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[Ghost]

Which do people prefer, CoD4's polished but ultimately very 'smoke and mirrors' approach to campaign, or Halo's more 'emergent' but perhaps less obviously stunning design? Or perhaps the middle ground vis a vis Half Life etc?

I wouldn't put Half life in the middle, the gunplay is very much at the Halo end of the scale, AI centric to a fault.

The CoD SP debate has been done to death, it's been the same since the very first game, it's amazing the first time through, but the second you start dying and replaying the situations again and again the curtain is raised and it becomes more like an old school shooter (ie memorising the patterns). It's a design choice and they get a lot of leverage out of it.

 

[MidiSurf]

You sir are out of your mind. Call of Duty 4 is one of the best Single Player campaigns for a shooter I've played in years.

The game was handled masterfully.

No, You sir are out of your mind. COD4 had terrible single player campaign. Never ending hordes of enemys were just bullshit and linearity of it was close to Super Mario Bros.

But hey! People don't play/buy COD games for singelplayer experience. It's all about MP. Did the first one even have single player game ?

 

[itsinmyveins]

The single campaign is definitely very good thanks to the variety in missions and their style along with presentation, although it's got some serious issues like the ones mentioned in the OP. But when playing on normal these doesn't stand out that much. Play on veteran and you'll fucking hate the game.

No, You sir are out of your mind. COD4 had terrible single player campaign. Never ending hordes of enemys were just bullshit and linearity of it was close to Super Mario Bros.

But hey! People don't play/buy COD games for singelplayer experience. It's all about MP. Did the first one even have single player game ?

Linearity is true for almost every game though.

The first COD had like the most awesome singleplayer campaign ever. COD4 is the first one where I actually care about the MP.

 

[guise]

First I played the campaign on normal. It was fun but I didn't think it was anything amazing.

Then I got hooked on multiplayer. It was insanely fun, but i wasn't great at it.

Then I played the campaign on veteran and nearly pulled my hair out, and broke my thumbs (fuck you mile high!)

Then I went back to multiplayer and I was a lot better, because you get conditioned into hiding, taking cover, using vantage points, using grenades properly etc

Then when i went back and played through the campaign again on normal to get all the achivements i found it waaaay more enjoyable. If you go into it knowing the trigger points, you can go into the game and appreciate and enjoy the set peices a lot more, which is basically the whole game... set peice after set peice.

I just wish the campaign had co-op.

(This is my first CoD)

CoD4 is a good game, it deserves praise, just not half as much as it's been getting. You want a fantastic single player game on the hardest difficulty, look no further than Rainbow Six Vegas and Vegas 2. RSV has you rely on your wits and your tactical planning rather than just reflexes. When you die in Vegas, you always immediately know how you could have done better. "Maybe I should have sent my team out first and then flanked them from the side. Maybe I should have taken cover over there instead of over here." etc. There really isn't any of that in CoD, it's just mostly reflexes. Vegas is the FPS series for FPS junkies. CoD is the FPS series for graphic whores and online gamers.

I don't know man, i beat RSV2 over the weekend and I think CoD4 has definitely spoiled me in terms of graphics, framerate, set pieces, audio, voice acting, animation… pretty much everything.

Not that V2 is bad but I don’t think its anywhere near as tactical as your making out, well at least when you’re playing with NPCs on your team (Co-op is a different story). The NPCs usually sit in the corner 10 miles away waiting for your orders, run into walls and/or crossfire or just plain get in your way. Although CoD4 is linear as fuck and the (literal) invisible barriers are annoying there still is scope to flank and take different routes on the open maps, obviously not to the degree of V2… but those maps were designed for co-op play with multiple entry points. Playing CoD on veteran really makes you think about your path through the level. (Also my first R6 game)

 

[Blutonium]

Most people here whine about games becoming easier and easier, and then when a game comes along that's pretty hard (on veteran), you bitch about it too. The fudge do you guys want?

If veteran is too hard for you to finish then don't play it. Don't hate the game for it. I found the singleplayer to be one of the best in an FPS since years.

Spoiler

Achievement whores

 

[itsinmyveins]

I don't know man, i beat RSV2 over the weekend and I think CoD4 has definitely spoiled me in terms of graphics, framerate, set pieces, audio, voice acting, animation… pretty much everything.

