Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360)

Infinity Ward delivers a blockbuster that's "modern" in some unexpected ways.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 1 Comments | Page 2 of 3

Call of Duty 4's story feels like it comes and goes in a heartbeat, however rife it may be with themes of sacrifice and courage. This is due to it being both especially short and expertly paced. Almost every level feels like an intricate set piece through whose discrete points of interest you're propelled with severe urgency. You'll endure protracted firefights with entrenched assailants in desolate urban environments, scour the hostile countryside for errant informants, and wait in ambush for well-armed enemy convoys. Most sequences give you free rein to travel through the environments and choose your precise method of engagement (unless it chooses you first); others will guide you on a set path, be in it the back of a moving vehicle, or behind the sights of a gunship's armaments. The pace is generally relentless, and to dawdle in one position too long usually results in an unceremonious death, be it by a grenade that you neglected to lob back toward its point of origin, or an exploding piece of erstwhile cover (do mind those cars). Call of Duty 4 may indeed be a heavily scripted game, but unless you go out of your way to expose the man behind the curtain (if you replay the same scenario five times in a row on the highest difficulty level, in other words), you're not going to care when you're in the thick of things.

But as unrelenting as the single-player game is, Call of Duty 4's multiplayer is what will keep it relevant for a long time to come. Your usual spread of game modes are present -- including both team and solo deathmatch modes, plus a few whimsical variants on capture-and-hold and capture the flag. In truth, the game's tight, brutal mechanics and gorgeous visuals would have made for an intense enough multiplayer experience. But Infinity Ward has gone above and beyond, and implemented a feature that's sure to rob a great many individuals of sizeable portions of their lives: an RPG-style progression scheme.

The progression elements are every bit as consuming here as they are in the most insidiously-designed RPGs; you'll find yourself occupying the same mental space that games like Diablo encourage as they compel you to while away "just one more hour" in chase of the next dangling achievement. The structure is more or less the same as what you'd see in a modern massively-multiplayer online game. Killing enemies and completing match objectives nets you experience, and as you level up, you unlock weapon certifications and passive abilities called "perks." These elements allow you to create custom character classes, which you define by their gear loadouts and perks. Perks run the gamut in terms of utility: One, for instance, will reveal the location of enemy explosives on the map, while another increases the accuracy of your aiming when firing from the hip. They're never quite spectacularly unbalancing, except on the extreme ends -- i.e., when a freshly-minted player goes up against a seasoned vet -- but devoted players will nonetheless aspire to have all of them at their disposal.

If this sounds at all enticing to you, please considering the following: Upon reaching the highest level of 55, you're allowed to trade in all your unlocked ranks and perks and start the grind over again as a humble level-one Private. In return, you get an insignia next to your name. You can do this up to 10 times, with the insignia growing more ornate with each go-around. There really isn't much difference between the PS3 and 360 versions of the game, though Xbox Live does bring an inherent advantage in online usability -- even this is understated due to the game's serviceable built-in matchmaking system.