What Made Call of Duty 4 So Great?

[IBlackKiteI]

It was balanced without sacrificing playability.

It's campaign was brilliant.

It's maps were (generally) well designed and memorable.

Personally, it almost had the best ending of any shooter I've played.
(It's ending wasn't THAT good, but it was pretty great, for a shooter.)

It was fun

 

[ZombieGenesis]

The Campaign. I never even touched the Multiplayer.
I bought Call of Duty: World at War and Modern Warfare 2 afterwards (despite never owning a COD before 4) and I discovered that Modern Warfare had been a lightning strike, which none of their other games have lived up to since. The atmosphere, the unique flavour, and the varying methods of play throughout different missions were gone. Go here... shoot this... quicktime event. Trade in.

 

[brumley53]

anyone who says COD2 was the best because 4 is dumbed down for consoles is an idiot because even 2 was dumbed down from 1(not that they're bad just not the PC master race game that everyone says it is).

I liked COD2, because honestly, it felt the most realistic. You were just another soldier in another battle who didn't really matter in some world wide conspiracy.

I know, I never said it was bad I just dislike it when people say COD4 was dumbed down for consoles when in actual fact COD2 was slightly simplified from COD1.

 

[ByerpZ]

i've never played the multiplayer

 

[Krantos]

Fantastic campaign, incredibly tight and responsive controls, and very engaging, very balanced multiplayer.

Why is it the only thing MW2 managed to pull off was the controls?

 

[Wintermoot]

its the first COD not set in WWII

 

[markisb]

the single player was awsome. it had high action moments but also some realy stelthy moments aswell. the multiplayer was so simple. just so simple

 

[Still Life]

Well, I think it was fresh and very atmospheric. It walked the line between realism and the super-masculine. This made it a compelling experience for those tired of the constant stream of WW II shooters.

Add to that the class system: where you could effectively govern your own play style, instead of using predetermined class load-outs. The way the unlocks were arranged, and how you accumulated points was very rewarding for a player.

Also, I think it had memorable maps and set pieces.

My 2c.

 

[Captain1nsaneo-J]

Multiplayer was fun and balanced.
You didn't have to play seriously to do well. Players on a team spawned predictably on the map making it possible to snipe from long distances with out having to worry about an enemy spawning behind you. When you attacked you knew where the line of scrimmage was and what path could be used to move through it. Large matches and lack of gimmicky weapons/perks was great. When played on normal the grenades weren't the killjoys that they normally are. There were no useless equipment or akimbo. Smoke grenades rocked.

There were rewards in the form of skins for guns based on your headshot count with that weapon adding an incentive to keep using a gun or moving on after a not unreasonable amount of kills. The gold skin for finishing all of them was a great incentive but I wish it applied to more than just one gun as when I stopped playing I had most of them but my preferences in each was not the one it was offered for (Who uses the Dragunov? Thing couldn't shoot through paper). The kill streak rewards were worth a damn and easily reachable.

 

[Griphphin]

There have been so many CoD games on the market that you get nostalgia for a game 4-5 years old.
The campaign was good (and i sorely, sorely miss arcade mode, made MHC so much fun and we need it back), but the multiplayer (while decent as well) had its problems.
3x frag was ridiculous with sonic boom combined with how far you could throw them and thier base power. The fact that you could get 3 of them each life made domination near unplayable as the guy defending the contested territory could nade you when he respawned after you killed him. It didn't help with TDM either, as random nades over the median lines of maps (ambush and wetwork being the some of the worst offenders, such that you had trouble getting off your own spawn).
The assault rifles were a little OP, though the AR/SMG balanced worked better than in MW2 and arguably WaW depending on your viewpoint on the issue.
The spawns weren't amazing, and bad spawns were just as prevalent here as they have been in later CoD games.

Overall, it was pretty good (had some of my all time favorite weapons as well <3), but nostalgia won't blind me on its quality.

 

[irishstormtrooper]

Because it dumbed down the FPS genre to a point where you no longer needed skill, tactics, or any sort of higher brain function to play.
It's basically random, and that means even a monkey can play it. And people don't like to think, they are stupid and thinking hurts their brains, so they appreciate just being able to derp their way through the endless torrent of nadespam and haxing, all the while thinking they're winning something.

That's why MW and MW2 are popular at all.

Trolling troll is trolling.
Anyway, CoD 4 was great in a similar way that people say that Half-Life 2 is great. It was the first of its kind in terms of multiplayer, and the amount of customization that you could do in comparison to other games released at that time. Also, it was the first multiplayer shooter have RPG elements and for them to actually work. In addition, split-screen Free-For-Alls on Shipment with Martyrdom. That is all.