Pretty much, yeah. And you do die a lot of times in R6V2 too from guys armed with shotguns and with faster reflexes than Spiderman. Like, you sneak around, open a door and BOOM the second it's open. Happened to me a bunch of times.

Most people here whine about games becoming easier and easier, and then when a game comes along that's pretty hard (on veteran), you bitch about it too. The fudge do you guys want?

If veteran is too hard for you to finish then don't play it. Don't hate the game for it. I found the singleplayer to be one of the best in an FPS since years.

I love a challenge, but COD4 on Veteran is simply badly done. The enemies can hit you and kill you from a mile away with one shot when you peek out from a corner. They've got reflexes likke no one else and doesn't seem to have to aim, just shoot from the hip and hit. Ontop of that you've got ridiculous grenade rains at some points in the game and the helicopter can be a bitch due to it hitting everything instantely. This together with the fact that you need to press forward to advance and stop the scripted waves of enemies.

 

[Man God]

The original Perfect Dark is the last single player FPS that I had any fun playing, Metroid excluded.

That game has good AI and fun missions.

Halo has good AI and boring missions.

CoD has poor AI and sort of fun missions.

Timesplitters is close, but has mediocre AI and fun missions.

 

[guise]

Have you played HL2 + the episodes? Still the best FPS games to date IMO

 

[Man God]

Don't like any Half Life game. I gave up the first one during the intro (took too long) and gave up Half Life 2 the stage after the dunebuggy bit. Just felt boring.

Do like Team Fortress though. Delicious.

 

[Blutonium]

I love a challenge, but COD4 on Veteran is simply badly done. The enemies can hit you and kill you from a mile away with one shot when you peek out from a corner. They've got reflexes likke no one else and doesn't seem to have to aim, just shoot from the hip and hit. Ontop of that you've got ridiculous grenade rains at some points in the game and the helicopter can be a bitch due to it hitting everything instantely. This together with the fact that you need to press forward to advance and stop the scripted waves of enemies.

I know what you mean, and I love a challenge too (DMC for example). And I too find veteran to be absurd sometimes, but it's just an option. You don't HAVE to play the game on this mode. If it's too hard, just don't do it. Hardened isn't that hard at all and I really enjoyed the game on this mode.

I am busy on veteran though (still haven't had the time to finish it because the multiplayer is so damn addictive), and again, some parts just piss me off. But that doesn't affect the way I feel about this game at all.

 

[test_account]

I enjoyed all CoD Single Player campaigns for PC (i havnt tried too much CoD on consoles). I've beaten all on the veteran/hardest difficulty level as well *brag brag* hehe Sometimes it can be frustrating indeed, true that, but i think it worked out ok in the end. I did manage to get through the games atleast

Speaking of frustration, in CoD 2 when your up in a

Spoiler

tower and you have to snipe alot of mortar crews (its one of the missions closer to the end)

, damn that part was hard, atleast on the hardest difficulty level (i didnt try any other difficulty levels so i dunno how much easier (if any easier at all) that was). Here you have to

Spoiler

hold the tower

for like X amount of minutes. I think it only saves one time and then its something like 2 minutes left i rememeber correctly. If you die and there is 1 second left you have to begin over again from those 2 minutes. I have no idea how many times i tried that part, but i guess it was atleast around 100 times (if not more) before i finally made it. I actually gave up on that part for maybe 1-2 months before i decided to try again. So i know what the origianl poster in this thread is talking about.

CoD 4 also had some frustrating parts, like when after you

Spoiler

snipe that guy so he looses his arm, in the end of that mission you're at a carnival or something and you have to hold off a bunch of enemies for X amount of minutes before the choppers comes to get you. That part was pretty damn hard. But i did find a "trick" to make it alittle easier though, if you run out of the carnival and back to where you came from (between some tall buildings) and hide in a corner there, all enemies wont see you and it becomes alittle easier in my opinion atleast

.

The part near the end end where you have to

Spoiler

run through the hallways in the bunker (or what it is)

were also pretty frustrating sometimes. I had to try alot of times to get through there. I played it on PC with a mouse and keyboard. If the console versions are just as difficulty on the veteran difficulty level as the PC version is, then i almost dont dare to think on how hard this part must be with a controller hehe. You do have some auto-aim on the console versions though, but still, i guess it must be pretty hard anyway if you use a controller.

