Call of Duty 4 fans review Variety Map Pack

Activision hosted a special Call of Duty 4 Map Pack event last week and two VideoGamer.com community members, Ash Peres and Matt Jarman, were lucky enough to get some hands-on time with the four new maps. Seeing as these guys play Call of Duty 4 online more often than they’d probably like to admit, we made them reporters for the day so you can get the gamers’ view on the new maps. Also, for a slightly unique point of view, both of our CoD4 experts have a military background.

Ash’s Bio

As a weapons engineer in the Royal Navy, Ash knows a thing or two about big guns. Weapons trained (as far as a sailor can be at least) and with many years service in one of the UK’s best Airsoft teams, sneaking around and waiting to ambush unsuspecting parties come a little too naturally for him. As a member of a history re-enactment group, he is also quite a boff of tactics and weapons throughout time.

Matt’s Bio

In the service of one of Her Majesty’s overcrowded establishments, Matt works in the Prison sector and is aiming to train as part of an emergency fast response unit, therefore he knows a good deal about self defence. With prior military background [Classified], Matt has real world weapons and tactics experience. Coupled with an unhealthy attention to detail, you can guarantee he will find that ‘impossible to reach’ corner of any map.

CREEK

What Ash thought:

Creek is on the scale of the map Overgrown (possibly even larger) with masses of open and woodland terrain, scatterings of cover, a fair amount of buildings and even a waterfall. The map consists of what will be considered two bases, one being a collection of four houses and gardens, the other a barn and a few agricultural outbuildings. Linking these bases is a creek, full of fallen trees and large rocks, that curves around a central spine of raised land that blocks direct fire from one base to the other. It’s an ideal map for both deathmatch and objective-based games, with features such as an underground cave system to carry the briefcase relatively safely to the edge of the enemy base or using the narrow cliff top path for a dangerous but direct assault on the houses.

The map plays across a vastly varying height level and is visually stunning; this adds a great amount of diversity to the gameplay as well as to the look and feel of the multiplayer element of this game. I can see this map becoming many people’s favourite.

Matt’s Opinion:

Creek is my new favourite COD4 map. Now it must be said that the only game types we played were all vs. all deathmatch and team deathmatch, so I can’t vouch for how strategically sound the map is for objective-based games, however it does seem to be very balanced in all areas with ample attack and defend spots littered all over it. The two bases, as described by Ash, are linked via a straight through underground tunnel but also via the long curved valley that runs the length of the map. The main area of contest always seemed to be the large hill in the centre which is the main route from the farm base to the village base. Overall the map has a lot of points for sniping opportunities, my favourite of which covers the village area from the farm base using the hill facing the curved section of the horseshoe. Using any one of the strategically placed boulders that occupy the area you can get a fantastic view of the valley and stream that winds its way round the curve of the map from the farm area. Another good point is if you stealthily sit under the ladder leading up to the villa in the village, you will be hidden by the shadows and are ready to pick off anyone coming up the valley.

Read on for Ash and Matt’s thoughts on the remaining three maps.

BROADCAST

What Ash thought:

The famed two-floor single-player TV station that everyone thought “hmmm…wish that was a multiplayer map” has been included in the new map pack. The station has been opened up greatly with the inclusion of the main news room, the entrance lobby area with the balconies, the roof including a skylight looking into the station below, a large street area in front of the station and a fair amount of smaller rooms that are all linked by a rat run of corridors. For a map based on a single building you would be forgiven in thinking it is solely close quarters battle with shotguns at the ready. Apart from the few small rooms and a couple corridors it is a very open map. The news room is an absolute stroke of genius. As you would have found from the single-player it can get very heated and this is definitely reflected in this multiplayer map. There are great opportunities for objective games with a fair amount of alternate routes to each separate large area. This seemed a very fast map every time it was played, with little room for camping as players will constantly need to watch their backs for enemies emerging from the multitude of different doors and rooms. With such large areas to cover this could tax the communications of a team.

