an open world setting where you can either play it alone with A.I squad mates or team up with 3 other players and use communication to takedown your targets. The game looks very interesting with its South American setting where you’re trying to takedown a drug cartel it’s a fresh setting from all the generic military shooters.

Horizon Zero Dawn

Guerrilla Games last game was the 4th game in the Killzone series Killzone Shadow Fall and you could tell that they were struggling to progress the series, not to say that Shadow Fall was bad but there is only so much you can do with a first person shooter. Horizon Zero Dawn stems away from their shooter routes and is an interesting open world where you play in a post-apocalyptic world with robot dinosaurs. Yes I wish I could make that up it looks like if you took Far Cry Primal and made it a good open world game without any of the tedious gathering missions.

For Honor

Ubisoft seem to be releasing some interesting games and are breaking the trend of making generic open world games. For Honour is similar to the TV show Deadliest Warrior where you have various warriors from different countries and history fighting each other in a multiplayer environment so you can have Shogun warriors fighting Vikings or English Knights. The combat looks really brutal and satisfying with bone crunching sound design as you drive a sword through your enemy’s ribs. Thankfully the game is not just a multiplayer only game as it has a full singleplayer campaign.

Mass Effect Andromeda

After Mass Effect 3 we were not expecting the space opera to continue on the 8th generation of consoles as I thought Bioware would focus on a new I.P or Dragon Age which they did with Inquisition. We don’t have too many details about the new Mass Effect as it has been teased for 2-3 years at each E3 showing us basically nothing. It wasn’t until the end of 2016 that we finally got some gameplay at Sony’s PS4 Pro conference which we then got a release date of March. The game looks largely unchanged from Mass Effect 3 but they are bringing back the planet exploration of the first game which looks to be amazing with the power of the new consoles being able to explore the galaxy of Andromeda.

Injustice 2

Neverrealm Studios since the release of the reboot of Mortal Kombat all the way back in 2011 have been the example of how a fighting game should be made for home consoles with a detailed story and content to keep you occupied for months. It was a big surprised in 2013 that they released a fighting game featuring all our favourite DC comic book characters kicking seven shades of grey out of each other. I was super excited that they announced a sequel to franchise for Xbox One and PS4 with shiny new graphics and refined fighting mechanics coupled with new characters from the DC universe both familiar and unfamiliar.

Red Dead Redemption 2

It’s hard to believe that Red Dead Redemption came out all the back in 2010 and it was one of the best games on the Xbox 360 and PS3. After all these years of waiting Rockstar announced Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming to the PS4 and Xbox One and trailer showing off the new landscape with current gen graphics looks awe inspiring. We don’t know much at the moment but there is speculation that the game is a prequel and you play as a young John Marston when he was in Dutch’s gang. It’s slated for a fall of 2017 release but knowing Rockstar Games that is not going to happen I expect it will come out spring of 2018.

Halo Wars 2

Halo Wars on the Xbox 360 was a bit of a hidden gem as people didn’t expect an RTS game to work on a console, but to many people it was complete surprise as it was a very good game. Honestly I wasn’t expecting a sequel but at E3 of 2016 they announced the sequel will be developed by none other than Creative Assembly the studio most famous for the Total War series and Alien Isolation so the game is in good hands as they have been making RTS’s for years. The story takes place directly after the first game as you are taking on a Brute general who has no remorse for human life.


Those are the games I’m looking forward to in 2017, what games are you looking forward to? Let me know in the comments or tweet at me @samcoles2, @bristoliangamer or you can tell me on Facebook Bristolian Gamer.

Tuesday 24 January 2017

God of War Ascension Review - Prequels aren't always bad.


By Sam Coles:

I don’t what it is about prequels that generally get a lot of negative attention maybe it is because it shows a character in a different light or maybe it is made by a different studio. This is more evident with God of War Ascension as I’ve spoken to a lot of people about this game and they generally say they either don’t like it or they are not a fan. It’s not a bad game by any means it’s actually a good game, yes it has some flaws but overall it is a good game.

The story takes place obviously before the first game where you once again take control of the angriest game protagonist Kratos. He keeps having flashes of his past and is trying to find out what they mean as he tries to break his bond from Aries the God of War and he does that by the usual way by killing everything that gets in his way whether it is human or not. The story is a bit of a mess and I did struggle with what was going on, but it was good overall.

