Flash out!

How many First Person Shooters can be praised for its compelling single-player storytelling? How many of those boast a multiplayer component potentially capable of displacing the most entrenched shooter in competitive gaming?

The single player game seizes your attention from the first mission and the intensity doesn’t let up until the closing credits roll. It’s almost like playing a blockbuster movie. Cinematics are in the style of Half-Life’s interactive tram ride but are more visceral, more engaging. The fierce pace of the action combined with the amazing interactive cinematics makes for a single player campaign that does justice to the Call of Duty franchise.

It took about 9 hours to finish the single player game the first time. This includes replaying certain sections a few times as well as stopping to admire the scenery. If you knuckle down and play the game through on the easiest difficulty setting don’t expect anything more than five or six hours of entertainment. You can replay the game at higher skill levels (which only makes the AI more accurate) or take on Arcade Mode where you rush against a timer. This doesn’t make up for the short single player, though.

Occasionally your team mates seem completely useless while other times it’s as if you’re just along for the ride. As with its predecessors, COD4 focusses on infantry combat. You can’t commandeer vehicles, though you do ride shotgun (in a helicopter and Spectre gunship!).

Similar to Battlefield 2142, Call of Duty 4 uses a persistent online profile that stores your rank and accolades. Instead of choosing which new equipment and skills to unlock, players of equal rank have access to the same weapons and perks. You are awarded XP for your performance in every multiplayer match. After amassing enough XP to gain a level you are granted access to new weapons, new perks and new challenges. Weapon attachments (such as sights and silencers) are unlocked by getting kills with the weapon. The weapons themselves are well balanced, but realism is sacrificed at times in favour of balance.

Sometimes you win but it sure doesn't look that way...

When you create a new profile you’ll have access to three of the five basic classes. Each class represents a weapon group and is unmodifiable. As soon as the Create a Class feature becomes available the basic classes become redundant, though only five custom classes can be created.

If ranks, levels and unlocks don’t appeal you can always play ModWarfare, a mod that installs with the main game. All equipment and perks are then available but at the cost of fame and glory. The game didn’t ship with bots, so you won’t be able to play  multiplayer game modes unless at a LAN or connected to the Internet.

A multitude of configurable multiplayer game modes are available to suit every occasion. Modes like Free for All and Team Deathmatch are there for those that enjoy the classics. The objective-driven game modes (Headquarters, Domination, Search and Destroy, Sabotage) play best. Headquarters, a capture-and-hold derivative that allows respawning, is a LAN favourite. Search and Destroy features as the equivalent to Counter-Strike’s bomb defuse maps. Depending on the mode you can have a fast paced, no down-time game or a tactical one where death means you’re out for the round.

Infinity Ward has taken what they and others have done well in other games and combined them into a shooter with an excellently told story and multiplayer that just plays well. The graphics and sound are excellent, providing the atmosphere for a truly engaging tale and immersive gaming experience. Call of Duty 4 doesn’t revolutionise the genre but it certainly comes near to perfecting it.

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How many dirty bombs does it take to change a lightbulb?