Call of Duty 4 (PC/XBOX 360)

- I played through the single player demo.
- It runs really smooth even at 1600X1200 (with no AA or AF; under vista). It looks pretty good overall but I didn't see anything that blew me away like Crysis did. I guess I really should have played this demo first before Crysis.
- It plays....well pretty much like other cod's. I mean yeah the graphics are nice, I like the modern day setting, weapons, etc but it pretty much feels like the previous games: you fight along side many fellow soldiers, endless re-spawning enemies and friendlies, push past some invisible trigger line to stop the enemy spawns, proceed to next objective (reach objective point, clear an area, destroy certain enemies, defend a point from wave after wave of enemies until reinforcements arrive....does any of this sound familiar to you?)
- I was really excited about this title after all the e3 coverage. I still am to some extent though not as much as crysis.
- I might actually pick this up on 360 instead.

UPDATE: 11/13/07
- picked up the xbox 360 version and finished the single player
- Wow this game was much more impressive than the demo. In fact the demo was probably one of the less original missions in the game. I love how they took tried and true fps mission types like turret, stealth, sniper, defend, escort, etc and just twisted it, changed it, and made them truly unique and original. This level of quality keeps up from the opening all the way to the very end of the game. There are many moments where I was genuinely stunned. My favorite mission hands down is the ac-130 gunship. There is ZERO filler or fluff in this game.
- Graphics are very impressive: great detail, lighting, draw distance is amazing, and all this at 60fps. I mean rock solid 60fps. It never dips no matter what is going on screen.
- Checkpoints were pretty well spaced apart and never became that frustrating though the final level got pretty tough.
- You can now shoot through stuff in both single player and multi player which is a nice touch.
- I still don't quite like the mechanic of constant respawning enemies and AI teammates. I'm not sure how else you would do it but sometimes instead of battling through a tough spot, you can just toss a smoke or two and just charge to the next invisible checkpoint. If you cross it and die in the process it really doesn't matter since well you made it to the next checkpoint. This kind of lets you cheese your way through some of the battles. This is on normal difficulty level. I'm sure this would be more difficult to pull of on harder settings.
- Make sure you watch until after the credits for a nice but confusing little surprise.
- I briefly tried multiplayer. After 3-4 team death matches I unlocked sniper. You level and unlock stuff MUCH faster than r6 vegas. No annoying respawn time. If you die you respawn pretty much immediately after watching the killer cam. You are pretty much always playing which is a nice change.

Highly Recommended. Easily the best cod yet. Infinity Ward at the top of their game.