Modern Warfare Extravaganza - Xbox 360

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote a review so here's a big one.

I was house sitting for a week and decided to do something: beat all of the Call of Duty/Modern Warfare games that I hadn't already reviewed. I figured that they were all about seven hours long, but it was still five games. I started off with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and then played through them in order. Here we go.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare:
I originally played this on the PC shortly after it was released. I was absolutely blown away by it. I had never really played a FPS like it before, it was so fast paced, so exciting, and I absolutely loved the story and characters.

I was hooked on not only the game, but entire series after playing CoD4. I still remember the rush I felt as you have to make the jump from the sinking boat to the helicopter. I still remember thinking "Wow..." at the twist about halfway through the game. And after playing it on Xbox? I still feel that way. I still love the hurried pace of the game, the twists and turns, the overall feel of the game. After playing it on PC I declared it to be my favorite FPS of all times... and after re-playing it on Xbox my opinion has not changed.

Modern Warfare: World at War:
After playing Call of Duty 4 I was somewhat leery of going back to World War 2. It just felt like it had been done to death, that there was no new ground to cover. I had played Call of Duty as well as Medal of Honor and a bunch of other WW2 games. It's not that I didn't like them it's just the market had been flooded with them at the time.

Going into World at War I was still a little skeptical. After the first few levels my opinion had changed. They had breathed new life into the genre. They were always fast paced games, but World at War pushed it that much faster. It didn't quite live up to Call of Duty 4 but it was still probably one of the best World War 2 games I've played.

My only problem with World at War was the difficulty level and grenades. The difficulty seemed ramped up, I seemed to be dying a lot more then I did in the other games and sadly it seems a lot of the deaths were kind of cheap. A lot of those deaths were from grenades that seem to explode the moment you noticed them. I have a feeling that it was because the grenades could be cooked, it adds realism but it also makes it so you die a lot more. Overall though it was an incredibly solid addition to the WW2 FPS genre.

Modern Warfare 2
After playing Call of Duty 4 I had to play Modern Warfare 2. I had to continue the story, I was hooked. The Modern Warfare games get a lot of flack for being "the same game released every year." I can understand this, but frankly, I'm okay with it as well. I haven't played a Modern Warfare game that I felt was anything but really good, if I have to pay $60 a year and get a really fun game with a really great multiplayer I'm okay with that.

While I didn't like Modern Warfare 2 as much as Call of Duty 4 I still think it's an excellent game. Everything was there that made the first one great, and I was finally able to play the multiplayer I had heard so much about. The story kept me interested and I still had that "Wow!" moment a couple of times. There were a few parts in the game that I felt were kind of tedious, playing errand boy while defending the burger joint felt kind of odd, but overall if Call of Duty 4 was an A+ in my book then Modern Warfare 2 was an easy A.

Modern Warfare 3
Every story has to have an end I guess, and ending to the Modern Warfare series was excellent. While I thought that there was some kind of tedious parts to Modern I didn't feel that at all with Modern Warfare 3. It was back to the rushed excitement that I felt with Call of Duty 4. The story was great, the locals were awesome, and this had some amazing missions in it. If they released a game of this caliber every year I would have no problem ponying up the $60 for it. The Modern Warfare series got the send off it deserved with Modern Warfare 3. It was a great game almost on par with Call of Duty 4.

So there it is. My love letter to the Call of Duty/Modern Warfare series since Call of Duty 4. As you may have guessed I enjoyed pretty much every minute of them. I know some people disagree with me but at the end of the day I really don't care. I play video games for enjoyment, for a release, to get away from my everyday life. Sometimes you just want to blow up as much shit as possible and be pulled out of a gulag by a helicopter. (By the way you can read my Black Ops review here ).

Squid.

Call of Duty: Black Ops - Xbox 360

You would have a harder time getting a bad review of a Call of Duty game out of me then you would the president of Activision. Simply stated, I love the Call of Duty games. Well, the newer ones. Not that I don't enjoy the WW2 CoD games but I absolutely love the modern Call of Duty games. I still rank Call of Duty: Modern Warfare as probably one of, if not the best first person shooters of all time.

So what does Black Ops bring to the table? A lot. New environment, a much different storyline then we are used to, and a whole lot of ass kickery that makes the Call of Duty games so Goddamn great.

Sure, modern times is a great time period with a lot of awesome technology but we're seeing more and more of it now. It's in danger of becoming stale. So Black Ops is set during the beginning of the cold war area. You'll be in places from Russia to Vietnam. You'll drive boats, fly helicopters, and repel off of mountains. From blowing up bad guys, to slitting throats, to zip lining through a window to save a hostage. Call of Duty kicks up the awesomeness notch with Black Ops.

Black Ops is like the other Call of Duty games, short one player campaign but chalk full of so much damn awesome and testosterone (sadly the word "Test-awesome-rone" hasn't been picked up in the common vernacular)that you just don't care. Sure it's seven to ten hours long, but that seven to ten hours is some of the most on the edge of your seat, ass kicking time you can possibly have. It's exactly what you would expect from a Call of Duty game.

Then you have the multiplayer. Say goodbye to your wife and family because you're going to be gone for a while. Remember the multiplayer you loved in CoD 4 and Modern Warfare 2? Well it's back, and in my opinion better than ever. The game may only be seven to ten hours long, but then I played another forty hours(and still counting)of multiplayer. CoD's multiplayer is possibly the most addicting thing I've played in a long time. I don't know how many times I said I would play just one more game only to find myself still playing an hour later. It's fun, it's awesome, it's worth the price of the game alone.

Go out and buy Call of Duty: Black Ops, trust me, you won't regret it.

Squid.