The gameplay is more or less unchanged from God of War III where you have light and heavy attacks which you can string together for some devastating combos. However instead of having different weapons you have different elemental powers tied to the Blades of Chaos and this ranges from the fires of Aries to the electricity of Zeus. This could be seen as a negative with fewer weapons but honestly in God of War III I didn’t switch between weapons often in fights as I tend to just use the default weapons as they generally got the job done.

The game is generally good for the most part in the gameplay department but there are some annoyances with combat. For starters throwaway enemies take far too long to kill and it drags combat segments out for longer than they should be. Enemies seem to have attacks that are hard to dodge or block and you tend to die easily and they don’t telegraph their moves very well so you don’t know whether to block or dodge. These nit-picks will get you killed a lot in this game. The visual ques are subtle as well with objects you can climb; now look I’m not asking for massive red arrows to show me where to go but you have to give some indication of what I’m supposed to do.

Visually the game looks pretty good not as good as God of War III as there seems to be a lot of texture issues as there is a lot of pop in and some of the textures can be blurry on some of the character models. Krato’s character model looks the best and the other characters even the main ones just look really odd in some scenes. The game’s performance is a big issue as the game strives to run at 60 frames per second but most of the time it does even hit close to that frame rate and drops below 30 during some of the really busy combat scenes, God of War III never really had this problem and I don’t understand how the sequel struggles. Another issue I have is that the camera gets way out of hand in some parts of the game during combat, yes we get it your landscapes are huge and impressive now let me focus on the fight please.


Overall God of War Ascension has its flaws but it is still a competent game in the series so if you own a PS3 go back and play it I picked up my copy for £5 from my local game shop second hand. 

Saturday 21 January 2017

Resident Evil VII is not a bold move for the franchise.


By Sam Coles:

Resident Evil VII is out in just under a week and a lot of people are excited for it myself included, but is it really a fresh take on the series? No, it’s just riding on the coat tails of what is popular when in the past Resident Evil use to set the trend where other games would follow suit. I just want to go over why Resident Evil VII is not an original nor fresh idea, now before you get on your high horse and start calling me every word under the sun I’m not saying it’s a going to be a bad game, but it’s just formulaic.

Resident Evil VII was revealed at E3 of 2016 during Sony’s press conference and people were siting it returning to its survival routes and yes it is going the survival horror route rather than the bombastic Call of Duty action present in the last 3 games. However I don’t see this as a bold move for the series I see as a predictable move and following the trends of what is popular. Resident Evil VII is a first person survival horror which is a genre that has been plaguing Steam early access for the past 5-6 years with youtubers overreacting to the jump scares. Resident Evil VII seems to be more subtle compared to other games within the genre however it is still predictable when something is about to pop up and it’s not scary.

Resident Evil whether it is the original trilogy or 4 they tend to set the trend for gaming in that era they’re within not follow a trend. Resident Evil 1-3 set the standard of how a fixed camera survival horror should be done following the footsteps of Alone in the Dark, then Resident Evil 4 set the standard of how third person action games should be made. Resident Evil VII just seems to be by the numbers and when they said they were going back to the routes of the series before they even announced the game back in 2015 I was expecting something different and not something that I’ve seen for the past 6 years.

Resident Evil was a great survival horror franchise with the fixed camera angles yeah the tank controls were a bit awkward but that is completely intentional making you feel completely hopeless as you don’t know what is coming around the next corner. What would have been a bold movement for Capcom if they had released a fixed camera survival horror and people say that there is no interest in that style of game and I would highly disagree. Back in early 2016 Capcom released the Resident Evil Origins collection on Xbox One and PS4 with Resident Evil Remake HD and Resident Evil 0, to Capcom’s surprise it sold really well and for good reason as they’re great games. This should have shown what people want from Resident Evil a good old fashioned fixed camera game with current generation visuals.

They seem to be going down the supernatural route when Resident Evil was presented in a believable manner, not realistic believable there is a difference. The reason why Resident Evil is believable is because everything was man made and scientific there were no ghosts or magic etc. like Silent Hill, but instead everything was created with science whether be a virus etc. That’s the reason why it was frightening because something like that could be plausible in real life with a  virus going wrong, sure it wouldn’t turn people into flesh eating zombies, but a virus spreading like that is scary.


Overall I am glad that they’re returning to survival horror, but I wished they had returned to the series routes which would have introduced it to the younger generation; I am looking forward to the game. Let’s see how that Resident Evil 2 Remake turns out which I’m looking forward to more.

Sunday 15 January 2017

Nintendo Switch Presentation Thoughts.


