Zain Johnson

A Gen-Zer's Review of "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" I didn't play this game as a young kid, like most people did. My family didn’t have a whole lot growing up. All we had when I was growing up was a Wii and a PlayStation 2, and that was about it. But for the majority of this review, I will be speaking for mostly the campaign, as I have only played that for the most part, so I'll try to keep it as 100% spoiler free as much as I can. In Call of Duty 4, you play as a member of the British SAS fighting in Russia, and an American Marine in the Middle East. Like most other modern-day shooters at the time, COD4 focused on a story with little inspiration from real-world events. Despite this, COD4, as many of you may know, this is a time before COD campaigns focused heavily on Hollywood action sequences and over-the-top set pieces, which does help it feel more realistic compared to later entries in the series. Tonally, this was also the more gritty entry of the original MW trilogy as well. They really do try to portray the situation in both locales as serious as they can without being too excessively dark. The story, unfortunately, doesn't really make much sense in the long-run, just because not much is explained in the story, aside from a few key events. Even though the story doesn't make the most sense, COD4 still a fun, enjoyable, and challenging ride from start to finish. In my opinion, this is a must-play for anyone who like military shoot-'em-ups games.

Standard Chinese propaganda war film, but with a twist: the Americans are the bad guys in this film as The Battle at Lake Changjin is about the real life Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. The film paints the battle as a patriotic venture for the undermanned, underequipped Chinese PVA, when in the actual battle, it was cold, brutal, and the Americans and their UN allies (yes they had allies in the battle, unlike in the film) were outnumbered 4 to 1. I will give credit where it's due and say the film's battle sequences are actually pretty good. Granted, since Battle at Lake Changjin was directed in part by Dante Lam, they are on the more action movie side of things. But given what tone this movie was going for, I think that's fine. The drama and characters however are not great. The film's plot definitely seems to revolve around the Wu brothers more than anything, and they just aren't compelling. And the CGI fighter planes just don't look the greatest. Overall, The Battle at Lake Changjin is a rather generic action-war film, but one that's fun to watch for the action. Definitely a propaganda piece with how the Americans are stereotypically portrayed compared to the more heroic and I guess "morally upstanding" Chinese soldiers. Overall I'd give it a 3.5 out of 10.