Parents
Here's the ESRB:
ESRB rates this game M for Mature, ages +17 for the following:
Blood
Drug Reference
Intense Violence
Language
This is a first-person shooter in which players assume the roles of members of an elite squadron on the trail of a Russian ultranationalist. Players defend the U.S. from Russian armed forces, engage in skirmishes and combat missions, and track the ultranationalist in an attempt to discover his true motivations and co-conspirators. Players use machine guns, sniper rifles, grenades, and missiles to kill enemy soldiers throughout the battlefields. Realistic gunfire, explosions, and cries of pain are heard during the frequent and fast-paced combat. The most intense depiction of violence occurs during a "No Russian" mission where players take on the role of an undercover Ranger: Several civilians are gunned down at an airport as players are given a choice to participate in the killings (e.g., players can shoot a wounded civilian that is crawling on the ground), or walk by and observe without opening fire. In either case, civilians scream and emit pools of blood as they are shot to death. Within the multiplayer portion of the game, players can unlock "emblems" to be used on their player name cards. Some of these emblems contain images that reference drugs (e.g., a cannabis leaf; a name card with a depiction of a joint). Dialogue in the game contains profanity in both English (e.g., "sh*t") and Russian (e.g., "f**k" and "motherf**ker").
Ok, let's talk about this No Russian business. The ESRB explained pretty well what happens during that mission. Allow me to go deeper into the background of it. I'll also put everything in simpler terms so that it's really easy to understand. First off, when you start the game, it tells you that there is offensive content within this game and that you may choose to opt out of playing the mission containing the offensive content. It goes on to mention that should you choose to opt out, it will not ruin the game for you story-wise or gameplay-wise. There is nothing forcing you to play this level.
In the mission, you have the chance to settle in with a group of Russian terrorists if you carry out an operation with them while undercover. If you succeed, then you would have access to their plans to commit further terrorism. The terrorists make sure that while they perform their mission that they speak no Russian. This fact is important. Then they proceed to mow down a lot of russian civilians within an airport. As a player, you do not have to kill any innocent civilians. The game will let you kill if you want to but you're also free to just walk along and witness the event. In the end, they know that you were undercover the whole time and that you are an American. They shoot you and leave you behind, dead at the airport. The reason why they performed this mission and kept themselves from speaking Russian was so they could use the Americans as scapegoats and rally their country against America. Because no one heard them speak Russian and there was a dead American dressed as one of the terrorists left at the site, everyone was led to believe America had committed this terrorist act, thus evoking a war between Russia and America.
The news will tell you that this game makes it ok to be a terrorist and that it forces you and teaches you to kill innocent civilians. They also say that the "no Russian" reference means to not leave any Russians alive. The thing is, this level is completely optional. You are never forced to play it. Even when you're in the airport, you aren't forced to kill any civilians if you don't want to. Let's also not forget, this game is intended for a mature audience; Adults like me and you.
The news never played this game. They caught word of it, saw a minute of gameplay and decided that this game trained people to be terrorists and that there is no merit to this experience. I'm telling you that I played through this game twice, I played it for an entire week and I've been playing games for a LONG time. This is not a game that shows how to effectively become a terrorist. It is an optional mission that begins the conflict of the plot within this game. Undercover operations are real. People sometimes perform duties that go against their beliefs if it means the safety of the country, or in this case, the world. This mission is merely giving perspective from a person performing their duty. Here is a video of the mission from start to end. This is violent footage so please watch at your own discretion.