 

[itsinmyveins]

I know what you mean, and I love a challenge too (DMC for example). And I too find veteran to be absurd sometimes, but it's just an option. You don't HAVE to play the game on this mode. If it's too hard, just don't do it. Hardened isn't that hard at all and I really enjoyed the game on this mode.

I am busy on veteran though (still haven't had the time to finish it because the multiplayer is so damn addictive), and again, some parts just piss me off. But that doesn't affect the way I feel about this game at all.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the game and it was my personal runner up for GOTY last year. But the campaign is really bad on Veteran, and the way the went about making is more difficult is so stupid I can't believe they did it. It's like early days of videogaming again.

 

[indie85]

The russian village level is particularly bad with the checkpoint gameplay, leg it to each house alive and sit outside round the back and let all your squad do the dirty work. You can literally do the entire level like this.

 

[Kabuki Waq]

yep COD4's single player was scripted garbage.


but then again i felt the sameway about HL2.

 

[PnCIa]

The quality of the singleplayer in CoD games has decreased significantly since CoD1...but CoD4 is still better than 2 and 3 though.

 

[chubigans]

yep COD4's single player was scripted garbage.


but then again i felt the sameway about HL2.

I've said it before and I'll say it once more: give me three AI enemies that are relatively smart and throw them in a level with me, over a hugely-scripted hollywood style exprerience. Why people enjoy playing a scripted event again is beyond me. :\

I guess that's why I like games such as Resistance and Halo: it's all about the guns and enemies. Not so much the scripts.

What I don't get is...why is the single player almost universally praised in the review junket? That makes zero sense to me.

 

[itsinmyveins]

Scripted events is a good thing if you do it correctly and mix it up more. In the COD-games these moments are often way too obvious. But if you manage to "hide" those scripts, then I'm all for it.

But hey, I like linearity too, so..

I'm not gonna call the SP campaign "garbage" though, simply because some of the missions and their presentations were awesome. In fact, in some respects the single player campaign is outstanding. They are somewhat varied and missions like "Death from above" manage to be quite unsettling. We've got the Chernobyl-area which for the first half reminds me more of QTE than actual gaming but still is fun.

 

[Crab Milk Mickey]

I liked the variety in the single player campaign, but the A.I. and the excessive use of scripting almost ruined it for me, and this coming from a guy who's been playing the franchise ever since the very first Call of Duty. I like scripted moments when it's done right, but they need to learn how to hide them better. It's also really irritating how people (not specifically talking about GAFers here) are still excusing / approving telepathic A.I. like in Call of Duty 4 or in the Vegas games during Terrorist Hunt, and the fact that they keep respawning in 4 until you reach an invisible line makes it all the more annoying. What I wouldn't give for a Call of Duty that's more open and where the developers have completely redone their artificial intelligence... I wouldn't mind waiting longer for that, even if it would break the (silly) tradition to release a yearly Call of Duty.

CoD 4's broken A.I. system was also apparent in the Ghillies in the Mist mission (my favorite mission in the game by a country mile) and I'm not talking about the final part near the ferris wheel. Remember the part where you spot two guys throwing corpses in a river or something? If you look around, you'll notice that no one is actually near you other than those two guys so if you miss them, suddenly you're surrounded by a few more soldiers (and dogs!) that literally appeared out of thin air.

Either way: games like Call of Duty 4 make me appreciate the A.I. of games like Halo and F.E.A.R. a whole lot more. Less bullshit, but still challenging.

 

[pr0cs]

I finished COD2 and COD4 on veteran but I found COD2 to be a better experience. I really disliked that IW decided to copy Treyarch and COD3 with the infinitely spawning enemies for COD4, at least I don't remember COD2 having them.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of IW's single player games, I like that the achievements aren't tied to the multiplayer and while COD4 veteran had some really stupid hard parts (mile high club took me a good 3 hours to get by and the bunker level took at least 5 hours) I never got really frustrated.