By Sam Coles:

Nintendo had their presentation showing off their latest console, the Nintendo Switch. I want to talk about how I felt about the presentation such as the hardware, software and other aspects whether they’re negative or positive.

Let’s start off with the hardware itself, as you all know the Switch is a portable and home console hybrid where a 6 inch table sits in a docking station and if you want to take it on the go all you have to do is attach the joy con attachments and pull the table out and you’re now playing on the go. However the glaring issue with the table is that it only has between 2.5 to 6 hours of battery life depending on what game you’re playing so basically there is no point trying to play Zelda on the go.

The joy cons are the main controllers for the system and they can function as traditional controllers where you use both on a controller attachment or use them freely. You can split them up as two controllers which is a neat idea but these are tiny and people with large hands are going to have issues and this almost the opposite problem with the original Xbox. They do have motion control and HD rumble.

The tablet itself has a 6 inch screen and will run at a resolution of 720p and a lot of people are sighing at this and I don’t understand why, yes it is a low resolution but to be honest you’re not going to notice it on a small screen like that it will be fine. The big issue I have with the hardware is that the internal storage is 32gb, Nintendo it is 2017 you need to have at least 500gb storage in your console games are huge these days. How did they screw this aspect up by including the same storage as the premium version of the Wii U it’s absolutely baffling.

They showed off some games as well with mixed feelings from me. Super Mario Odyssey looks amazing as it stems off from the usual Mario formula as you don’t appear to be roaming around the Mushroom Kingdom as it looks like it takes place in real world locations and it runs at 60 fps which is fantastic! Of course they showed off The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild which keeps getting better and better every time they show it and it appears they have voice acting in the game minus Link of course.

Splatoon 2 was announced which looks more of the same with new features and a port of Mario Kart 8 called the deluxe version which hopefully will bring in more players as the Wii U did not sell well. Bethesda are Bringing Skyrim to the system and Bethesda please stop re-releasing the game it’s not a surprise that the Switch can run a 6 year old game yes it was a good game in 2011 but it looks archaic these days. 1,2 Switch is their Wii sports game for the system a throw away party game that you will play twice before letting it collect dust where it has some mini games like duelling with guns and swords etc.

Nintendo are joining Sony and Microsoft by charging you to play online, I’ll say this again paying to play online is stupid. It is completely anti-consumer as you have already payed for it as you have paid for the game, locking a feature behind a pay wall is shady. People always say it’s to cover server costs you’re already doing that by paying for hardware, software or using the digital stores whether it be PSN, XBL or Steam. I’m very disappointed in Nintendo for going this route.

The price of the Switch will be $299 or £279 if you’re in the UK and a lot of people are saying that it is overpriced however I disagree it is a game console that is also a tablet and honestly that is not bad for a launch price compared to the £350-£400 price of the Xbox One and PS4 when they launched.


Am I excited for the Switch? Kind of, don’t get me wrong it has some cool aspects but the launch line up looks a tad anaemic with very little to offer I’m not going to buy a console at launch for one game, I’m going to wait 6 months to a year before considering. What are your thoughts? Are you going to pick up a Switch? Let me know. 

Thursday 12 January 2017

Consoles are no longer consoles anymore.


By Sam Coles:

Console gaming is something I’ve stuck with for the past 15+ years due to the fact the convenience of the plug and play nature. However that convenience has dwindled since late 2012 with the annoyance of waiting for updates and installs to finish.

Back in the day PC’s use to be a royal pain in the neck to game on before the period of Steam where everything was at your fingertips, so if you wanted patch a game you had to wait for the company to produce a file or floppy disk if you go further back to 90’s with a patch. The consoles back then had the advantage because when you bought one you could take it out of the box, hook it up to the TV, put the game in and it would start with a loading screen or two but you were straight into the game with no installs or updates.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 was the step into online gaming with consoles and this wasn’t a problem it was fantastic that games could evolve from standard local multiplayer to global multiplayer were you can make friends from all over the world. This was also great as well as they could fix minor problems and bugs with games with small patches, these were mostly harmless as they were generally between 1-10 MB at most. However once we got towards 2012 the patches started to get bigger and some games started to come with mandatory installs which resulted in console gamers waiting rather than playing. Then as the 7th console generation came to a close in 2013 games came with installs due to the hardware being stretched where they couldn’t stream the data from the disc alone.

