threevue

With the new Call of Duty 4 Variety Map Pack now live and wreaking havoc on Xbox Live (double xp this weekend!), two-thirdsvue of us are sounding off on what we think about the pack:

Mark:

So now that I’ve had ample time with the Variety Map Pack, I feel that I can actually talk about them semi-intelligently. First off, it’s really hard to play in a new map when I know every nook and cranny of the old ones better than I know my own apartment. I know these maps are new for everyone, but I was getting my ass handed to me for the first couple sessions because I was doing more exploring than fighting. Now I’m fairly comfortable with them, except for Killhouse, which for some reason I still haven’t played.

Right off the bat, the most striking thing with these new maps is how colorful they are. The originals, with a few exceptions, are full of grays and browns, but the new maps are full of bright, vibrant colors. Creek has a broad range of light and dark hues, ranging with the deep gray and black cave, to the green, lush above ground foliage. Creek has a definite WWII time period feel because there isn’t anything inherently modern about it. I really like that because it feels like an earlier COD map transplanted into part 4.

Speaking of throwback maps, Chinatown is a revamped Carentan from COD2, and it’s totally awesome. The action is mostly CQC, both in the really cool Chinese style buildings, and on the streets of the Hong Kong-esque city. This map contains a lot of deep reds and oranges, bright colors missing from the original maps.

In conclusion, if you regularly, or even irregularly, play Call of Duty 4 online, then there is no reason that you shouldn’t get these maps (unless you are really poor, in which case Russ said he will buy them for you). I really hope these maps get integrated with the originals so I don’t have to choose between the new or the old ones when I play. Also, I really want to play Killhouse, so come on COD, and give it to me.

Russ:
Let me start out by admitting that I haven’t played this game online all that much; whereas Mark and Tyler have multiple plays through the online ranks, I’m still on my first level 17 or somewhere around there. That being said, I still really enjoy and appreciate this game. Both “Creek” and “Chinatown” maps are brand new locales for me, but “Broadcast” is essentially the same as that TV station level on single player. I like when they make a single-player level into something similar on the multiplayer side, because immediately I can get my bearings.

I got slaughtered on the “Creek” level. It’s mostly open-air with an awesome tunnel that no one seems to go into, and I’m so bad at long-range combat that I get sniped left and right. That and I kept mistaking falling leaves for people. “Chinatown” seemed like your average close-quarters city level, similar to some that are already out. I did notice that there was a DVD rental basement, which is a pretty cool new dynamic. I did pretty well on this map, just because I was able to get a jump on guys by flying around a corner real fast, guns a-blazin’. “Broadcast” was my bread and butter, simply because I knew the area already. I stuck mostly to the rooftops, and had a pretty good kill/death ratio (read: 1/1 is my target).

There’s another map, “Killtown” or something like that, but you have to play some other game mode to get to it, and that’s asking a little too much of me right now.