Matt’s Opinion:

As Ash said, this is basically the same map as in the single-player level Charlie Don’t Surf, however, more rooms have been opened up and there are a few tweaks. The news room is huge and is brilliant for all out fire-fights, tons of cover and tons of stuff to wreck; it is also very easy to get head shots as you can set the reticule to head height and only the upper bodies of enemies are visible over cover anyway. The outside roof area is quite small but enables you to fire down into the main building or the grounds outside to stop anyone assaulting the main entrance. Which brings us onto the main entrance itself; it is the joining area in the single-player game when you have completed the news room and are legging it up to the room that covers the streets outside. The main entrance is a massive two tiered room that provides a lot of open ground and some good sniping spots to cover the fuel station outside the main building. Running across the main entrance is totally suicidal as it really is completely open. Lastly the area outside is also good fun for fire fights, as most of it is semi-open ground with vehicles to cover your approach to the main building. There is also one house at the back of the area that you can get up onto the balcony of and snipe into the main building and the rooftop area.

CHINA TOWN

What Ash thought:

This is definitely what COD4 players have been looking for. With multi-storey buildings looming on each side of narrow streets, open doorways and menacingly positioned windows that allow players to sweep the tarmac with gun fire. This map is a dense suburban town area, with most buildings being accessable and includes some very interesting interior details. There are several fixed machine guns mounted up in windows and on the streets for when constant heavy fire support is required, and this map does have a habit of providing whole team directed assaults that many of the previous maps just do not encourage. It also encourages shotgun use as even the open streets turn and twist so often that weapon ranges will not play such a large role in open combat. This is another very good looking map that is of a large size with many avenues of attack for all play styles. The only problem that I could see is the relatively close spawn points in large free for all games. I recommend keeping the total number of players to around 10 in free for all.

Matt’s Opinion:

A fantastic CQB map with tons of building to building fire fight opportunities and a map where precision grenade play is definitely worth specialising in – you can easily rack up a lot of kills as the streets funnel players into tight groups with little cover other than ducking into an adjacent building. I had a lot of fun in one building room providing covering fire for my team as they advanced down a street, my height advantage meaning I could see the enemies coming from all angles and my kill score was only capped when I ran out of ammo. There is also one area with a mounted machine gun covering the street. This is really well balanced because just as you can sit there mowing down wave after wave of enemies, anyone can pull a sneaky move and come right up and slice your jugular without you realising they were there. All in all it is a very good map and one that is actually compatible with the sorely undervalued shotguns of the game.

Read on for details on the Killhouse map.

KILLHOUSE

What Ash thought:

This is a surprisingly open level for a kill house. Set in a warehouse there are low walls and obstacles littering the ground with a few sparsely placed structures such as a two-room wooden house mock up and a small single-window building with a ladder up to its roof. There is a central sniper tower but this would seem as suicidal to attempt to climb into as spinning around in circles whilst looking at the floor throwing grenades. This will become a very prominent map with players that have the 3x grenade perk as there is a lack of overhead cover to protect from “random” grenades. Once again spawn points do overlap on large games of free for all leading to very quick deaths, but if you are wanting very fast, hectic frag fests (much like shipment) then this is definitely the map you will spend a lot of time on.

Matt’s Opinion:

A lot of people liked this map at the event and it was the chosen one for the ‘challenge the developer’ stunt, however, I didn’t like it. Basically the map is an indoor spec ops training area with lots of cut-out bad guys and low cover opportunities. There’s also a tower in the middle which, as Ash said, seems suicidal to go for and no one actually bothered, and a CQB mock up room running down one side of the level. Now it must be said that whilst it is a close quarters map the shotgun is relatively useless due to the sheer openness of the level. The choice weapons of the day were random throwing of grenades and P90s. The map also doesn’t work with more than 6 players as any more and you seem to spawn right into each other’s laps in all vs. all deathmatches and into your squad mates’ line of fire in team games. All in all Killhouse was by far my least favourite map and is ideally suited to CQB ninjas that like a really small, really intense map. Oh and even though the map has a friggin roof on it, air strikes and helos still work!

After originally being due for release on Xbox 360 this Friday, April 4, the current release date seems a little unclear, with early April being the firmest date we’ve been able to get. When they do eventually go on sale on Xbox LIVE Marketplace they’ll set you back 800 MS Points. The maps will be released at a later date for PlayStation 3.