Infinity Ward is well-known for their award-winning Call of Duty WWII first-person shooters with compelling gameplay, intelligent AI squadmates that fight alongside you and enemies who are equally as skilled in fighting against you. Now they turn their sights on a more contemporary conflict in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Call of Duty 4 places you in the role of the game’s two central characters—Sergeant “Soap” MacTavish of the elite British commando and counter-terrorist unit the 22^nd S.A.S. (Special Air Service) Regiment—and Sergeant Paul Jackson of the U.S. Marine Corps 1^st Force Recon Battalion. As Call of Duty 4 progresses, you’ll switch between the two characters with the SAS operating in Eastern Europe, and the Marines in the Middle East. There are also a couple of interesting twists that will have you assume the role of two other characters.

The villains you’ll be going up against are Russian Ultranationalist leader Imran Zakhaev, who has revolted against the government in a bid to return Russia to Stalinism and Communism. With the aid of like-minded renegade forces in the military, Zakhaev has seized a nuclear arsenal, plummeting the country into a civil war between his forces and the loyalist Russian government. To divert international attention away from the volatile situation in Russia, Zakhaev provides his “ally”—Kahled Al-Asad in an unnamed Middle Eastern country with military aid and nukes, while financing Al-Asad’s bloody coup against President Yasir Al-Fulani.

You begin with the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare tutorial at the start of the game as “Soap” MacTavish. Your section mate “Gaz” shows you the basics of using your sidearm, primary weapon (assault rifle), and melee attack for close range self-defense (which will really come in handy later, as you’ll see). You’ll also be introduced to a brand new feature to the Call of Duty universe that opens up some exciting, tactical possibilities in both single and multiplayer gameplay—the ability to fire through obstacles made of certain materials.

After your brief orientation on the shooting range, you meet your Regiment Commander—Captain Price. Yes, he’s the same Captain Price from Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2. Got to give it to him—he ages well…

Your training isn’t over yet. To gain entry to the squad, you must complete the CQB (Close Quarters Battle) course as quickly as possible using your silenced MP-5 Sub machinegun and Flashbang Grenades, while following Price’s orders as you engage the targets. Gaz holds the record at 19 seconds; so you’ll obviously want to come as close to that as possible—or beat it, if you can. Your performance will earn either Price’s praise or scorn. Either way, you can retry the course as many times as you like until you are satisfied with the results and are thoroughly comfortable with the concepts and tactics of CQB—a skill that will be essential to your survival throughout the game. Otherwise, you can go ahead and view the intel on an upcoming operation with your new boss and squad. Call of Duty 4’s CQB training course is also used to gauge your reflexes and first-person shooter skills, and will suggest a difficulty level for you to play at, which you can accept or change as desired—a nice touch.

Your first mission finds you onboard a Black Hawk helicopter in the middle of the night and one nasty storm, somewhere near the Bering Strait. Price’s informant in Russia has identified an Estonian freighter bound for the Middle East carrying one of Zakhaev’s nukes to Al-Asad. Your job is to neutralize the crew and secure the nuke for transport. After giving your CQB skills a good workout against the crew, you are about to secure the nuke when you are informed by another helicopter waiting to pick you up that several MiG fighter jets under the command of Zakhaev’s forces are closing fast. You barely have the chance to grab the manifest from the cargo container carrying the nuke, when the MiGs attack the ship. Partially capsized and sinking fast, you experience one of Call of Duty 4’s many white-knuckle, do-or-die moments as you scramble across collapsing catwalks and through rapidly flooding passageways to escape the ship. A desperate, last-minute jump from the deck of the rapidly sinking ship onto the ramp of a waiting SH-60 Sea Hawk will either find you falling to your death (and loading a saved game) or being caught in the nick of time by Captain Price.

Next, Call of Duty 4 drops the player into the unfortunate shoes of President Al-Fulani during the movie-style opening of the game. You become Al-Fulani from the same first-person perspective, as you would while playing the game. Captured by Al-Asad’s men, Al-Fulani is dragged outside the Presidential Palace, bashed upside the head with a rifle butt, and tossed in the back of a car to be driven to his fate by one of Al-Asad’s goons and a grim-looking chap whom you’ll discover later on, is Zakhaev’s son.

