Duty Calls

After much um'ing and ah'ing, and a little encouragement from fellow rllmuk forum members, I caved in and purchased Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the 360.

Everyone I know who has experienced it bangs on about how great it is, which usually means I'll hate it. So it was with some skepticism I booted up the game.

Starting up the single-player portion of the game I couldn't fail to notice how good it looked. A pretty-solid 60 frames persecond - ie lovely and smooth and fast - very pleasing on the eye. So many games today choose eye-candy over a fast frame rate, so it was good to see someone make the effort.

And this wasn't the only area where effort had clearly been made. The story is pretty good for a game like this, although I find the SAS missions more interesting and have more character than the US ones. I'm not going to spoil it, suffice to say it's non-stop intense action all the way.

The main draw of CoD4 seems to be the multiplayer. I hear of people sinking hours and hours per week into it, unlocking equipment and 'perks' (special abilities), yet I was fearful. This blog isn't titled inept gamer for nowt!

With trepidation I opted for a game in Deathmatch mode with randoms. The headset was muted so I didn't have to listen to American teens reminding me how rubbish I was. The round started, I stumbled forward. I didn't have a clue where I was going, so attempted to use the radar in the corner to find an opponent. Movement infront of me and the next thing I know I'm dead. This repeated itself several times, my total ineptitude replayed from the killer's point of view.

With morale dropping I hung about for a second round, this time actually managing to get a kill. There were a few occasions where the other person was, like myself, having trouble getting a bead on me, though they would win eventually. This and only this made me think that, with some practice, I could improve enough to enjoy the experience. My time with Quake Live has taught me that whilst I am rubbish at first, with a little perseverence I can improve.

Despite this, seeing myself at the bottom of the table, lagging way behind the next person up, didn't inspire me to carry on. Maybe tomorrow, I thought, although an internet outage stopped me trying again.

Tonight is my usual Team Fortress 2 night but I'll try and get a couple more rounds of CoD4 multiplayer in and report back. This is the true test for the inept gamer.