The Xbox One and PS4 released in November of 2013 which like any gamer I was super excited, I didn’t get the two consoles until 2014 and I was super excited. However as I got the consoles an ugly reality cropped its head up with the huge patches as game developers realised that they could produce a low effort release at launch where they could fix the problems later. We had infamous launches such as Battlefield 4 not working where it took DICE nearly a year to fix, along with Halo The Master Chief Collection which came with a massive 22 GB patch, but the game still didn’t work properly. This is where the plug and play nature of consoles for consoles died and I understand that games are now bigger and require the horse power and other things to run them but it is persuading me to get a gaming PC and leave consoles.

As of now we have these mid generation consoles which add a bit of extra power due to the fact the consoles were under powered when they were released, this is where these companies have forgotten the reason why people buy consoles because when you buy a console you have a fixed piece of hardware for at least 5 years and then you move on to the next one. These “new” consoles are dumb in my opinion because these specs are what the Xbox One and PS4 should have been when they originally released these damage controlling consoles really show the state of gaming on consoles.

Reading this you probably think I hate the Xbox One and PS4 and that is not true, I like them I’ve played some fantastic games on the systems I’m just merely highlighting the issues that they have, you can like something and still critique it that’s what makes us human.


This was a short editorial about how consoles aren’t really consoles anymore they’re trying to be PC’s and inferior PC’s at best. Honestly I might just give up on future consoles and move to PC gaming as the parts are getting cheaper and they are easy to assemble. Who knows maybe things will get better but it’s not looking good at the moment.

Friday 6 January 2017

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Review - 10 years later and it's still a landmark title.


By Sam Coles:

Now I know what you’re thinking why don’t you wait until November to review Call of Duty 4, which you would be right but I absolutely love this game and I just want to talk about it. It has been nearly 10 years since Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare came out on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Believe it or not my first flirtation with this game was on the PC at my mates house and I was totally engaged with the fast pace combat and tight controls, it wasn’t until 2009 when I got an Xbox 360 that I really delved into the gameplay and I fell in love with the series as a whole. I still love the series whether it is set in World War II or in the distant future, when I see that logo on the box I know what I’m getting into.

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare takes place in well…. The present day, can’t you read the title; anyway you take control of two characters Sgt Paul Jackson of the United States Marine Corps and Sgt John “Soap” Mactavish of the SAS. The plot revolves around a Russian ultranationalist party lead by Imran Zakaev who is manipulating a conflict in the Middle East involving nuclear weapons.
The plot isn’t anything mind blowing but it is the pacing that is excellent as it can switch gears from a loud gun fight to a calm stealth mission giving the player time to breathe and you know what I’m talking about. I love the constant switch between protagonists in the campaign because you play as the US who tend to cock everything up and then the SAS are behind the scenes fixing it, they’re working together without them knowing about it to begin with.

The gameplay is stripped back with no one off gimmicks like the other games so you will be doing a lot of standard shooting, but you will sometimes take control of AC-130 gunships which was controversial with its realistic look back in the day. 

As I said above you’ll take part in stealth missions the most notable one being all ghillied up where you take control of a young Captain Price when he was a Lieutenant. The main problem I have with the gameplay in terms of the campaign and this something that plagued most COD games during this period that is the enemy throws too many grenades and this is noticeable on the highest difficulty.

Multiplayer was the main reason people kept playing this game years down the line and for good reason because it was simplistic yet hard to master with good progression. The stripped back nature of COD 4 is fantastic so you don’t have over the top kill streaks you only have 3, you have a UAV, Airstrike and an Attack Helicopter when you get 7 kills in a row. These kill streaks didn’t break the game compared to Modern Warfare 2 where they got stupid where you could spam multiple kill streaks.

The weapons are minimal with simple attachments such as red dot sights and suppressors, however the weapon that was completely overpowered was the Desert Eagle it has a high damage output and you could fire as fast your index finger will twitch. Perks were an interesting addition which could double your damage output to not appearing on the enemies radar, there were some useless ones like eavesdrop which gave you the ability to hear enemy voice chat, but it was useless especially if you were playing on PS3.

Visually the game still looks good and yes it’s nothing compared to the remastered version that came out a few months ago, but it still looks fantastic from the rain soaked infiltration on the tanker at the start of the game to the radiated fields of Chernobyl. It has fantastic detail with excellent weapon models and great muzzle flash effects as you pull the trigger of your rifle or side arm.


Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare is still a great game and it is hard to believe that it is turning 10 years old this year, the game is very cheap to pick up for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, but if you want to play an updated version you can get it with Infinite Warfare Legacy Edition  remastered on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.  

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