As the credits roll and the car speeds through narrow, war-torn streets past fleeing, fearful civilians, you watch as Al-Asad’s forces seize control everywhere—rounding up, detaining, beating and brutally executing anyone they can get their hands on. The dramatic score is punctuated by Al-Asad’s rabid diatribe blasting through loudspeakers on every corner.

Dragged from the vehicle, you are thrown to the ground and stomped unconscious by one of Al-Asad’s men. As you slip in and out of consciousness, you find yourself being dragged into a courtyard filled with jeering troops, where Al-Asad, his “sponsor” Zakhaev and a video camera ready to broadcast your execution to the world. Zakhaev hands Al-Asad a gun. Time slows to a crawl and all that you can hear is the pounding of your heart. The glint of steel from the Desert Eagle is as cold as the twisted, sadistic grin on Al-Asad’s face as he places the barrel to your head and pulls the trigger.

This powerful cut-scene sets the stage perfectly for the events to follow throughout the rest of the game, providing the player with more than enough psychological and emotional motivation to take down Al-Asad and Zakhaev. From that point on, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare becomes a game of cat-and-mouse for your S.A.S. and Marine Corps protagonists trying to stay one step ahead of Zakhaev and Al-Asad, as they battle against overwhelming odds to bring them both to justice.

While the U.S. bumps Al-Asad to the top of their most wanted list and sends in the Marines, the British focus their attention on Zakhaev. Led by your squad leader Lieutenant Vasquez, as Sergeant Jackson you and your fellow Marines of 1^st Force Recon will pursue Al-Asad on his home turf and engage in the most brutally intense urban combat ever experienced in a first-person military shooter. You’ll engage in a chaotic gun battle with Al-Asad’s forces inside a TV station; hold off wave after wave of his fanatical fighters while defending a stranded tank and rescuing the pilot of a downed Cobra Attack Helicopter. Circumstances suddenly force the Marines and S.A.S. to form a joint task to face a terrifying nuclear threat with the fate of millions hanging in the balance…

Although the game is available on multiple platforms, when it comes to controls and player mobility, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare sacrifices nothing and takes full advantage of the PC’s mouse and keyboard by allowing you to map your keys and mouse buttons the way you want. You can lean and fire around corners; go prone, jump over most obstacles and sprint for short periods of time. None of this may seem like a big deal—unless you’ve had the misfortune of playing the PC versions of numerous cross-platform games where these options and abilities are either poorly implemented or non-existent. Though Call of Duty 4 is hardly worse off without it, the only thing missing that I would have liked to have seen implemented, is the ability to peek and fire above cover.

As always, Infinity Ward keeps the HUD (Heads-up Display) in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare as simple and informative as possible to avoid “information overload” and to keep you focused on the action and your objectives. A Stance Indicator, Compass with a “bulls-eye” marker to assist you in navigating to your next objective, and Available Ammo for your currently selected weapon and number of grenades—are all located at the bottom of your screen. The design makes the information easy to be read under any and all conditions, and is large enough to be useful without being distracting. A Dynamic Targeting Reticule is located dead center on the screen. Naturally, your shots will be more accurate when aiming down a weapon’s sights or through a scope, and even more so while kneeling or prone. When firing through a scope, you can hold your breath for a short period of time to increase the steadiness of your aim. The HUD will display warning indicators when you are being shot, and when grenades have been thrown near your position. Sometimes a grenade can be thrown back, and a message will flash on your screen displaying the key you can use to toss back the grenade back to its owner (depending on how you have your keys configured)—but you’ve got to be quick! Anything that you need to interact with that represents an objective, will be highlighted with a golden glow and you'll be prompted to pick it up or use it with the <Use> key.

