Call of Duty 4: single player 4-6 hours?

[CptStern]

episodic content costing a fraction of the price of a full lengthed game? ok ...err wait this is regurarily priced

Call of Duty 4 is nearly upon us and reviews of the game are slowly beginning to appear with some very interesting revelations pertaining to the single-player portion of the game.

OXM UK reviewed the game in their December issue, and cited a short single-player campaign as one of the main downfalls of the title, going on to say that the game only takes "...five to six hours on Normal difficulty."

Now while this may sound worrying at first, one has to remember that the Call of Duty games have always had extremely strong multiplayer to go with the single-player component, so you won't be spending your hard earned cash on five to six hours of gameplay.

http://gamernode.com/news/4759-cod4-single-player-only-4-6-hours/index.html

i've owned 2 call of duty games and I dont think I played more than 6 hours of MP between the both of them ..really it want that special


anyways I'm not picking this up at full price ..I'll wait till it's bundled with the expansion or till it's in the bargain bin

 

[Javert]

Are they kidding? CoD always had a strong SP component too. They never seemed to skimp on it, until now.

 

[VictimOfScience]

Wow. That is ridiculous. 5-6 hours on Normal?? Ick. Definitely wait for a GOTY edition (if that is in the cards for it which I frankly can't imagine it is with all of the other awesomeness due in the next 2 months).

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Not surprised, development did seem rushed and primarily focused on MP. I'll wait on this one for a few more reviews / multi-player impressions.

 

[Warbie]

I might rent it then as i've no time for another multiplayer shooter. With TF2 and Halo 3 out they picked the wrong time to release a multiplayer focussed fps.

 

[Fishlore]

I don't MP, so they alienated the segment of the market I fall in. Won't buy, rent, download or demo this one. 5 hours... Give me a break.

 

[KagePrototype]

The MP Beta on the 360 was enough to sell me. As long as the MP remains :thumbs: then I'm happy

 

[Krynn72]

Wow that really sucks. Especially considering that the PR people always exaggerate playtime. We're probably actually looking at 3 to 3.5 hours. Well, I never was a fan of their MP either, so it looks like I wont be purchasing.

 

[CptStern]

The MP Beta on the 360 was enough to sell me. As long as the MP remains :thumbs: then I'm happy

can yoou provide details ..what is it about the MP that makes it good? is it just team death match?

 

[<RJMC>]

whats whit the latest trend of mp first?

 

[Tamer17]

Umm..Action games these days and espically FPS have one-digit playtime hours, so it's not surprising at all and that's why i'm not bothered by the length of the HL2 eps because there are games with about the same playtime, double the price and alot less in quality.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

I get sick of games thta need MP to sell copies.

Personally like Yahtzee from zero punctuation don't give a flying **** about MP so at a length of 5 hours I'm not going to buy until it's budget priced.

Also is it just me but I always thought CoD was more well known for its SP over its MP anyway so for people to say that I find strange.

 

[Steel.Inferno]

That's odd, they've always spent a lot of their focus on the SP...

But I don't really care, the SP demo rang the same as the other CoD games, don't have any real desire to play it... It's the MP that is improved upon this time around.

 

[CyberPitz]

CoD has multiplayer?!

 

[Tyguy]

the game is decent, but 5 hours is bullshit, and 5 hours to a "gamer" is about 3

 

[Steel.Inferno]

Am I the only one here who buys CoD series for the MP? Heh... In fact... any games other than RPGs and those MP-incompatible.

Then again, I really disliked CoD2 MP :|

 

[CyberPitz]

Am I the only one here who buys CoD series for the MP? Heh... In fact... any games other than RPGs and those MP-incompatible.

Then again, I really disliked CoD2 MP :|

I actually didn't enjoy any CoDs....so I am just being a meany.

 

[Lucid]

Meh, I don't mind the short SP for this installment.

5 hours is all I'd be able to stand anyways.

 

[KagePrototype]

can yoou provide details ..what is it about the MP that makes it good? is it just team death match?