 

[Crab Milk Mickey]

I finished COD2 and COD4 on veteran but I found COD2 to be a better experience. I really disliked that IW decided to copy Treyarch and COD3 with the infinitely spawning enemies for COD4, at least I don't remember COD2 having them.

2 had that too, for sure.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

2 had that too, for sure.

Who knew tiny farmhouses could hold so many Nazis?

 

[Mojovonio]

Honestly, the SP is just as good as CoD 3, maybe even a bit worse.

 

[fartblast]

r6v single player is way better, i played through cod4 once and theres only like one level worth going back to, maybe two. overall 6/10 the gfx bump it up to a solid 8.9

 

[pr0cs]

Honestly, the SP is just as good as CoD 3, maybe even a bit worse.

COD3 was HORRIBLE on veteran, not even the same league as 2 and 4.
Borg-like nazis that could snipe you 1/4 mil out with a MP40, they could see through walls, were omnipresent but could not see through smoke, very odd.
There were a few situations where I nearly snapped my controller in half due to the cheating bastages.

 

[RickA238]

The campaign in COD2 was epic, and one of my most intense single-player FPS experiences.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

Who knew tiny farmhouses could hold so many Nazis?

nazicar.gif

 

[I AM JOHN!]

I would agree with you if you were talking about any CoD other than CoD4. CoD4, however, was absolutely terrific, even on Veteran.

 

[ALeperMessiah]

2 had that too, for sure.

haha, it definitely did. I remember staring at 2 farmhouses for about an hour, thinking to myself, "Damn, when are all these guys going to die!" only to realize that it was a constant respawn thing.

 

[Crab Milk Mickey]

haha, it definitely did. I remember staring at 2 farmhouses for about an hour, thinking to myself, "Damn, when are all these guys going to die!" only to realize that it was a constant respawn thing.

I was occupied by this one mission for more than an hour straight killing hordes of nazi's coming out of a church. A church!

After dying in yet another cheap way after that, I left COD 2's Veteran mode for what it was and called it quits.

 

[Brandon F]

The constant use of smoke grenades helped give CoD2 a slight edge off the frustration that CoD4 has. The formula of pushing ever forward, timing smoke tosses and choosing the next safety barrier to hide against and pick off shots was, at its heart, the 30 seconds of fun I never got bored of in CoD2.

CoD4 just has a bunch of nifty rollercoaster moments, mired in a bunch of BS. One second I despise the campaign, the next I praise it. All told, CoD2 felt more consistent.

 

[~Devil Trigger~]

Still One of My Top 3 Gaming Missions of 2007

 

[szaromir]

I agree with the OP. Infinity Respawn made an extremely shitty campaign, the worst I encountered in an FPS, well, since Call of Duty Finest Hour. The excessive use of scripts, cheap difficulty (I play it on hardened), poor AI and infinite respawns just kill any enjoyment I could have had with the game. I'll still finish it as I'm already on Act 3, but I doubt it'll be any fun at all. Ow, and the story is the same crap as in Tom Clancy games. :/

 

[Haunted]

Scripted FPS are a thing of the past, making way for the AI centric, emergent gameplay type.

What IW has down is the amazing presentation which makes you overlook those shortcomings. A bit like MGS in that regard.

I mean, honestly, there were so many amazing scenes - the president's death, the sinking ship, the detonated nuke, the sniper shot, the ending scene. Like playing a movie - cinematic gaming at its finest.

 

[A Human Becoming]

The one thing that annoyed me about COD4's single player was enemies respawning until you moved to a certain point. If that had been taken out and instead a limit was set for both sides, I would have been happy.

 

[Jason's Ultimatum]

I didn't even enjoy the MP. Must've been spoiled by Resistance's MP.

 

[Saiyu]

The original Perfect Dark is the last single player FPS that I had any fun playing, Metroid excluded.

That game has good AI and fun missions.

Halo has good AI and boring missions.

CoD has poor AI and sort of fun missions.

Timesplitters is close, but has mediocre AI and fun missions.

Yes sir, exactly how I would describe Halo and CoD's SP.

Timesplitters 2. Co op. Dam level.

 

[-Rogue5-]

Hmm... I think their storytelling is a little weak, but I think their campaigns are fairly awesome. There is a difference... or at least I think there is.