Dialog subtitles can be toggled on or off. Although the game’s Russian and Arab enemies speak in their native tongue, there are no subtitle translations for what they’re saying (or more accurately, yelling)—the only exception is Al-Asad's broadcast during "The Coup" segment with President Al-Fulani. Still, you don’t need a degree in linguistics to know that when someone is trying to drill you with an AK-47 or blow your ass out from under you with a grenade or RPG, they probably aren’t complimenting you on your good looks. One really cool piece of equipment at your disposal in Call of Duty 4, are the AN/PEQ-2 Target Pointer-enhanced Night Vision Goggles which provides low-light and total darkness targeting with a laser that’s undetectable by the enemy. Best of all, the goggles don’t have those stupid “30-second wonder batteries” found in other shooters.

The list of weapons in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare reads like a venerable who’s-who from Jane's Infantry Weapons. Whether U.S., NATO or Warsaw Pact, if it’s been used in any modern conflict, chances are you’ll find it in the game. To keep things as realistic and as simple as possible, you are given a default load-out at the start of each mission which you cannot change—however,  you can swap you load-out with whatever weapons you find in the field. You are also limited to the number of weapons and explosives you can carry at a time:
 

Any available special explosives and gear are shown in the lower left hand corner of the screen. When you switch between your primary and secondary weapons, they just don’t “pop” onto the screen. Not only do you see your rifle being unslung from your shoulder from a first-person view, you hear the sling against the cloth of your uniform. You’d be surprised how many games omit details that add an extra touch of realism like this.

You’ll also get the opportunity to call in helicopter air strikes using a slick “homing beacon” to paint the target; use numerous stationary machine guns, and assume the gunner position on a Marine helicopter with a 40mm Mark 19 Grenade MG, taking out light tanks, anti-aircraft and RPG teams. You’ll also use a devastating Mini-Gun on a downed chopper to suppress waves of enemies converging on a village you’re trying to hold until you and your team can be extracted. Both the Mark 19 and Mini-Gun can overheat and shut-down at the worse possible moment if you go hog-wild with the trigger.

One of the highlights of Call of Duty 4 is the “Death from Above” mission where you assume the role of a gunner onboard an AC-130 Spectre Gunship. Using the craft’s incredible array of optics and firepower, you provide close air support against Ultranationalist forces pursuing Captain Price’s S.A.S. team extracting the informant who gave up the Estonian freighter carrying Zakhaev’s nukes to Al-Asad. The radio chatter between the AC-130 crew sounds authentic, and is often quite amusing.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s only “stealth” mission—“All Ghillied Up,” is undoubtedly the most memorable one of the game. A flashback mission told and played from Captain Price’s perspective when he was a Lieutenant (or as Price puts it, a ‘Leftenant’) in the S.A.S. over a decade ago, it takes place sometime after the Chernobyl incident in the Pripyat, Ukraine’s Zone of Alienation. Teamed up with and under the command of Captain MacMillan, your job is to eliminate—you guessed it—Imran Zakhaev who is meeting with terrorists to sell them spent reactor fuel rods stripped from the Chernobyl reactors. You’ll probably recognize the particular location of the mission if you’ve played S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Using the Ghillie suit to conceal yourself and slip past enemy patrols and snipers,  following MacMillan’s lead and orders to the letter, are critical for surviving this particularly challenging mission. During that one unforgettable moment where Price and MacMillan must slowly and carefully crawl through a large, open field as a mechanized infantry unit passes through, I probably sweat-off a good five pounds; and my jaw is still a little sore from being clenched so tightly!

Price and MacMillan finally reach the hotel across from where Zakhaev and his clients will meet. You’re provided with an M82 .50 Caliber Sniper Rifle and a photo to ID Zakhaev, while MacMillan plays observer through his binoculars. Since you’re only going to get one opportunity and one shot to take out Zakhaev, the captain gives you some last minute coaching on how to compensate for the bullet’s trajectory being affected by the wind, by observing a flag on one of the cars in the enemy motorcade. No one can ever accuse Infinity Ward of leaving out the smallest details that when they all come together, makes the gaming experience more immersive.

