OK, I thought the demo at the Microsoft conference last night for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was hot, but I just got done checking out a full-level demo of what the single-player mode looks like in hot skirmish action, and the only thing I could do was wear a shit-eating grin of joy the entire time. It is, without a doubt, the most gorgeous FPS I have yet seen. There is so much unbelievable action going on with tanks rolling by, helicopters flying overhead, tracers firing up into the sky, entire buildings exploding, and every tire, crate, watermelon and box destructible in a much more realistic way than the typical Havok-licensed game can offer (Infinity Ward is using their own physics engine).
Now, imagine everything moving around so fast, while your buddies are dropping like flies. It's up to you, my friends, to save the day.The recoil animations and mo-capped rag doll effects only kick in at a certain point in the death animation of an enemy, so things don't look scripted, and everything is based on shot trajectory and impact zone. In action, it's the most gorgeous thing ever, and the wait until it comes out later this year is almost painful, it's that exciting to see.
Now, I realize that everyone (or at least 360 owners) are looking forward to Halo, and Halo has always been a great game. But the more I think about it, it's that its greatness is enhanced by the context of the situation. You're the guy saving what's left of humanity, single-handedly, and that's all kinds of awesome. You feel like a hero, and justifiably so. With Call of Duty 4, you're just another dude thick in the shit, with death waiting around every corner. You're no super-human, you're merely human.
From what I've seen so far, COD4 is the game I'm looking forward to more than anything in 2007. And with Nintendo wheeling out ****ing jazzercise stairmasters as their next big thing to get grandmas buying the Wii, well, I don't see much on the horizon to pull me away from my 360. You can say "Killzone" until you're blue in the face, and I certainly am looking forward to wiping up Helghast with the rest of you, but for my money, COD4 is the shit. Right now there's no footage of what Activision and Infinity Ward showed us online, so you'll just have to take my word for it, but I've never seen anything look this good on an Xbox 360 or PS3 yet. It looks so good, and so realistic, and so fast and fun, it seriously looks like an awesome tech demo for a next-next generation gaming machine. Seriously. Holy shit. Wow.
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