By now you already know that Call of Duty 4 is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Or the greatest thing since Halo 3, at least. It ushered in the first modern warfare title of the series, and the online component is just as great as the single player campaign. With a bevy of reasons to keep playing, namely leveling up to unlock new abilities, weapons, and weapon attachments (and getting cool-sounding military rank names), and game mechanics that work just right, COD4 is a game you're going to want to pick up right now and not put down for a long time. Excuse me while I rank up.



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Right now, not everyone is completely enthralled by the
"jump while shooting a sniper rifle then throw a grenade while melee attacking someone on the way down and land" gameplay that is Halo 3 multiplayer. And While Team Fortress, one aspect of the trifecta of awesome which is the Orange Box, is definitely a fresh fun addition to the 360's online FPS roster, it's a very specific gameplay type that may not appeal to all. Enter Call of Duty 4, the first modern warfare installment of the series - and mayhaps the best first-person shooter on the 360 to date.

COD4's gameplay is based much more on reality than the fantasy and stretches of the imagination other online titles are offering - you don't need to unload an entire clip into an enemy to kill them, as a few choice shots will do. You also don't have leaping abilities that defy the laws of gravity - all combat takes place on the ground here. In fact, you can probably recognize the gamers who had a little more than their alloted dose of Halo 3 when they run at you jumping while firing a sniper rifle - they learn to adapt quickly.

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Some people may not like the sound of the "couple shots and your dead" gameplay, but let me assure you that it's implemented in a way that works. Like COD4's offline component, you have a rebounding health bar, which means if you ran around a corner and took a few bullets from an unknown source, you can always run back for cover and assess the situation as your health bar replenishes. This means that every kill you make that you encounter damage on, you can recover from and move on to the next guy. This keeps the gameplay fast and fluid, meaning that if you're really good, your main problem is going to be finding more ammo, not hoping no one sees you hobbling around looking for a med kit with 1% health left.

Now that we know how the general gameplay mechanics work with COD4, what more does it offer? The answer to that would be a lot - a lot of reasons to keep coming back time after time to unlock more and more extras in a ranking process that can become more addictive than crack. You start off with some basic weaponry, an assault rifle that fires only in burst mode, simple iron sights and a side arm - as you continue to play, get kills, win matches, be on the winning team of matches, and complete objectives (more on that later) you will gain XP. The more XP you gain, the higher the ranking ladder you go. Once you hit a certain number of XP points you get granted a new military rank that you keep until you hit the next designated number of points - what ranks do is unlock all-new weapons, perks, challenges, and attachments for your weapons.

New weapons are pretty self explanatory - you start from a semi-auto assault rifle and move onto a fully automatic one, and then from there unlock more powerful ones, etc. This applies to all weapon classes - assault rifles, sub machine guns, light machine guns, sniper rifles, shotguns and pistols. Attachments range from underslung grenade launchers to front grips for shotguns, and a variety of scopes to kit your gun out with, one for every occasion, and all much better than simple iron sights. Perks are a fun addition that allows you to attain certain attributes for your player of weapon, allowing you to do things like sprint for longer periods of time, steady your aim whilst looking though the scope of a sniper rifle, or even do things like pull out a pistol while dying on the ground to take out as many enemies as you can before you expire. Perks also allow you physical items to take into battle, like claymore mines and C4, and special abilities like being able to eavesdrop on the other team's voice communications.

Challenges are much like achievements you would find for a typical 360 title, except you don't earn Xbox Live achievements for them (achievements are only gained in the SP mode of COD4), instead you earn a huge XP boost for them, arguably a much more desired reward. Challenges range from getting a certain amount of head shots with a certain weapon to winning a certain amount of a specific match type to shooting down a helicopter.

What's that? Helicopter? That's right, but this isn't another rehash of Battlefield. Like I said, all gameplay remains on the ground - but to reward players' killing streaks, the ability to call in a helicopter for air support, among other things, are granted. At 3 kills, the player can call in UAV support, basically seeing enemy positioning as dots on a map; at 5 kills, the player has the ability to call in an air strike, which they can target anywhere on the map; and at 7 kills, the player can call in a helicopter, which will fly around the map, gunning down as many enemies as it can before it gets shot down or bored and decides to go home again. This is an excellent addition to the game as it encourages gamers to be more careful and promote the use of cover and strategy over running and gunning, where your chances are pretty much 50/50 of getting killed. Running around aimlessly in the open is not a tactic to be employed in COD4.

Playing a team match like Deathmatch of Search & Destroy allows you to employ some teamwork when employing these streak bonuses. For instance, a player that has an air strike bonus ready can combine efforts with some with a UAV support bonus ready, in order to pin down an accurate location on the map that will dole out the most damage to the opposite team. And in a game like Sabotage, if you're in the process of defending a bomb site before it detonates while repelling enemy forces, it would be the perfect time for a teammate to whip out the helicopter support and make life much easier. Of course, these sorts of strategies work best when you're playing with a clan or a party of friends, as you're more concerned with helping your team than a rag-tag bag of hooligans.

Graphically and in terms of audio, the online component of COD4 is all aces, only some special graphical effects of the single player campaign are lost in the multiplayer jump, but you'll barely notice that. Audio plays a key role, with different distinct sounds for every weapon type and subtle sounds like a grenade clinking on the floor or the "click" before a claymore goes off, that can improve your game if you listen for them. Soft footsteps of approaching enemies gives you enough of a cue to swing around and melee with the knife to save yourself from being ventilated.

In all, COD4 is such a well-rounded online game that any pitfalls it may have usually arise from the players and not the game itself. You get your typical trash-talkers and campers, and there may be people who use the perks in a way you don't like, such as the Juggernaut perk which allows the enemy to take more bullets before dying; or the claymores planted in sneaky areas that get you every time. But you're probably using perks that other people don't like too, and things like sneaky claymores are just the realities of war - just like the Juggernaut perk will be in the human vs machine war which will undoubtedly be covered in COD10. So go get this game, but be prepared to experience what all those Everquest kids do, spending every spare hour you can leveling up, and unlocking new weapons and perks.

Also available on: PS3| PC
Review: Single Player
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Infinity Ward
Release: Nov 5, 2007
MSRP: $59.99
Live | Mature
Winner of GameBump's Best Shooter of 2007

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