Although the mission provides a much-needed change of pace from all the fast and furious firefights throughout the rest of the game, it doesn’t last for long. While your shot doesn’t kill Zakhaev, it does blow his arm clean off. Hoping that Zakhaev dies from the blood loss and shock of having his arm removed by a .50 caliber slug, it’s time for you and MacMillan to bug out. Unfortunately, Zakhaev’s men are now on to you, and out for your blood. MacMillan is injured as you try to elude them, and the two of you must hold them off a small army of Ultranationalists at your extraction point until your helicopter arrives.

The AI of friendly and enemy NPCs can either make or break a game. When Infinity Ward spun off from 2015 after working with Electronic Arts on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, they succeeded in taking WWII first person shooters to the next level with the Call of Duty franchise, by making the player’s squad more supportive—like a team; and enemies more clever and tenacious. The result was a winning formula—“No One Fights Alone”—and a resounding success. Thankfully, not only has this winning formula for friendly and enemy NPCs been carried over to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but it’s been polished and refined to be even more impressive.

Whether they are “stacking-up” outside a door for a room take-down, calling out enemy positions to you, warning you about incoming grenades or RPG fire; using cover to advance on, flank and attack enemies, you can trust your team to watch your back and help keep you alive to get the job done. Yes, successful completion of mission objectives still rest squarely on your shoulders—but at least you’ve got someone to share some of the burden. Lacking the stiff, artificial movements and pathing problems of NPCs found in most shooters, your squad is almost life-like in their behavior and actions, which really adds to the drama and immersion of the game.

Although keeping up with your squad and working with them to achieve your objectives is an important part of Call of Duty 4 it isn’t a true tactical shooter like the Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon games. You can’t issue orders to, or control the actions of your NPC teammates. Since they can handle themselves quite well in a fight, and have somewhat higher hit-points and more ammunition than you, they don’t need any baby-sitting or hand-holding—which leaves you free to concentrate on following Lieutenant Vasquez and Captain Price’s orders and using your team’s additional fire support to get the job done.

With the exception of the main characters in both your S.A.S. and U.S.M.C. squads, your team consists of “generic” soldiers who are replaced by more if they get killed. A hold-over from Call of Duty 2, it’s obviously not the most realistic. But it keeps the game moving and allows the player the luxury of staying focused on mission objective—which can be tough enough to begin with.

The enemies in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare can really test your meddle and present quite a challenge. They use cover, retreat, flank, ambush, throw grenades and fire RPGs to flush you out from behind cover—or shoot through it and nail you if your cover happens to be wood, sheet metal or plaster—or blow it up and you along with it, if it’s a car. They’re also quite efficient at tossing your own grenades back at you. In short, you’ll find that the bad guys are just as skillful, tenacious and dangerous as you and your team is, when on the offensive or defensive. If you’ve gotten used to the usual dumb-as-a-doorknob enemies with short attention spans in other shooters—you’d better get un-used to it fast, when playing Call of Duty 4. Otherwise, you’ll be spending a lot of quality time viewing words of wisdom from past and present military leaders, politicians and other famous and infamous folks at the reloading screen, after getting yourself killed. And as if enemy troops weren’t enough, Infinity Ward has given you a new adversary to watch out for—Dogs.

Whether they are wild dogs roaming the ghost-town of the Pripyat, Ukraine’s Zone of Alienation, or guard and attack dogs used by Zakhaev’s Ultranationalists, the German Sheppards in Call of Duty 4 can be every bit as dangerous as a soldier with a rifle or RPG. Once a dog knocks you down, you have seconds to melee it with your knife (remember when I said earlier that your melee attack was going to come in handy) before it tears your throat out. If you can put the dog down with a well-placed shot, so much the better—but they’re fast—and you may not get a second chance if you miss. If you’re confronted by more than one dog at once, hopefully you have a full clip in your automatic weapon and fast reflexes. It got to the point where I was just as fearful of the sound of barking, as I was when I heard the clink of a grenade landing nearby, or the “whoosh!” of an RPG being fired.

