“Crew Expendable,” the first full mission in Call of Duty 4, shines because of its simplicity. A quick, quiet breach into a ship combined with radio chatter and a slow, methodical pace are something we don’t see in the more recent entries, but contemporary technology has certainly done the game favors. Captain Price’s cigar looks better than ever, and the lighting effects both inside the team’s helicopter and on the wet surface of the ship’s deck are gorgeous.
As Price and Soap move farther into the ship, the flapping of the cloth covering the shipping crates stands out. They were static in the original game, barely resembling what they were supposed to represent.
What don’t look quite as hot are a few environmental textures. Walls and railings seem to be missing the level of detail that games like Advanced Warfare and Black Ops III have offered, but it’s something you’ll only really notice if you put your soldier’s face right up against a wall.
Modern Warfare Remastered stood as the most obvious choice in the series for the remaster treatment, with several famous campaign levels and multiplayer maps, but we don’t expect this to be the last time Activision does this. Modern Warfare 2 and the original Black Ops both had several famous campaign moments of their own, including a Deer Hunter-inspired Russian Roulette sequence, so don’t be too surprised if one of them comes next.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered will only be available with purchases of the Infinite Warfare “Legacy Edition” or above when it launches in November. It contains the entire campaign as well as a selection of the most famous multiplayer maps.
