CoD4...

[deepfred]

made this post over on AKS, cause they play a lot of FPS games, but thought i'd repost here too:

i finally got hold of CoD4 and have to say it's the kind of progression of the CS game i'd always hoped for. The game's multiplayer gives CS:S a true run for it's money by bringing all the realism into play, while making the game more realistic.

there's far less (if any) hopping around and sniping is truly difficult. the cost of using an assaut rifle over an smg and vice versa is finally a balanced one (where assault rifles slow you down a bit more, but will go through many surfaces) - but the array of weapons and teir attachments is quite stunning, and mostly realistic. the uzi feels like what you'd an expect an uzi to feel like, as do all the other weapons you'll see.

the sound in the game is just as important as it is in a game like CS or indeed PS, as are a lot of the other atmospheric effects. the visuals of the game are as good as anything else out there (and which shine during the brilliant, albeit short, single player campaign). the depth of field effects are really engaging without penalizing your ability to play effectively, and the effects of stun grenades or getting hurt really make the game impressive to play.

on top of it all, the "levelling" system in multiplayer is actually quite fun. there is a level system for which each game you play online contributes points, and which unlocks access to various weapons and "perks" every few levels. you start out with access to all the fundamentals, and the levels unlock variations of weapons, so it's not like the level 50ish person has a huge advantage over a level 1 person, although the 50ish person will have more options.

i'm guessing after 10-20 hours of online play you'll have maxed out the system to the level 50ish general rank is possible for anyone, even if you stink at the game. there is also a challenge system however, that unlocks various perks and accessories for individual weapons that might require more skill/success at weilding a given weapon.

so you might get access to a Colt M4 at around level 10 for example, but to unlock a laser sight or silencer for the wepoan, you need to complete a challenge or two to get access to them - usually a kill count, eg 100 kills using the weapon.

this is primarily fun as it gives you things to "work on" as you enjoy the game otherwise, and ultimately makes the depth of the game seem much more than if they had just opened up access to everything at once.

the perks are things like +stamina for sprinting, or improved accuracy shooting "from the hip" and ultimately becomes a very long list of abilities. however there is a limit to only using a few perks of a given type for each "class" that you build with these abilities.

which brings up another nice element of the game: the class system lets you build ideal loadouts for up to 6 different "classes", which can be any arrangement you'd like. so for example, i have a sniper loadout, an assault, heavy assault, spec ops, and shotgun/demo style loadout currently.

once you earn experience, it's kept, although it seems that different servers can scale experience so that on one server it translates into a given rank, while on another server it translates into less rank - not too sure how this exactly works, but it's no big deal.

the game styles are simple enough, team deathmatch, free for all, domination - all what you'd expect. the headquarters style is a capture the flag style game and while i don't yet know what the "sabatoge" game is, i assume it's something akin to a bomb round in CS.

whatever the case, all i can say is i am really enjoying this game at the moment, and am guessing it will replace CS completely for me: the ability to find a decent CS server that isn't filled with guys hopping around with an AWP they don't even need to aim just blows in comparison with the experience CoD4 brings.

[Aananla]

Hey deep. Check out Enemy Territories Quake Wars, also available from Steam. Let me know what you think of it compared to CoD4.

I am interested in one but probably not both.

[deepfred]

i saw you were checking out the demo =) i might do the same here soon.

i looked at that quite a bit a couple weeks ago, and admit it does look interesting - the thing is the two games are very different, and i would factor in heavily the long term potential of either since these games rely so heavily on having folks to play the game with to make them worth their purchase price.

quake wars seems to me be in direct competition with the battlefield franchise, one that just had a very successful run with 2012 (or whatever the number was). i know tons of people were playing that and probably still are - when they're not playing halo 3 or tf2 anyway.

but the CoD game is really a different beast altogether as far as fps games go, it's a direct competitor to the counter strike concept, and good enough to supplant that community, at least partially if not completely.

so i would say my opinion is that one should prioritise which type of game one prefers in making your decision aan. the only other element i would consider is how big is the quake wars community, and how big will it be in a few months.

my current preference is CoD4. but i'll holler here when i get the chance to try the quake wars demo.

[noptov52]

Nice writeup deepfred. I've been enjoying COD 4 a lot, which is not a big surprise since I was a fan of the previous titles in the series - not including the bastard child that was COD 3. I enjoy the gameplay considerably more than the Battlefield series. I played Battlefield 1942 for a long time and Battlefield 2 was a solid title, but I have to say I thought BF 2142 was a very mediocre game. I bought 2142 on sale (for $30) not long after it came out and even at that reduced price I felt like I didn't get a good value. The gameplay was just very generic.

I'm not sure COD 4 does anything particularly groundbreaking, but it does all the elements so well that it is a AAA title in my mind.

I have to say, after adjusting to the lack of a HUD, I much prefer servers on the hardcore game mode. On normal servers having to hit someone ~3 times to kill them with the G3 assault rifle and stopping power perk is aggravating. I much prefer the brutal combat on hardcore servers, where screwups are punished severely and great moves are rewarded justly.

