Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (DS)

Are you happy to see me, or is that a cinematic spectacle in your pocket?
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 2 Comments | Page 1 of 2

The task is nearly Herculean. Take the Call of Duty franchise, known for its cinematic spectacle, and make a version for the Nintendo DS, not known for its super-duper advanced graphics. So you've got to admire the developers at n-Space for their pluck and determination. They've attempted nothing less than their own pocket-sized rollercoaster ride of an epic war shooter. The result is Call of Duty 4 for the Nintendo DS -- and while it may not work, it's not for lack of trying.

The single-player campaign consists of 12 missions, many loosely inspired by the next-gen versions of the game. Although this little Call of Duty 4 has the same ending as the more advanced versions, it takes the blandest path possible to get there. If you played either of those, you'll recognize some of the story beats, but you'll also miss the plots twists that made Call of Duty 4 so memorable. You still get the dual American/British storyline, but the difference here seems to consist solely of whether you start with an M-16 or an MP5.

You do get the Spectre mission, in which you're covering troops on the ground from within a circling C-130 gunship armed with enormous guns and a black-and-white thermal imaging camera. With the cool, calculating crew chatter and silent havoc blooming on the ground, this mission chillingly recalls footage you've seen of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

You'll take a Humvee ride and a few helicopter missions in which you man a side-mounted gun while your view lurches about drunkenly, but for the most part, you're hoofing it, playing a cross between a first-person shooter and a brain-dead shooting gallery. Enemies will pop up for you to shoot. Dispatch them and move on to the next room. As with other shooters on the DS, you aim with the stylus on the touchpad, and you move with the direction pad (or buttons, if you're a lefty). The shoulder button fires your gun.

There are clumsy controls for crouching, aiming, running and throwing grenades, which you won't do very much. For instance, you have to tap the corner of the touchpad to switch to grenades, at which point you then have to aim and throw them. By that time, you'd have been better off just shooting the bad guys. Bringing up your iron sights requires a tricky double-tap, which means lifting your stylus and then re-engaging it to aim. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it just messes you up, which is the exact opposite of what bringing up the iron sights is supposed to do. On the whole, aiming, crouching, sprinting and grenade tossing are rarely worth the effort, which is a shame since those are important parts of the Call of Duty experience.

However, plenty of classic Call of Duty elements are present. There aren't any medkits (you take cover to heal up before you totally "red out"), ammo and enemy weapons are plentiful (you'll probably get most of your kills with an AK-47), and headshots are deadly (and easy, since the enemies tend to stand in one place to shoot at you). The weapon variety is disappointing, as there are only about a half-dozen guns. There's never any reason to use a pistol, and only a couple of the guns are worth picking up.