[Fineus]

Can you think of anything specific Snail?

I'm replaying Modern Warfare at the moment and am at the stage in the single player where (as a US trooper) you're trying to help extract a forward team from a city just before a nuke goes off. There's this small courtyard you have to cross with a bulldozer and a shipping crate in it and the enemies keep coming unless you make a run for it and somehow don't get killed. Point being that at first they're inserted by gunships that drop about 8 troops each - it's easily possible to kill 2 or 3 times that in a short period of space and still they come. It all gets a little bit silly after a while!

[StarSlayer]

Can you think of anything specific Snail?

I'm replaying Modern Warfare at the moment and am at the stage in the single player where (as a US trooper) you're trying to help extract a forward team from a city just before a nuke goes off. There's this small courtyard you have to cross with a bulldozer and a shipping crate in it and the enemies keep coming unless you make a run for it and somehow don't get killed. Point being that at first they're inserted by gunships that drop about 8 troops each - it's easily possible to kill 2 or 3 times that in a short period of space and still they come. It all gets a little bit silly after a while!

Its especially silly if you pop both Mi-8s with your m203 before anybody finishes fast roping.   

[MR_T3D]

Can you think of anything specific Snail?

I'm replaying Modern Warfare at the moment and am at the stage in the single player where (as a US trooper) you're trying to help extract a forward team from a city just before a nuke goes off. There's this small courtyard you have to cross with a bulldozer and a shipping crate in it and the enemies keep coming unless you make a run for it and somehow don't get killed. Point being that at first they're inserted by gunships that drop about 8 troops each - it's easily possible to kill 2 or 3 times that in a short period of space and still they come. It all gets a little bit silly after a while!

Its especially silly if you pop both Mi-8s with your m203 before anybody finishes fast roping.   

you reaslly need to abuse the throwback feature and smokey nades for that bit...

[VPR]

I agree that endless respawns made COD4 a chore in places and it almost killed it for me in several places while playing at Veteran difficulty. IW did a good job with the rest of the game such as the sniper level (which was in my opinion the strongest part of the campaign) but come on is an endless respawning of enemies really the best way to challenge the player?

Clearly they need to spend more time on making the AI more varied and intelligent (as mentioned by others) as I personally couldn't see this method having much positive impact on the gameplay. When I began playing at Veteran difficulty it's drawbacks coupled with the aimbot reflexes of the AI stuck out like a sore thumb in places and was nothing less than infuriating at times. It amplified the impression that something was lacking somewhere for this to be used so often and it just felt like the developers couldn't be bothered to engage the player intelligently when the difficulty needed to be ramped up during a level. Quickly it ended up feeling cheap and I guess it was used to try to cover up the AI's discrepancies much like in COD2. I hope MW2 steps away from it but I do doubt it actually will.

Being my cynical self for a moment this sadly seems to be a trend these days, graphical detail and effects get the focus of attention while other areas such as AI usually gets ignored at the expense of gameplay but then again good AI doesn't make enticing screenshots or preview videos does it?

[redsniper]

The only shooter that has impressed me with AI recently was FEAR...

[Rodo]

The only shooter that has impressed me with AI recently was FEAR...

it still remains as the worst shooter ever (own opinion)

[Javito1986]

Two points!

1) That trailer is all gameplay. The gameplay is seen from different angles other than the player character's pov but that's about it. Go watch CoD4's opening intro and take note of how the gameplay footage is also shot from different angles, that's pretty much the same style used in the MW2 trailer.

2) Infinity Ward confirmed that infinitely respawning enemies are out for MW2.

[MR_T3D]

Two points!

1) That trailer is all gameplay. The gameplay is seen from different angles other than the player character's pov but that's about it. Go watch CoD4's opening intro and take note of how the gameplay footage is also shot from different angles, that's pretty much the same style used in the MW2 trailer.

2) Infinity Ward confirmed that infinitely respawning enemies are out for MW2.

'there's a hard limit of 1000 enemies/mission, save for the last one, which we'll cap out at 20,000, but that one will be time-limited, anyway'

[Dilmah G]

*Drool...*

[colecampbell666]

I liked CoD4, I didn't notice the infinite enemies thing, but I always moved up regardless.

