When Activision first announced "Call of Duty 4" for Wii, most were puzzled. When the first screens were released, most were laughing. It seemed like the title was doomed to be one of the ugliest and sloppiest conversions to the system ever. Yet against a baffling non-existent marketing campaign, and rumors of Infinity Ward trying to sabotage the title and remove Treyarch's name from it completely, the title is here and, to everyone's surprise, looks great.
"Call of Duty 4" was never meant to be on the Wii, it was originally designed completely around the XBOX 360 hardware architecture. Last year developer Treyarch was able to have a version of their own, "Call of Duty: World at War" running on the Wii, and this year they have attempted to do the impossible and take Infinity Ward's masterpiece and make it run on the Wii. To their credit they succeeded beyond my highest expectations. The title runs on the system and runs well. As someone who has put countless hours into the original, obvious corners had to be cut. But they were smart cuts, the game still retains its thrilling pace and greatly mimics the effects of the higher end consoles. For some reason, however, missions with the S.A.S. seem to look better than the marine campaign levels. This is true in both single and multiplayer. I have no idea why, but I feel it's worth pointing out. For a system that has barely a fraction of the power of the 360, this game running as well as it does is nothing short of a programming miracle.
The music, voices and sound effects are largely untouched. The Wii system does not have the same audio output options as the other systems, but those without a high-end set up won't really notice the difference. That being said the voice acting, script and events are all top notch. The characters, plot and setting are all believable here, much more so than "Modern Warfare 2." This game also has an ending, unlike its big brother.
The structure and gameplay have all been faithfully recreated here, but the big change is obviously the controls. Taking a cue from High Voltage Software, Treyarch has gone and added a daunting level of customization options in the title. Every button can be configured, the speed of everything can be tuned. There is truly no stone left unturned here. The game even adds in a new ability to lean left and right if you so wish. One particular addition to aiming I feel is really great is the sight lock ability. When you hold down the A button while standing still, the screen locks into place, meaning that if your drag the cursor to far left or right, it wont move your sight. "Call of Duty 4" perfected the ADS system, which means "Aim Down Scope." When you hold the Z trigger, the player zooms in on his crosshair to nail an opponent with precision. Firing straight from the hip results in a spray of inaccurate bullets. So while the aiming system is already in place, the Wii version lets you lock the screen, just like "Metroid Prime," and take out the enemies. The aiming feels really great on the Wii version, and offers a much quicker and more accurate experience to the game. What it loses in graphical power, it makes up for in great aiming controls. The only real gripe to the controls is the simple fact that the Wii just doesn't have as many buttons as the other consoles. Treyarch wisely makes up for this by offering full button configuration, however you still won't have as much immediate access to everything as you do on a 360 pad.
While the single player has been faithfully preserved, the multiplayer suffers a few losses. The game only supports up to ten players, which means the mode of Ground War has been cut. The title also doesn't feature the "Kill Cam" after you die, which could be seen a plus by some players, but the biggest loss of all is the lack of Wii Speak. Talking and coordinating with your teammates was a huge part of the online experience, and this game is completely devoid of it. It is also more glaring seeing that "The Conduit" allows 12 players online with Wii Speak support. Still, the level system of the title remains, offering up one of the deepest online games on the Wii yet. The leveling system works by killing opponents online. Each kill will net you experience points. There are also challenges presented to you to complete online, such as calling a certain number of air strikes or getting a certain number of head shots. Completing these challenges nets you a huge sum of experience. Gaining experience naturally results in leveling up. The higher level you are, the more weapons you have access to. It's highly addicting, and many times you will complete challenges without realizing it. It provides a wonderful way of adding depth without confusion to the multiplayer experience and shows Wii owners why the game is still so loved to this day.
"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex" is a great title for the Wii, but doesn't really offer anything to those who have already played it. It is hard to recommend the title to anyone who has the option to play it on 360, PS3 or PC, but if you are one of the three people on the planet who hasn't played it and can't play it on anything else its still a great game. Treyarch should feel proud of themselves for this game, hopefully they can improve the multiplayer options for the next one.