Nothing destroys the immersion and suspends disbelief of a game faster than enemies that can soak up enough firepower to kill an entire battalion and come back for seconds. In Call of Duty 4 (as in previous Call of Duty games), when you fatally wound an enemy he is down for the count—permanently. Head shots—particularly ones powerful enough to penetrate a helmet—are instantly fatal. Critically wounded enemies stagger away before falling and dying, or try to crawl out of the line of fire. Some of them will use their last, dying breath to unholster their sidearm and shoot at you. The rag doll physics of Call of Duty 4’s new physics engine makes for some chillingly convincing death animations for friend and foe NPCs alike—rather than the exaggerated and cartoonish physics being pawned off in other games.

You’ll find that enemies in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare tend to spawn a bit more than they did in Call of Duty 2. Normally, enemy respawning is quite annoying and frustrating—especially when it’s done in excess and combined with other gameplay shortcomings. However, there is a method to Infinity Ward’s madness in the way they use spawning.

In Call of Duty 4 enemies simply don’t respawn every and anywhere in relation to the player. They are usually concentrated behind or near cover at strategic trigger points on a level’s map, whether outside or in buildings. When you and your squad suppress and eliminate all of the enemies at those trigger points, unlike most games, they do not respawn again.

The purpose of Infinity Ward giving you the quality of NPC squadmates that they have, and placing you in a battlefield environment where not only you must be constantly aware of your surroundings—but can use elements in that environment such as certain types of cover and even lighting (shadows) to your advantage—is to get you out of the comfort zone imposed by the limitations of other games that force you to spend most of your time tucked away behind cover, fighting an “inch at a time.” As a result, you’ll fight more intelligently and aggressively like a real soldier that’s part of an elite, special operations unit. Think of the amped up respawning at Call of Duty 4’s trigger points as the enemy “calling in reinforcements”—and motivation to use every prevailing opportunity to use cover effectively while pressing your attack, always maneuvering to out-flank the enemy with your squad, and take ‘em out before they do the same to you.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare also uses the same console-style checkpoint system from Call of Duty 2, to save games. When you perform a save from the main menu, you are only performing a manual safe of your last successfully completed checkpoint. Normally, this kind of save game system really sucks. Infinity Ward uses just enough checkpoints in each level and spaces them apart so that this becomes less of an issue than it would in other games.

Your health is automatically restored after taking hits from gunfire—up to a point. When you are seriously wounded, you’ll hear your heartbeat, the edges of the screen will turn red—and warning for you to find cover will be displayed. If you don’t, you’ll die, and the game will reload from the last saved check point (and thankfully, not at the beginning of the level like some games). With all the emphasis on realism throughout the rest of the game, some will undoubtedly be disappointed that this console-inspired health system has returned from Call of Duty 2. A Squad Medic with a limited number of Health Kits to patch you up—a feature that worked quite successfully in Pterodon and Illusion Softworks’ Vietcong—might have been a better alternative. 

Divided between a Prologue and three Acts, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s 19 single-player missions are surprisingly short. Regardless of the difficulty level selected, it will probably take you no more than six hours tops to complete, playing it straight through. The drama of the plot combined with tight, efficient pacing and skillfully orchestrated firefights that keeps things forcefully moving forward plays like episodes of the CBS television series The Unit when you’re “Soap” MacTavish of the S.A.S. in pursuit of Zakhaev. The adrenalin-pumping shoot-outs that take place in claustrophobic rooms, hallways and store fronts and chaotic, ferocious battles in alleys and on narrow streets where death is waiting around every corner and on every roof top, will invoke memories of Jerry Bruckheimer and Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down when you’re pursuing Al-Asad as Marine Force Recon Sergeant Jackson.

But if there’s any message behind Call of Duty 4 that raises it above the “gratuitous violence” and “glamorization” of war that games such as these are often accused of, it lies in the sobering events at the midpoint and end of the game—that the good-guys don’t always live to fight another day to protect the freedoms and security that we often take for granted.

With Windows Vista and DirectX 10 looking more like the Windows ME of 2007, most gamers are still sticking with Windows XP and DirectX 9. At least until Vista and DirectX 10 can deliver on the promise of better visuals with improved, overall stability and without a big hit in performance. Something that probably isn’t going to happen until Service Pack 1 for Vista is officially released and NVIDIA and AMD can finally nail down some solid, WHQL video drivers that will give a decent boost in performance.