Showing posts with label CoD4. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CoD4. Show all posts
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Parents
Parents
ESRB rates this game as M for Mature ages +17 for the following:
Blood and Gore
Intense Violence
Strong Language
That's about all there is on their site. I would say it's one of the more tame games that are out there. It has it's moments but I've seen much MUCH worse in videogames. There are events when the game puts you into the shoes of someone who's going to die. One of the characters gets caught in a nuclear explosion; You see the death of someone being executed from their perspective. There was a remake of this game for the Wii. It's not exactly the same as Call of Duty 4 on the PS3 and Xbox 360, it may or may not share all of the same content, but they're VERY similar. Here's the ESRB descriptor for the Wii version and a clip of the game in motion:
This is a first-person shooter, set in the modern day, in which players join an elite army squadron on missions to hunt down terrorists. Players navigate battlefields in the Middle East and Russia; use machine guns, sniper rifles, grenades, and missiles to kill enemy soldiers; and attempt to disable the launch of nuclear warheads aimed at the United States. Realistic gunfire, explosions, and cries of pain are heard during the frequent and fast-paced combat. Soldiers emit large puffs of blood when they are shot and killed; there is blood pooling around corpses in some levels. In one sequence, players' successful sniping attack results in an enemy's arm becoming dismembered. One of the more dramatic sequences involves a depiction of a prisoner of war who is tied to chair, then shot in the head by a teammate. Strong profanity (e.g., "f**k" and "sh*t") can be heard in the dialogue.
Just to clarify about the last bit mentioned, the prisoner in the chair was executed by your side, the good guys, after your squad interrogates him for information.
ESRB rates this game as M for Mature ages +17 for the following:
Blood and Gore
Intense Violence
Strong Language
That's about all there is on their site. I would say it's one of the more tame games that are out there. It has it's moments but I've seen much MUCH worse in videogames. There are events when the game puts you into the shoes of someone who's going to die. One of the characters gets caught in a nuclear explosion; You see the death of someone being executed from their perspective. There was a remake of this game for the Wii. It's not exactly the same as Call of Duty 4 on the PS3 and Xbox 360, it may or may not share all of the same content, but they're VERY similar. Here's the ESRB descriptor for the Wii version and a clip of the game in motion:
This is a first-person shooter, set in the modern day, in which players join an elite army squadron on missions to hunt down terrorists. Players navigate battlefields in the Middle East and Russia; use machine guns, sniper rifles, grenades, and missiles to kill enemy soldiers; and attempt to disable the launch of nuclear warheads aimed at the United States. Realistic gunfire, explosions, and cries of pain are heard during the frequent and fast-paced combat. Soldiers emit large puffs of blood when they are shot and killed; there is blood pooling around corpses in some levels. In one sequence, players' successful sniping attack results in an enemy's arm becoming dismembered. One of the more dramatic sequences involves a depiction of a prisoner of war who is tied to chair, then shot in the head by a teammate. Strong profanity (e.g., "f**k" and "sh*t") can be heard in the dialogue.
Just to clarify about the last bit mentioned, the prisoner in the chair was executed by your side, the good guys, after your squad interrogates him for information.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Xbox 360, PS3
This game has really made it's rounds. It's been around for years and it's sold tons upon tons of copies. A new copy of the game still will run you for about $40-$50 as of the time of this review. Now, for me, I never played any of these war-time shooters. They're a bit too mainstream for me and I've always been too much of a snobby gamer to care. I've sat and watched people play Medal of Honor, past Call of Duty games, etc. I just never saw a point to the games. They seemed way too repetitive with almost no story backing them up. It seemed more like a cash-in on kids who fantasize about kickin' ass in a war only glorifying the act further in the process. However, everyone always raved about Call of Duty 4 being this beast of a game. And with Modern Warfare 2 on it's way, with myself wanting to become a reviewer, what kind of credibility would I have if I never played as many games as I could, let alone the most popular one of the last few years? So yes, I played it, beat it, beat it again on Veteran, and toyed around with the multiplayer. So was it all hype or was it just your everyday war game?
Gameplay
+ It plays the same as most shooters in it's genre so there isn't much that's new to pickup or understand. In the end, it relied on the experience it could deliver instead of introducing something new and innovative. The game had a way of really immersing you into what was going on around you that played out thanks to it's scripted events. It always made sure you were in the middle of all the action all the time. Paired with some really tight mechanics, the game was quite the adventure. There are some moments I don't think you'll ever forget.
+ The online versus mode however, that's where the game shines. It has a level system that unlocks different skills for your soldier. These skills enable you to create something that would let you play the game the way you want to. If I like running like crazy and knifing people, you can make your guy run faster, be invisible to radar, and you can give him a larger melee range. If I wanted to gun people down in close-quarters encounters, I can increase his bullet fire speed, damage, and accuracy. It makes the multiplayer affair addictive and refreshing.
