October 22, 2007 - Many curious how Infinity Ward's soon-to-release shooter will play have likely already answered that question for themselves. Xbox 360 owners had the opportunity to play in a rather long-running beta, PC gamers got a single-player demo, and PS3 owners got nothing...awkward. Our latest play session with the game, checking out a new multiplayer map and mode, was with yet-to-be widely seen PS3 version. Not surprisingly, it played almost exactly like the Xbox 360 version. We say almost because we were using a SIXAXIS instead of an Xbox 360 controller, but the gameplay was more or less identical. We'd make graphical comparisons, but there was no Xbox 360 version nearby with which to match up to, and the PC version's multiplayer wasn't on display.
The idea for the play session was to let us see what lay beyond the level cap set in the beta. As you may or may not know, Call of Duty 4's online component lets you unlock new abilities, weapons and attachments as you level up by killing and completing objectives in matches. Unfortunately, because we started at level 25 and leveling isn't exactly a swift process, we didn't get to see much of the higher level unlocks.
But there was certainly quite a bit present in the game. Before jumping into a match you can choose between several classes such as sniper and the like. But that's boring. It's much more interesting to go in and create a new class, assigning whatever primary and secondary weapons you want. Assuming you've leveled up enough to unlock them, you can attach silencers, scopes, red-dot sights, and grenade launchers to your guns, equip special grenades like flash and stun, as well as a variety of perks.
The perks can yield interesting results, as you can give your bullets better penetration through barriers, increase your rate of fire, drop grenades every time you die to potentially nix your killer if he's still too close, or pull out a pistol and squeeze off a few final rounds after you've hit the ground. As an added convenience, you can save several customized classes as presets so you don't have to keep going back and tweaking everything.
We found the increased rate of fire perk to be supremely effective, as it allows for your entire clip to be unloaded within a matter of seconds. If the combat is within a reasonably short range, you can expect your targets to quickly topple over. You'll just need to make sure they don't drop a grenade after they hit the dirt, known as the Martyrdom perk. Many in the multiplayer session seemed to have it activated, and man, it's really annoying. Nothing quite like besting your adversary in a firefight to seconds later, as you charge across his body to your next target, see the HUD notification that a live grenade is at your feet, at that point impossible to avoid. Anyway, the downside to the rapid fire, of course, is that you'll be out of ammunition after only a few encounters, but the abundance of weapons dropped by the dead littering the battlefield means it's never long before you've got another high-powered offensive tool at the ready.
One weapon we're still struggling with is the shotgun, which is useless for all intents and purposes unless you're a few feet away from your enemy. While this may be realistic and expected of such a weapon, it's a situation that seems to pop up far less frequently than mid-range battles. Eradicating your opponent at close range can be just as effectively accomplished with a well-aimed rifle burst or an instant-kill knife swipe. Sure the shotgun may kill more quickly than rifles, basically with one shot, but should you miss there are a few seconds between when your next shot can be fired, during which time someone with an SMG will be gleefully spraying you with lead. Only on Vacant, a map featured in the Xbox 360 beta consisting mostly of tightly-packed corridors, did the shotgun's usefulness in tight quarters seem to outweigh its significant drawbacks. Or maybe we just suck with the shotgun.
Inserted into the rotation of Overgrown, Vacant, and Crash (the three maps from beta), was Ambush, which as shown at a recent event, along with Bloc, Downpour, and District, three new maps. We started things off with a few Team Deathmatches and progressed to primarily Domination and a new mode, Sabotage. Instead of like in Search and Destroy, where one team tries to plant and detonate a bomb where the other squad defends and defuses, Sabotage removes the role rules. It's like Infinity Ward fused capture the flag with Search and Destroy. As a map begins both teams have to rush toward a neutral bomb, the position of which is indicated on your HUD. Should you pick it up, you can still shoot, and must bring it to the enemy base to plant and, ideally, detonate. If killed, you drop the bomb and anyone, regardless of team, is free to pick it up. When it's being carried by the opposition, the a large flag will periodically flash onscreen indicating the carrier's position, meaning it's impossible to stay hidden when trying to transport the explosive cargo to the planting zone. Squad coordination is therefore critically important, especially because, unlike with Search and Destroy, you get unlimited respawns.