In the meantime, like most game publishers, Infinity Ward has maximized on Windows XP’s existing DirectX 9 technology. Utilizing true-world dynamic HDR lighting effects, dynamic shadows, depth-of field, particle effects and motion blur, when you crank up the visuals the new proprietary engine makes Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare not only the best-looking game of the series, but perhaps one of the best-looking DirectX 9 games of the year. The dirt and sweat on a Marine’s face and the pores in his skin. Billowing smoke trails from RPGs. Dust and fragments from splintering wood and concrete getting hammered by white-hot lead. Heat and smoke belching from the 1500 HP turbine engine of an M1A2 Abrams Tank’s exhaust. The intricate texture of a nylon rope as you rappel down to the glistening, rain-soaked deck of a freighter at night, with wind and rain swirling around you. Every person, every object in the game world is rendered and lit with such life-like detail and stunning quality, it’s hard to believe that Call of Duty 4 doesn’t have a single strand of DirectX 10 in its digital DNA. Yes, on any of NVIDIA or AMD’s latest mid-range to high end offerings, when you ramp-up the eye candy, it does look that good. The rig I played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on, has the following configuration:

All of the visual in-game settings were maxed-out as you can see in the screenshot here:

Click to enlarge

Monitoring frame rates with FRAPS v2.9.0, Call of Duty 4 never dipped below 50 FPS—even during the largest indoor and outdoor battles with lots of enemies—and ran smoothly with no hitching or stuttering. The game’s stability was rock-solid with no lock-ups or crashes to the desktop. The only problem I encountered was texture corruption on a single tractor sitting in the field next to the barn during the “Hunted” mission in Act I. It did not show up again during subsequent replays of that particular mission. Chalk up another one for beta video drivers…

Bolstering Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's short-but-sweet single-player campaign is Arcade Mode and of course, Multiplayer. Arcade Mode’s Full Challenge allows you to earn bonus points by quickly playing through the single-player campaign, while your goal is to earn the highest possible score in the mission of your choice before the clock runs down in Mission Challenge. In Arcade Mode, your HUD includes Current Score, Mission Countdown Timer and the number of Lives you have up in the upper right-hand corner. The arcade flavor is enhanced by a billboard-sized CHECKPOINT! that appears each time you reach one in the game. There are also the arcade-style bonus points that zoom, spin and flash their way onto the screen for every kill you make, with the highest (100+) for head shots and multiple kills. Go on a rampage and waste multiple bad-guys in succession, and you’ll earn Killing Streak bonuses.

There are one or more laptops hidden on each level of Call of Duty 4—a total of 30. Depending on how many you find, once you’ve completed the single-player campaign, you can unlock certain cheat codes that you can enter from the main menu when playing through the single-player campaign again. Some cheats alter the appearance of the game and are more or less fun-oriented “Easter Eggs.” Others are more useful. Find 10 laptops, for example, and you can activate the Cluster Bomb cheat where your hand grenades explode once on detonation, then five more times afterwards. Twenty laptops unlock the Slo-Mo Ability cheat. When toggled with the key or mouse button you’ve configured for melee attacks, the world around you slows down enough to help you avoid enemy attacks while pulling off some devastating attacks of your own. All 30 laptops give you the Unlimited Ammo cheat. If you do use them, you'll probably find it slightly annoying that the cheats must be enabed at the Options menu at the start of every level.

Finding these laptops can range from fairly easy to difficult. You’ll have to go off on your own to find the majority of them—which can be very dangerous, since you run the risk of alerting or running into enemies without your squad having your back. The good news is, once you find and take the laptop you immediately get credit for it. So if you’re killed shortly after obtaining it, you won’t lose it and have to go back through the level and retrieve it again.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's multiplayer allows up to 32 players on 16 maps based on the levels in the single-player campaign. The maps are a good mix of indoor levels for white-knuckle, close quarters combat with Flashbangs, side arms and other up-close-and-personal weapons; and larger outdoor levels where flanking, using cover and medium to long-range weapons are the order of the day. Call of Duty 4 uses a tried-and-true browser that’s intuitive and easy to use for finding matches. And unlike the latest title of one high-profile shooter franchise with roots in the WW II genre, Call of Duty 4 ships with a server component for hosting your own multiplayer matches that’s ready to rock right out of the box.