- The game is pretty thin after you beat it. Unfortunately, the scripted events were one too many and some of them pretty faulty.
-The weapon variety was meager and most of the guns felt the same. Most of the differences were pretty slim and it didn't feel like it really mattered which gun you had.
-The grenade indicator was RIDICULOUS. It had caused the majority of my deaths in the game. The game will tell you where a grenade is by showing you where it is via a little picture on your hud. If it's at the top of the screen, it means the grenade is to the front. At the bottom, it means the grenade is behind you. So on, so forth. Here's what happened a number of times:
"There's a grenade over there."
"Alright, I'll just run away from it."
*runs away*
"Yeah, about that grenade, sorry. It wasn't over there. It's actually in front of you...."
"WHA-"
*BOOM*
Yeah, it was not exactly the best of times.
- On the harder difficulties, the friendly AI was basically playing the role of being your worst enemy. They would not help you at all but they would stop you from advancing by blocking doorways and cover. They also enjoyed pushing you out of cover into 100% accuracy bullet walls of death.
- Flash grenades. If I'm correct, flash grenades blind people and make a big disorienting bang. It can't necessarily affect them the same way it would if they looked at it compared to if they didn't look at it. So why was it that it would have a harder time doing it's job from the front of the enemy? How does tossing the flash behind the enemy blind them?
-The game wasn't super clear on what you needed to do all the time. I felt like I was guessing most of the time and the destination marker seemed to act up at times, telling me to go the wrong way when I was on the right path.
This game could've really used SOME polish.
Graphics
= I guess at the time the graphics were awesome but they were just mediocre to me. All of the textures were low resolution if you took time to notice it. Most of the effects, like fire and smoke, were just revolving 2D images. Most of this game just used what it needed to get the job done and no more than that. I don't see why everyone clamors over how great the graphics are when there's a LARGE number of games that put in much more effort to make beauty bloom in their game. It was by no means an ugly game. It just wasn't anything pretty either.
Sound
+ The sound effects in this game are really where it's at in this game. You play a VERY large chunk of this game without music so all it comes down to is you and the sounds of the battlefield. The explosions were punchy, the guns felt like they were tangible. Let's see you not get freaked out when bullets start whizzing past your head and you run into a claymore. It felt like a lot of attention went into this department.
Story
- I never felt like there was a story, at least not one that had any weight to it. Throughout the entire game, you play as someone else every mission like some war edition of musical chairs. Because of this, you don't really get attached to any of the characters, making all of the slightly emotional "Oh my god!" moments fall flat. They were still cool to watch and be involved in but it just felt like the game was trying to get some kind of sympathy out of you whenever something shocking happened without really giving you a reason why you should care.
- It felt more like there was a war going on just because there was one instead of really delving into the reasons of why there was one. Modern Warfare basically showed you who that bad guys were and that they should go down just because they were marked as the bad guys. I got more of a sense that the game was trying to show how awesome a war was instead of showing the real sacrifice that both sides have to make in a war. Modern Warfare's plot seemed shallow at best.
Should you buy it?
No, I don't think it's worth the purchase. The initial run through the campaign can be a cool experience at times, and the multiplayer is great fun. However, the campaign is short and you could become a bit more cynical towards the experience if you go through it multiple times. Multiplayer is also lacking currently since the release of Modern Warfare 2. It was hard to get a really good room going although I happened to be playing around MW2's release. Don't spend the $40-$50 people are asking for this game. Infinity Ward and Activision only put the minimal amount of effort required into this game. It only deserves the minimum amount of what it's worth which I would say is somewhere around the $5-$15 mark. I suggest renting it if you really want to play it to get some of the references in MW2 although, personally, I don't think it's really necessary to play this before the sequel.
Gameplay
+ It plays the same as most shooters in it's genre so there isn't much that's new to pickup or understand. In the end, it relied on the experience it could deliver instead of introducing something new and innovative. The game had a way of really immersing you into what was going on around you that played out thanks to it's scripted events. It always made sure you were in the middle of all the action all the time. Paired with some really tight mechanics, the game was quite the adventure. There are some moments I don't think you'll ever forget.