Off the top of my head

- It looks and sounds amazing (at a very high framerate, none of this Halo3 30fps rubbish)
- the controls are pitch perfect on the 360 controller
- it's easy to kill other people (no damage sponges in this game!)
- when you die, the game shows you from a first person perspective how your opponent killed you (ensuring that death is always interesting )
- a great levelling up system; you get xp from killing people, and you level up and choose different types of perks for your character
- custom classes (choose what equipment you start with, ties in with the levelling system)
- lots of fun mini-achievements (e.g. get x kills with x weapon)
- no bastard auto-aim, you're gonna have to aim and fire very quickly

It's basically very intense, and really satisfying.

[youtube]fYnqsT_AgyA[/youtube]

There's also regular deathmatch and some objective-based thing, but I never bothered with them and always played team deathmatch.

 

[French Ninja]

Even if SP was scripted to hell and had the simple formula of "run into enemy lines and hide behind a rock so your allies can kill the now non-respawning nazi hordes", at least it was entertaining the first couple of times and quite cinematic.

 

[Krynn72]

Off the top of my head

- It looks and sounds amazing (at a very high framerate, none of this Halo3 30fps rubbish)
- the controls are pitch perfect on the 360 controller
- it's easy to kill other people (no damage sponges in this game!)
- when you die, the game shows you from a first person perspective how your opponent killed you (ensuring that death is always interesting )
- a great levelling up system; you get xp from killing people, and you level up and choose different types of perks for your character
- custom classes (choose what equipment you start with, ties in with the levelling system)
- lots of fun mini-achievements (e.g. get x kills with x weapon)
- no bastard auto-aim, you're gonna have to aim and fire very quickly

It's basically very intense, and really satisfying.

[youtube]fYnqsT_AgyA[/youtube]

There's also regular deathmatch and some objective-based thing, but I never bothered with them and always played team deathmatch.

Meh, that looks like it would only be entertaining for a couple hours total.

 

[Mutley]

A lot of haters for this game which I'm surprised considering the success of CoD2 which was amazing.

CoD4 may not have a very good story, script or hours of play time singleplayer but it is really well made, the gameplay is really fun, it sounds and looks great. I have played the demo nearly 8-10 times now because of how much I love playing it, I get so involved and immersed into it.

Multiplayer is defiantly where it will shine for me though, I can't wait to leave DICE's Battlefield and get in to this. Team Deathmatch is a rather crap mode so the video shows little, however there is a Counterstrike DE/Bomb style mode and a Conquest style BF2/2142 mode, which I can't wait to get my paws on.

 

[knut]

Agreeded on all of Kage's points. Unfortunatly, though, the weapon unlocks are going to get abused fast. As soon as you could unlock the M4 in the beta you pretty much had the field due to it's effectivity from across the maps and in close combat. Not to mention it's rate of fire and accuracy as it starts, and then only get's better when you upgrade the weapon to have either a better scope or a barrel grip. I know people are obviously are going to want to have weapons that are good, but the M4 is too good, and eventually the beta just degraded into a Counter Strike/PC deathmatch mindless fragfest.

RPK with red dot sight is what I always used. But yeah, the unlocks and perks to alter your characters abilities really do have a huge impact on how things happen on the battlefield. The guy you're chasing didn't show up on radar because he was using the perk Radar Jammer, but fortunatly you're using Deep Impact, so as he buggers off behind cover you just have to open up on the wall. It's really cool stuff and it's actually had a lot of work put into it.

 

[A True Canadian]

Wow, 5 hours for the whole game is a little surprising. That means that by playing the demo, I've already beaten about 7% of the single-player campaign.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Well, that's a bit shit considering the other games all had pretty lengthy campaigns (CoD 3 probably only because of the unskippable cutscenes). Not that I mind much because I've always been a big follower of the multiplayer - I've probably put hundreds of hours into playing CoD and CoD 2 online. Still, I played the MP beta for this and wasn't completely sold. It was fun and I can imagine it having a fair bit of longevity, but as Antipop said I can see the XP system being abused. It'd be dissapointing to see it come down to only 2 or 3 weapon/add-on/perk configs that are actually useful and noone using anything else, since the main thing this has going for it is customisation.

