Call of Duty 4 Demo anyone?

ebagg

Anyone played it yet? I played about five minutes, I like the intensity of the level, not as keen on the linear path of the level. I hope the full game will have more of CoD2's "take these objectives in whichever order you want" open levels.

adam

Er.. what? CoD is famous for being an FPS on rails. Even CoD2 was as linear as they come.

I'm confused!

ebagg

CoD2 had several levels where you had a number of buildings to secure, and you could secure them in whichever order you liked, as well as being outside with enemies coming at you from every direction, it was certainly not as linear as a game like Prey or Doom 3, where you're a mouse in a maze of tight corridors with very few open areas.

COD4 has a ton of urban combat, so I'm hoping it has plenty of alternate pathes through buildings.

Daz

I found it incredibly disappointing. Obviously the franchise is famous for being on rails, but the promo vids made a good job of feeling like the team had made a concerted effort to steer it toward something more open and less linear. The demo tells a different story.

ebagg

The demo was short and decent. It was intense, but like Daz said its a very linear experience. Hopefully the full game will have plenty of levels where you capture objectives, then have to defend them, fall back, or reverse direction like some of the better levels in the rest of the series.

Daz

I should have mentioned it looks sweet, is intense, and has some awesome lighting/shadowing effects (and very silly rim light character shader ) But yeah, overall, it felt pretty tired. Un-engaging, like you didn't really need to be there and it was all handed to you on a plate. I actually forgot I was playing Cod4 at times, and thought I was playing previous Cods it felt that similar. That probably shouldn't be a surprise.

Ultimately in reality it's probably actually a pretty 'good' game in the grand scheme of things. But I guess that for me personally having experienced much more open world games, I feel like I've moved on somehow. When I play these kind of 'lead the player down a very specific path' games now, it just feels too hand held, and too reminiscent of the kind of mediocre stuff that I used to work on at EA. It's just too pre-determined and specific for my tastes. The world doesn't feel real, it feels like a show. The illusion doesn't hold up. Deep, huh?

Jesse Moody

Honestly I really liked it. Linear or not it was a lot of fun. Yeah it would be incredibly awesome if you could find other paths through different buildings to achieve your goals instead of the ones they have designed for you.

Maybe hop up on a roof and snipe a few people and get back down to the fight.

Ran really well on my laptop and looks really good. I'll probably end up getting it for my 360 though as I loved the multiplayer beta and I know a lot more people will be playing on 360 that I know.

Still I would like to play more of the single player stuff.

Joshua Stubbles

I'm with Jesse on this. Although the game would kick ass if it were more open ended, I really enjoyed it.

bounchfx

360 version got 10/10 from oxm, read all 6 whatever pages of the review. sounds fucking sick. not only is it going to be a sick singleplayer game, but theres tons of cheats to unlock, an 'arcade' more which is basically like halo 3's Meta-Game, 16 multiplayer maps with tons of modes and levels and perks and stuff.... damn! FPS goty unless they count TF2 as an FPS and not just multiplayer fps.

also, i don't mind games being linear at all. In fact, whenever there's a choice over where to go I always debate about it for way too long, and I don't like that. (unless it's COMPLETELY non linear like oblivion)

Daz

I don't mind games being linear either, but perhaps I didn't explain myself too well. For me there is linear and then there is, well, something else on another level entirely where everything is utterly and completely pre-determined. I can deal with linear. But when I've played through a scene a couple of times and I *know* a bad guy is gonna come around a particular corner, and hand to hand fight with one of my squad members to cue me into shooting him, then it's become more akin to a haunted house ride than an experience in which I feel like I have some input into the outcome of events.
Not saying its 'bad' per se, so much as I've grown out of it. Here's hoping that the action and intensity of the game is enough to override the Dragons Lair vibe.