I participated in the Shadowrun Beta, and really, I only played a few matches before I got tired of it. Nothing against the game, I am just not a very big fan of online versus play (deathmatch, team death-match, etc.). I really wanted to participate in the Halo 3 Beta, because the Halo games are the only ones I have enjoyed playing against other players. Unfortunately, I was not chosen (and I was not going to buy Crackdown to get it). So, when I signed up for the CoD4 Beta, it was mostly out of habit, not because I was looking forward to online death-matching.
I played the Beta extensively this past weekend and I am really enjoying myself, much to my surprise. I am kinda addicted actually. The game is fast, the controls are very tight and the action intense. I played a few matches of CoD2 back in the day (when I could find one with no lag) and I was on the verge of enjoying it. CoD4 seems similar to that experience, only tenfold.
Even with the limited stage selection, weapons, and level capping, the game is a lot of fun. Creating a class and choosing which "perks" to utilize adds some needed depth to the typical death-match scenario. I am really liking the addition of perks. Leveling up and the way you acquire points is also handed very well. The game also has several "challenges" with each weapon, allowing you to unlock additional attachments for them the more you use them.
Graphically, the Beta looks very good. The levels themselves look great, with nice lighting effects and texture work. There is even HDR lighting present, if you go from a very bright area to a dark one or vice versa. Character animation is also very well done. All the animations look smooth and realistic. Physics also come into play, as many items can be scattered with explosions and that goes a long way to making everything seem believable.
A few observations:
- Players only start with only one frag grenade and one special grenade. You also cannot pick up additional grenades. There is one perk that gives you 3 extra special grenades (flash or stun). At first, the limited number of grenades seemed odd. After all, many games like Halo and even Rainbow 6 have ample grenades, resulting in grenade-fests, so my initial instinct was to always toss a grenade towards and enemy. Now that I have played the beta extensively, I love the fact that players only get 1 frag grenade. It forces players to earn their kills with their rifle, not by getting lucky and tossing a grenade into a room of enemies and getting 3 kills. As is, I still see plenty of grenades getting thrown about, so having players start with more (or letting them pick some up in the battlefield) would greatly change the play style, and I like it the way it is..
- By clicking the right thumbstick you do a melee knife attack. It is a one hit kill and you do the move very fast. You even do a lunge similar to Halo 2's Energy Sword. At this point, I am not liking the one hit kill. I think if you get stuck in the back, a one hit kill is fine. But if the attack is head-on, then it needs to be at least two hits to take someone down. As it is, you could be in the middle of shooting someone in the chest and they can lunge and instantly kill you with the knife. Not good. I think you should be able to interrupt the stabbing animation as well if you are shooting the person, like in Gears of War when someone is coming at you with the chainsaw.
- Hiding in the tall grass as a sniper on Overgrown is awesome. I personally suck at sniping, but you really do blend in with the environment when you do this. Pretty cool.
- Speaking of sniping, the automatic sniper rifle that you unlock might be a little too effective. You can basically shoot it as fast as you can pull the trigger and you get no recoil, so it is basically a machine gun with sniper-like range. I don't even mind the fire-rate, but they need to add more recoil to make it harder to use.
- You start the match with only a few clips of ammunition. I kind of like this because it forces you to keep moving and acquire weapons from fallen enemies and limits camping.
- I am finding the spawn system to be very well done. I have not gotten killed by an enemy upon spawning and I always spawn right around my troops, no matter where they are in the map. I have read on the beta forums that some people are in fact getting spawn camped, but I have not had it happen to me as of yet (knock on wood).
- I am having one big issue with the demo at this point. There seems to be some lag or latency issue. It is not really noticeable while playing (for the most part, games are completely lag free from a player's perspective), but you notice the discrepancy on the Kill Cam. Many times I will see an enemy, shoot them with about four bursts of my M16 right in the chest and they shoot me twice and I die. When I see the Kill Cam footage, it shows the enemy emptying half a clip in me and I barely get a shot off. It has been happening lately with enough frequency to really annoy me. I do not mind getting killed (actually I do, but still) if what I see on my end is what is actually happen. I got shot first, fine, I died. But if when I am playing I see myself shooting first, connect with all my shots, yet I die first from one or two shots, and in the Kill cam footage it shows that in fact I was shot many, many times, then something is wrong, and there was nothing I could do to prevent dying. That is a big issue. Infinity Ward better be looking into it because as much fun as I have been having with the Beta, if that continues or carries over to the final game, I cannot see myself playing CoD4 over a long period of time. It would just get too frustrating.
After playing the Beta (if some of its issues are ironed out) I am convinced that CoD4 will be a big hit. The single-player campaign looks simply amazing (some of the best visuals yet) and it looks like I might be enjoying the online portion as well.