[deepfred]

welp i installed the quake wars demo but only had the chance to look at it briefly. i'm sure there's a lot of game there, but it is very confusing and will take a lot of time to get my head around it - it didn't strike me as terrible, but it didn't thrill me the way cod4 has. however, for any hardcore BF fans, they might find a game like CoD4 boring where quakewars is much more fun for them.

aside from the variance in game type, the two games do not compare in polish and overall feel imho. as nop says, cod4 is a AAA title in terms of polish, it's extremely well done throughout - provided of course you're looking for that type of game, as opposed to the class-based two-sided semi-alien thing that quake wars is about (and i'm not knocking that).

the single player campaign is very quick to finish the first time, but once you try going back and doing a level, you quickly realize just how deep the levels are because you can do the whole campaign over and over but never the same way twice. unlocking some of the modes in the game have the potential to make the campaign even more fun (eg a 40% slow down mode).

and yeah nop - hardcore is the way to go. i basically like to work on experience sometimes (which can be gained much faster on certain servers because of the way they're configured and the types of games they play - eg a server that only plays headquarters and has fast respawn), but then reward myself with a nice long session of hardcore servers - usually ones that are clan servers where the people playing are very serious about it.

found one last night that was really impressive ({BdG} Tactical Hardcore was the name iirc), aside from the high level of skill among the players, it was a no-respawn, hardcore server where at the end of each game there would be virtually no assists, in fact i can't think of seeing any (meaning that people were 1-shotting or at very least outright killing their targets, where on larger crazier servers you'll see tons of assists).

i'm up to about lvl 30 right now, and have a silencer for my M4, but i'm working on a silencer for the G3 which is a major pita because of the single shot. i just love that rifle, although i wish it would fire like the one in CS which will continue to fire semi if you hold the tirgger down. i definately am looking forward to a lvl 50+ toon tho so i can get a hold of that MP44. if it's anything like the one in CoD1, i'm going to seriously love it.

for me tho, the real challenge still lies in learning the maps - some maps i can pwn cause i know likely fire lanes, etc, where other maps i just get royally burned unless i camp like crazy.

[noptov52]

When I've managed to pick up the MP44 during games, I've found it to be surprisingly good. It's stats (firepower, accuracy, etc) don't compare well to the other assault rifles, but the MP44 has a really nice feel to it - the recoil and rate of fire are well balanced.

Also, a whole collection of good servers are run by the Black Hats clan. They have 5+ last I checked, including S&D, Headquarters, and Domination. Most of their servers are on hardcore and the skill of the players is pretty high overall, especially the BH clan members. I remember playing on their rifles only COD/COD2 servers back in the day.

[deepfred]

yeah the mp44 in cod always had just the right balance, powerful enough rounds to get the job done with one or two rounds, exceptional accuracy and very little recoil with a large magazine. given it's the last available assault rifle at lvl 50+, no wonder it would be one of the best ones to get.

i'll look out for BH servers - thanks for the tip =)

[deepfred]

snip from a post i made on AKS:

there are 3 "problems" most agree on, and that there is already noise about a patch fixing, and while problematic, they aren't game brekaing at all - just a pita when you run into it: the rifle fired grenades (which anyone can only have 2 of each time they spawn), which are called "nube tubes" because anyone can effectively 1 shot anyone else; the ACOG scope (typically available on most rifles after you complete a 150+ kill challenge), which can turn almost any gun into a sniper rifle and thus needs limiting somehow; martyrdom, affectionately known as "marty", which is a perk that automatically drops a grenade whenever you die, and frequently ends up killing all your teammates whenever you play on a FF server - easily remedied by disabling the perk on any server with FF enabled (see: many).

hardly gamestopping matters, just a touch frustrating.

[noptov52]

The rifle propelled grenades are definitely overpowered considering the (lack of) skill needed to use them. Martyr I can see being a problem among griefers and the incompetent.

I question your point about the ACOG scope. The ACOG has a couple disadvantages, with the accuracy penalty and the ineffectiveness of using it at medium-close range. I use it with the G3 sometimes and it does help at medium and long range, but there are often times when a person gets closer and the ACOG is a negative. If I had the red dot or standard sights, I'd fire the rifle from the shoulder, but with the ACOG that is considerably less viable.

[deepfred]

on the acog, i don't really have an opinion, i never use it (only ever got it on the m4 and i prefer the silencer for that if i use it, and i also tend to stop trying for challenges after i get the silencer, although i'm sure that will change once i hit 55).

but the chatter about it needing work is a constant that i've seen. people are always talking about it.

[deepfred]

woops, i got the acog issue backwards. it was *less* accuate than hoped for it turns out - and recently changed to be more accurate as of the 1.3 patch.

welp i got deepfred up to 52+ the other day and now have access to all the weapons. the mp44 is a good rifle, but not quite what i was hoping for. even less so in that you cannot get all the same add ons you can for the other rifles.

so i'm now figuring out what builds i want to run with, and what weapons need more challenges completed for accessories. thought i'd throw out osme of my current favorites, and ask if anyone else has any favorites and why - i'm always curious about any advantages to certain builds might have, and that i've not considered...

assault:
using overkill to weild two rifles - the m4 with acog for distance, and the ak47 with a silencer for up close and personal. i use +3 frags for perk 1, and deep impact for perk 3, and rely entirely on hitting first and hard. the ak's power and rate of fire make up for it's lack of accuracy when you walk right into someone, where the m4's rate of fire/accuracy get me a lot of kills from sniper range.

spec ops:
using the p90 with silencer, x3 flash grenades, sleight of hand, and dead silence to make this build all about very fast moving, always aiming and being able to spray a constant wall of lead the moment anything gets in my path.

sniper:
using the baretta, just can't help having the .50 caliber rounds. long way to go yet for the 150 kills for the acog as i rarely snipe, but will get it eventually. i use x2 claymores to protect my nest, iron lungs and deep impact. iron lungs is a real god send for sniping, no question.

heavy:
using the third MG, forget the name, with the grip (so no extra explosives). using deep impact and double tap with the grip makes this weapon stunningly accurate and dangerous, especially in known choke points where i can assume a large number of targets are behind a wall i'm standing next to. on almost any map, this thing gets me a ton of kills.