In addition to the traditional Team and Free-For-All Deathmatch modes, there’s also the capture-the-flag oriented Domination, where opposing teams duke it out to capture and hold the most flags throughout the map. The more flags your team captures the more team points you get. The team that captures and holds the most flags before the time limit runs out or the score limit is reached, wins. In Search and Destroy, one team plants a bomb at one of two bomb sites, while the other defends the sites. If the explosives are planted, then the defending team has to defuse them. With only one respawn per round for players of both teams, the match is over when all of the players on one team are eliminated, or the bomb is defused or explodes.

Sabotage is similar to Search and Destroy, except players have unlimited respawns and there’s a single bomb and multiple targets in each team’s base. The goal is to gain possession of the bomb and use it to blow up the objectives in the opposing team’s base. While bomb carriers can defend themselves, their current location is frequently announced throughout the match—making them easier targets.

Headquarters randomly places a laptop on the map which must be captured by your team. If your team captures the laptop they must defend it from being destroyed by the opposing team. The team that captures the laptop gains points for every second they possess it; and only have one respawn at their disposal until the laptop is destroyed or the time limit of the match is reached, while the attacking team is allowed multiple respawns.

Multiplayer can be configured for several difficulty modes. Old School gives you the usual amenities—full HUD, weapon pickups, higher jumps and reduced (to a point) damage from gunfire. Hardcore removes the HUD, imposes a friendly-fire penalty, and the bullets—whether they are yours or your opponents—do the same amount of damage as they do in the real world—one shot, one kill.

Call of Duty 4 has five preset player classes: Assault, Spec Ops, Heavy Gunner, Demolitions and Sniper. Team choices are Marines vs. OpFor and S.A.S. vs. Spetnaz. Each class has its own special ability and weapon bonuses—or perks. For example, Assault-class players have the Stopping Power perk where their bullets do more damage, and the Extreme Conditioning perk which allows them to sprint for longer distances. Only the first three classes are unlocked for a new player. As you gain experience points for successfully completing objectives and killing opponents, you raise in rank and not only unlock the last two classes, but you can create your own custom class and weapons load-out; unlock new weapons, weapon upgrades and ability perks—like the ability to call in UAV Drones that update the radar on your HUD with enemy locations in 30-second intervals. And to really pulverize the opposing team, you can call in Airstrikes and Helicopter Gunships. While such abilities may seem overbalanced, keep in mind that helicopters can be shot down, and airstrikes can be used against as well as for you.

While the modes and features in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s multiplayer aren’t exactly new or revolutionary, they are a refreshing and enjoyable change of pace from all the “me-too” and “plain-vanilla” deathmatch and team deathmatch multiplayer campaigns that are part-and-parcel of many first-person shooters today. Best of all, Call of Duty 4 relies heavily on and rewards individual skill and teamwork to keep things balanced, challenging—and fun.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is clearly the best of the series and it easily stands head and shoulders above Electronic Arts’ recent efforts with Medal of Honor Airborne. Visually and dramatically, it’s a knock-out. The gameplay is one intense roller-coaster ride after the next. Friendly and enemy AI are spot-on. Voice acting is superb; the theme and score are fantastic and fits the game like the proverbial glove. The weapons use their authentic, licensed names and sound and shoot as good as they look. Multiplayer is feature-rich with unlockable perks.

The only beef I have with the game is that the single-player campaign was too short. Though Arcade Mode, locating all of the laptops to unlock all of the cheats for fun, and a bonus mission you can play at the end of the game after the credits roll, adds some re-playability, Infinity Ward could—and should have made the single player campaign a 12-15 hour gaming experience. I’m sure I’m not the only one who would have gladly stayed glued behind my keyboard and mouse until the wee hours of the morning playing it that much longer.

Infinity Ward’s bid to branch out from WWII shooters proves that a game studio can take chances and create an outstanding game. So here’s a big Oorah! to Infinity Ward for a job well done with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare!

This review was made possible by