Another thing that bugged me (although I may be alone) is that the controller sensitivity option was severely limited for a shooter that relies so much on speed and precision - you only get to pick from 4 options. If I set it to medium, it was fine most of the time, but I turned a bit too slow to be able to react to attackers from the side or behind (which happened alot). On high, it was way too sensitive to be able to make small adjustments when I was aiming for things at long range. I don't even know why they bothered with a very high option... hopefully they give you more control over this in the full game.

 

[Icarusintel]

4-6 hours?

What a f*cking shame. Honestly, this month has been rife with disappointments. The COD4 demo Yahoo fiasco, short gameplay length from COD4 and now the crap with the Crysis demo. I thought it was just the publishers that were being morons until I read this.

What happened to COD and, to a lesser extent, COD2? Those both had rather decent SP. At least COD and UO did. Hell, UO is longer than COD4 is going to be, and that was an expansion pack.

For all the talk that IW has been slinging around, it appears they've lost touch with the people who originally played COD. I remember it getting GOTY for its (rightfully) lauded SP. The MP was a rather wonderful extra to it that caught on quick. But it was, first and foremost, a singleplayer spectacle. I enjoyed pretty much every second and replayed many of the missions upwards of 15 times.

I should have known when they announced the 360 beta that this would be a multiplayer focused game. The lack of focus on SP was rather alarming. I, personally, didn't play COD or COD2 online. The SP was so much fun I didn't need to. Besides, there were far better MP games around at the time.

Though IW would never admit it, I think they saw the 360, the success of Live, and built a game around it. The PC and PS3 versions, though supposedly identical, are more concessions than forethought. The lack of PS3 info, until very recently, is enough to verify it on the PS3 side at least. Still, the way the PC version gets mentioned it feels like they realized they had to give the PC community mod tools just so they wouldn't bitch and moan quite as much. I've seen no mention of a dedication to support afterwards. If it's anything like COD2 they'll just ditch the community and leave it to sort out problems itself.

I know all industry is about profit, but COD genuinely felt like a game put together with something more than profit in mind. It was there for the consumer. They weren't simply motivated by the profit, but they had a vision they thought was cool, and they wanted to share that with us.

COD4 is simply marketable. The perks system might as well be just another form of achievement on XBL. Not having played the X360 beta, I don't know how all it really effects gameplay, but it seems to me like it takes some of the skill out. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe I'm just upset that they don't seem to give a damn about the people who liked COD for it's grand SP campaign. I'm sure the few hours we play will be fun, but I expected to be paying for a great SP game with a good MP component, not an MP game with an SP component tacked on. Thank god there are other games coming out to satisfy my SP craving.


Edit: Sorry about ranting, but I just had to pay $10 for wireless in expectation of d/ling the Crysis demo today only to learn it won't be out until tomorrow. F*ck. Stupid publishers and their exclusivity shit. Stupid hotels requiring payment for wireless.

 

[Jangle]

I've always thought the COD games have been a little on the short side, but this is disappointing.

 

[Warbie]

Just pop down blockbuster. 5 quid 2 night rental

 

[Gunner]

I don't see how this could be a bad thing. I mean honestly, any more and you'll shoot yourself in the head from the retarded gameplay. It's 2007 and they're still using their lame infinite enemy respawn scripts that only stop when you hit a specific trigger... yeah constant action my balls. They should have just ditched the SP altogether.

 

[Mutley]

I don't see how this could be a bad thing. I mean honestly, any more and you'll shoot yourself in the head from the retarded gameplay. It's 2007 and they're still using their lame infinite enemy respawn scripts that only stop when you hit a specific trigger... yeah constant action my balls. They should have just ditched the SP altogether.

But it's a fun manly blow stuff up and kill lots of people. I'm all for the continuous waves of men.