I played this through in about 10 sessions, and each of them got more and more difficult as the levels got increasingly tedious. I played the first two Call of Duty games on the PC and really enjoyed it. I think the mouse made it a bit easier to control because of my experience from Unreal Tournament. I told myself to try the COD4 because it's one of the games that made the current generation systems legit. People bought their Xbox 360 and PS3's for this title and it deserved the 20 or so odd hours I put on it. 
(image: battle in the night) The game is good. The game is a bit too realistic in the fact that you can die easily, like actual warfare. I'll expound on this. The next thing is the graphics. Even though all games on the PS3 are HD, most of them are 720p - not many extend to the 1080p graphics which maximizes your television's limits. You can see specs of dust from your rifle and every demolished building is rendered to the closest detail. Lastly the story is actually engaging. Pieces of it must be from actual stories from the soldiers; I recognized the Black Hawk Down episode. I mean it actually moves like a movie, using the soundless slow-motion sequences and everything.
(Image: completing the game)I have to say that the worst part about the game is that I went from playing Resistance 2 to Call of Duty and the way you play is totally changed. I'm used to being a hero and gunning down grims with a shield on or camping in far off tower trying to mow down a giant alien behemoth. But now you're doing tasks that are done in a way that if you don't do it right, you will die and start over. And there are so many ways to die: bullets, rockets, grenades, exploding cars, and even getting mauled by a dog. I guess I wanted a God-mode through it all, but hell, it probably would have made the victories less satisfying. And this game does give you some sort of warrior's satisfaction. I mean, anybody that's done mission where you're fending the farm town from four tanks and you take them down one at a time with the javelin rocket will know that when it's over, you just can't help but smile. Or the level where you're playing Price when he was a greenhorn and you had to pull your mentor to safety as you snipe down scores of enemy combatants, it goes to say that when it's done and over, you just wonder if the game changed you into a gun-wielding crazy. It feels good to kill, and if the reason is because you're doing it out of self-preservation and the bad guy is truly a bad guy, it feels even better. I'm sure the game-makers at Infinity Ward knows this. They know that there is a dormant violent spirit within us, and they're just giving it a little push with their games.
The ending, when Price tosses you the side-arm and you know what you gotta do, it's nothing but pure satisfaction.
- Game Time: 20 Hrs
- Completed the game once on normal difficulty
