I've got nowhere else to rant about it, but I'm currently playing through the dirty brown spray that is Call of Duty 4. I suspect deep down it's my play style, but I'm failing to see anything of the Game of the Year recommendations that seem to have sprung up mushroom-like from it's fertiliser-based medium.
Lets put it another way. The best moments of Call of Duty are when you don't get to control where you move. The rest of the time you're being yelled at to run somewhere, then stand between your AI colleagues and shot at targets. What I'm saying is that this game would be improved by being an on-rails shooter, one where you don't even get camera control.
I'm coming from the 'let you explore the combat arena then introduce enemies' school of combat that Valve espouses. So I'm forever running ahead of the AI, then shooting at enemies across the length of a dining table. Which is good in a way, because at any further than two or three metres, it's impossible to tell who you're targeting, so I've experienced plenty of 'Game over due to team killing' moments. It's even funnier when the enemies run straight past you and you just shoot them in the back, or get killed in your allies cross-fire. Or when you run back down a street you're supposed to have gone up, and have infinitely spawning allies and enemies standing next to each other, shooting at opponents that are slightly further away.
Other design problems: Grenades should be weapon selectable, giving you a chance to, say, aim them, not automatically thrown when you just want to think about using them. Particularly as they're a weapon that can horribly back fire.
The Javelin scene is just comical. Suddenly I go from a rooftop fire fight to shooting a whole lot of tanks and both my allies and enemies just stand there watching me scurry around looking for something I have no idea what or how to use.
Door opening - The whole point of a game is that the player should be the first one through the door. So why can't I open doors at all? I had one instance outside the TV studio where I lined up my squad of eight or nine at that point and had to wait around for the scripted open the door routine, on one of six identical doors. It was like waiting outside the toilets at a concert...
My recommendation: Buy Black instead. It's a lot cheaper and at least has a sense of style.
