Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Army strong
Foes in COD4 are more patient than intractable, always waiting for the right grunt to uproot them in the right way. Enter British S.A.S. agent John "Soap" MacTavish and U.S. Marine Corps soldier Paul Jackson: The only munitions in the arsenal of freedom capable of staunching this game's infinite flow of evildoers. MacTavish and Jackson are the action-hero opposites of grumpy Russian ultranationalist Imran Zakhaev and firebrand dictator Khaled Al-Asad, newly installed leader of...well, somewhere (Infinity Ward refrained from naming Al-Asad's home nation, presumably bowing to a very modern fear of ruffling feathers). Both terrorist leaders have a few choice words for the West as well as the nuclear warheads to scrawl them on. The storyline is pure Macho Network, perfect for an FPS like COD4 -- nonstop us-versus-them bloodshed with no time for moralizing.

As either MacTavish or Jackson, you carry out matching marching orders: Juke from cover to cover through the detritus of war-torn landscapes, scoring first downs for Team Liberty as you go. The football metaphor's no exaggeration; invisible checkpoints send Joe Terror scurrying for his next defensive line and close the -- let's call them "clone closets -- that bullets can't. When the pacing is thoughtful (and it is more often than not), connect-the-dots combat is thrilling.

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Linger in any one area for too long, however, and what was intense becomes overtly mechanical: Infinitely spawning baddies pin themselves to the same positions as previous waves of baddies, becoming more nitwitted fodder for your rifle. Similarly, grenades and time-bomb Bimmers cease to alarm and turn into impediments to progress rather than believably close calls. But before the game gets too frustrating, it's over -- short, and mostly sweet.

Get your ass online, soldier
"Create-a-class" is a misnomer for COD4's system of multiplayer kit specialization. "Class" implies that you can create something other than exciting new ways to hurl death at rival players. You can't, and you won't find Team Fortress 2's Medic or Quake Wars' Constructor here. Semantics aside, create-a-class is an excellent addition to the series' multiplayer.

[Click the image above to check out all Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare screens.]

Performance-enhancing Perks -- swappable superhuman abilities unlocked via combat experience -- are the big draw. Who needs a new cannon when your next promotion lets you reload the one you've got twice as fast? The system inspires obsessive leveling-lust typically associated with MMORPGs, even more so than the Battlefield series' rank-based rewards. Scheming toward your next gun-Perk-grenade combo is almost as satisfying as earning it, and dreaming up new ways to specialize on a map-to-map basis ensures longevity.

Modern Warfare's multiplayer isn't without flaws; kill spree-based special attacks are fun but too easily achieved on the PC...and constantly intruding air strikes (jet and helicopter) are annoying. Maps are slices of campaign levels, ill-equipped to handle some of the new modes like Counter-Strike inspired Demolition and bomb-soccer Sabotage. Worse yet, the server browser's downright archaic, lacking even a friends list.

But good outweighs bad in multiplayer to an even greater extent than in campaign mode. Infinity Ward has mastered a formula of its own making for both single- and multiplayer combat; Call of Duty 4 is louder, better looking, and more chaotic than ever. But it's certainly a formula, one that becomes more transparent with each version.