Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex Review
Before we get going with this review, we must get something off our chest. Activision and Infinity Ward did a bad job of promoting this game. In the beginning of the game there is no reference of Treyarch anywhere. Even the main menu screen has an Infinity Ward watermark in the background. That being said, we feel Treyarch did a great job with the resources they had. You must also understand that this game was ported with only 30 guys in less than 10 months time.
Now the game starts out exactly the same way it had on the HD consoles, this time around though the graphics take a huge step back. Although, we will talk more about the graphics later in the review. The first and almost only change you’ll encounter is in the training course in the beginning of the game before the opening credits. This is where you can fine tune your controls, which we must say, are very impressively customizable. Like The Conduit, you can customize just about everything from your dead zone and Wii remote sensibility to mapping different buttons to do different things. You can also change your reticle to fit with your shooting style, and change between different styles and different colors, and change your shooting styles from standard to precision. Precision shooting is definitely recommended for advanced controlling of the Wii remote and what we played with the entire time. Bottom line is this is as close to keyboard and mouse as you can on a console. Period.
Don’t expect these graphics and you’ll have a great time
The single player is exactly the same as the HD consoles, the big difference here is the graphics, which get the blur treatment. The game is very off and on with graphics depending on what map your playing on. We noticed when playing the first level on the ship that most of the outside textures were really pulled back for obvious reasons. The water looked like a black blob and the ship was very two dimensional. However, the next level when you meet up with the Russians looks very good for the Wii. Foliage, and player models were good looking and the map felt good. As we said before the game is exactly the same as the original so don’t expect anything different. Although the single player efforts were good, the real meat of the game is in the multiplayer.
The multiplayer is the best online FPS experience on Wii to date. The game plays better and has more going on than anything The Conduit has. Every mode is included and up to 10 players can battle within them. This may be a downsize to the HD consoles player count, but it is two more than World at War on Wii from last year. While we played there was no lag, everything ran smooth, and there were no hackers we played with.
We will also say that the visuals on the maps in multiplayer looked great. The textures are blurry looking, but the design of the maps really are so impressive that you will not go back to The Conduit after playing this. We have to give Treyarch some credit for giving Wii owners the best FPS multiplayer experience on Wii right now. Multiplayer is just that fun.
Expect the game to look more like this
The worst aspect of the game has to be the graphics though, and will probably be for most sites when reviewing this. The graphics are muddy, but the lighting has really got a boost from last years WaW, as well as the shadows and character animations. Though, on multiplayer maps the edges of the maps were composed of extremely limited draw distances and gun models were also very suspect. Though we can tell you something that many review sites don’t, when playing on HD tv’s adjusting the picture makes a world of difference. The graphics improved a lot when we brought the sharpness and brightness down a little while tweaking other settings. Regardless, you can tell Treyarch really had to sacrifice some of those textures to include what they did.
Overall, the game is just what you would expect from an HD game like Call of Duty 4 being ported to Wii. Everything is there, from the great multiplayer and single player modes, to Wii specific controls that really trump those found on other consoles. The only real bad part is that the graphics needed a major step down for the port, and we would have liked WiiSpeak support for those who prefer that, though it is not necessary. After playing the game for as much as we did, we really had to wonder what Treyarch could do on Wii with even half the resources and time a developer like Infinity Ward had for their games.
You really have to tip your hats to Treyarch with what they were able to accomplish with this game, and with how well made multiplayer is, you’ll get your money’s worth in this title and then some when months down the line you’re still playing this title.
NintendoDpad Score 85/100
Although it has its flaws, this is the Wii’s best multiplayer FPS experience to date
+Everything you wanted from a port of CoD4
+Controls are arguably, the best on the system
+Multiplayer will keep you playing for months
-Graphics, though better than WaW, could be better
-Makes us wonder what a ground up CoD on Wii from Treyarch could be
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