After playing a few matches to get used to the mode, it struck us as strangely similar to rugby at times. Since the enemy can roughly see the bomb carrier's position at any time, it's a sure bet you're going to be constantly harassed on your way to plant. The best way to reach the zone safely is to travel in a pack of teammates. This way, if the carrier catches a sniper bullet to the face or is cut down by an assault rifle burst, a teammate running directly behind him can simply move up, grab the fallen bomb, and continue on. In some instances with four or five teammates moving together, the string of carrier deaths and bomb pickups felt a little like the backwards flicks of a rugby ball during an offensive push.
Once the bomb is successfully planted a timer begins, ticking away towards detonation. The gameplay shifts from infiltration to defense, and likely what you'll experience is a hail of grenades being tossed at the bomb's location as the enemy attempts to clear the area. Should your defense fail and the enemy successfully defuses the bomb, the round doesn't end. Instead, the bomb reverts to its neutral state like at the beginning of the match, and the see-saw rugby-like rushes start up all over again.
These matches tended to last for quite a while, likely attributable to the large numbers of Infinity Ward employees playing. It's their game and, not surprisingly, they're pretty good at it. The longest Sabotage match happened on Ambush. Cutting directly through the map's center is an elevated road, strewn with debris and few bombed-out tanks. On either side are stone buildings crumbling from the stresses of war, which make for lots of little nooks to hide and twisting corridors to use to avoid fire and shake pursuers. The road, however, is the main choke point, as you're almost entirely without cover as you cross. Enemies can take up positions on rooftops overlooking the road as well; perfect spots for snipers to go prone and pick off the bomb carrier. Since most carriers die here, the bomb frequently gets dropped out in the open, and a grenade storm quickly ensues. Going solo to snatch the dropped bomb in this case was next to useless, as a sniper would immediately thwart any attempt, or a respawned wave of enemies would launch another volley of explosives mixed with bullets.
Eventually the bomb was captured and brought into the town sections, where the fighting became even more frantic. Though you can see the bomb carrier's position onscreen, it takes roughly five or so seconds to update. Without any real clear views through the crowded town streets, you really have to scramble on this map to track down the carrier. Then you hear the demoralizing notification that the bomb has been planted, and the map creates more complications since the target planting zones are surrounded by jagged outcropping of rock, giving defenders plenty of places to hide or avoid grenade blasts. Playing Sabotage on Ambush was frantic, demanding, and highly entertaining.
Another solid map was District, set in what appeared to be a Middle-Eastern urban area. Fighting tended to funnel to two sections particular sections: an open-air market and a street lined with abandoned cars. The market seemed to be the map's central hub, and was situated below street-level with apartment buildings and business towering all around. Within the market were several waist-high wooden structures, along with criss-crossing wires and other constructs that made it difficult to get a clear view across. If you happen to spot an enemy sprinting around in the market, as you often will, it's hard to get a good shot at them with so many obstacles. Instead of trying to maneuver around the market's various displays it seemed more effective to run up any of the ramps leading out to different parts of the map and hope your opponent gives chase, at which point you can ambush them.
The main road was the setting for near-constant grenade tossing, especially while playing in Domination mode where teams had to capture and hold three points. One such point was located right in the center of the road, near a ramp to the market and with multiple access points through holes in the surrounding buildings, and there was plenty of yelling and screaming over the headsets as the action never really let up. Like any good map, there are multiple access points to every open area. The corridors between buildings seemed to offer a wider berth than the cramped streets in Ambush, giving District less of a claustrophobic feel. Other areas, like the main road, offer up unbroken lines of sight for snipers, giving this map a little bit of everything.
One thing we're still waiting to see is how balanced online play will be with level 1 players squaring off against those who've already attained the highest level and majority of equipment. An Activision representative told us Xbox 360 gamers would be sorted by their TrueSkill ranking, whereas such a feature isn't planned for the PS3 version.
To hopefully please your eyes, we've uploaded some new HD clips, taken from Call of Duty 4 running on a PS3. Look for the game to release in just a few weeks.
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