[Scotty]

Biggest example (to me) was that F*CKING TV STATION on Veteran!  They don't.  Stop.  Coming.  Until you run headlong to the other side of the room and hole up in the hallway.  THEN you have to wait for the rest of them TO DIE(!) before you can go on any further.  I must have killed 500 bad guys in that fight alone!

[Dilmah G]

Yeah, I usually found shortcuts for most of those levels, in the TV station you make a bee-line to the right corner, giving you cover from the guys on the second floor but a prime spot for grenade showers. stay low and you can move to the corridor easy enough, as long as you throw back grenades.

[Snail]

I'm replaying Modern Warfare at the moment and am at the stage in the single player where (as a US trooper) you're trying to help extract a forward team from a city just before a nuke goes off. There's this small courtyard you have to cross with a bulldozer and a shipping crate in it and the enemies keep coming unless you make a run for it and somehow don't get killed. Point being that at first they're inserted by gunships that drop about 8 troops each - it's easily possible to kill 2 or 3 times that in a short period of space and still they come. It all gets a little bit silly after a while!

Yeah, I remember that part. I was not able to finish Shock and Awe on Veteran because of it.

But, I think infinite respawning would work on places like Heat, where you're holding off what's supposed to be an inexhaustible army and they just keep coming. IMO it worked very well there.

[Dilmah G]

Yeah. Man... Shock and Awe was a *****, even on hardened. I got past it on vet... with some perseverance. I also found a shortcut for there. There are two marines behind a cargo container on the right, you hang with them after M203-ing the Helos, take out the guys on the roof of the two storey building, back in cover, suppress gunners in both windows (a few shots should do it), then switch to pistol and neutralise the tango in the doorway of the building and run forward, capping any tangos on your left, then get the hell in. Takes some practice and a few tries, ultimately it works for me.

[Snail]

I tried that; got swamped by grenades.

[Dilmah G]

Yes, that's why you have to be fast, as soon as you grenade the helos sprint to the cargo boxes. Regardless, it still takes a few attempts.

[Scotty]

Yeah, I hated that one too.  Next up on the difficulty scale is One Shot, One Kill.  I can't recall the number of times I got killed as the chopper was landing.  Then they make you do half the battle AGAIN!  I found that there is this nice open ground behind the bumper cars that works fairly well.  The bad guys can't jump the fence, so make sure to stay behind a tree (they always aim for center of mass ) and cap the bad guys that walk around, then throw back grenades.

However, there isn't another level that I have found in any game that rivals the epilogue mission.

[Javito1986]

Beating CoD4 on Veteran is probably the hardest thing I've done in gaming. The toughest missions are 'One Shot, One Kill', 'Heat', and 'No Fighting in the War Room'. But once you beat them on Veteran you'd be surprised how easy the game is on Hardened. I replayed CoD4 a few weeks ago on hardened difficulty just for fun and I had no problem clearing One Shot, One Kill's last battle for instance.

The absolute hardest mission is the Epilogue on veteran. The Mile High Club achievement is probably the achievement I'm most proud of having. 60 seconds to get through all those terrorists and save the hostage? Wow that was nearly impossible.

Nearly 

[Scotty]

The absolute hardest mission is the Epilogue on veteran. The Mile High Club achievement is probably the achievement I'm most proud of having. 60 seconds to get through all those terrorists and save the hostage? Wow that was nearly impossible.

Nearly  

Boy, do I know that one.  I managed to get it twice on two seperate files, so I have that acheivment twice.  It's what I'm most proud of for all my 15k gamerscore .

[StarSlayer]

I just wrapped up Bad Company and quite frankly its was pretty damn fun.  I thought the gun play was a tad sloppier then I'm used to and the respawn/health system was a bit awkward but the visuals and more specifically the environment damage system was magnificent.   Being able to blow a whole in a wall to run through with a M203 is the bees knees, and having the building shielding you from an enemy tank suddenly blown to hell makes for some great oh **** moments.  I found the Kelly's Heroes esq story line was a nice deviation from the grim/dark of most FPS.  If I could get the environment damage model of the Bad Company Frostbyte engine with the shooting mechanics of Rainbow Six Vegas with the cinematography and storyline of COD4 I think I would have the perfect FPS for my tastes.