+ The online versus mode however, that's where the game shines. It has a level system that unlocks different skills for your soldier. These skills enable you to create something that would let you play the game the way you want to. If I like running like crazy and knifing people, you can make your guy run faster, be invisible to radar, and you can give him a larger melee range. If I wanted to gun people down in close-quarters encounters, I can increase his bullet fire speed, damage, and accuracy. It makes the multiplayer affair addictive and refreshing.
- The game is pretty thin after you beat it. Unfortunately, the scripted events were one too many and some of them pretty faulty.
-The weapon variety was meager and most of the guns felt the same. Most of the differences were pretty slim and it didn't feel like it really mattered which gun you had.
-The grenade indicator was RIDICULOUS. It had caused the majority of my deaths in the game. The game will tell you where a grenade is by showing you where it is via a little picture on your hud. If it's at the top of the screen, it means the grenade is to the front. At the bottom, it means the grenade is behind you. So on, so forth. Here's what happened a number of times:
"There's a grenade over there."
"Alright, I'll just run away from it."
*runs away*
"Yeah, about that grenade, sorry. It wasn't over there. It's actually in front of you...."
"WHA-"
*BOOM*
Yeah, it was not exactly the best of times.
- On the harder difficulties, the friendly AI was basically playing the role of being your worst enemy. They would not help you at all but they would stop you from advancing by blocking doorways and cover. They also enjoyed pushing you out of cover into 100% accuracy bullet walls of death.
- Flash grenades. If I'm correct, flash grenades blind people and make a big disorienting bang. It can't necessarily affect them the same way it would if they looked at it compared to if they didn't look at it. So why was it that it would have a harder time doing it's job from the front of the enemy? How does tossing the flash behind the enemy blind them?
-The game wasn't super clear on what you needed to do all the time. I felt like I was guessing most of the time and the destination marker seemed to act up at times, telling me to go the wrong way when I was on the right path.
This game could've really used SOME polish.
Graphics
= I guess at the time the graphics were awesome but they were just mediocre to me. All of the textures were low resolution if you took time to notice it. Most of the effects, like fire and smoke, were just revolving 2D images. Most of this game just used what it needed to get the job done and no more than that. I don't see why everyone clamors over how great the graphics are when there's a LARGE number of games that put in much more effort to make beauty bloom in their game. It was by no means an ugly game. It just wasn't anything pretty either.
Sound
+ The sound effects in this game are really where it's at in this game. You play a VERY large chunk of this game without music so all it comes down to is you and the sounds of the battlefield. The explosions were punchy, the guns felt like they were tangible. Let's see you not get freaked out when bullets start whizzing past your head and you run into a claymore. It felt like a lot of attention went into this department.
Story
- I never felt like there was a story, at least not one that had any weight to it. Throughout the entire game, you play as someone else every mission like some war edition of musical chairs. Because of this, you don't really get attached to any of the characters, making all of the slightly emotional "Oh my god!" moments fall flat. They were still cool to watch and be involved in but it just felt like the game was trying to get some kind of sympathy out of you whenever something shocking happened without really giving you a reason why you should care.
- It felt more like there was a war going on just because there was one instead of really delving into the reasons of why there was one. Modern Warfare basically showed you who that bad guys were and that they should go down just because they were marked as the bad guys. I got more of a sense that the game was trying to show how awesome a war was instead of showing the real sacrifice that both sides have to make in a war. Modern Warfare's plot seemed shallow at best.
Should you buy it?
No, I don't think it's worth the purchase. The initial run through the campaign can be a cool experience at times, and the multiplayer is great fun. However, the campaign is short and you could become a bit more cynical towards the experience if you go through it multiple times. Multiplayer is also lacking currently since the release of Modern Warfare 2. It was hard to get a really good room going although I happened to be playing around MW2's release. Don't spend the $40-$50 people are asking for this game. Infinity Ward and Activision only put the minimal amount of effort required into this game. It only deserves the minimum amount of what it's worth which I would say is somewhere around the $5-$15 mark. I suggest renting it if you really want to play it to get some of the references in MW2 although, personally, I don't think it's really necessary to play this before the sequel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)