Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC, 2007)

The only real catch is that the single-player is almost shockingly short. If you've been keeping up with this style of game, you'll probably shoot your way to the credits in under five hours. While you can raise the difficulty to give yourself more of a challenge, the main thing this does is make the enemies frustratingly deadly, which sort of detracts from the fun.

While it may have a lack of single-player quantity, it makes up for most of it with its quality. The game tells its story from multiple perspectives, and you'll play as a new British SAS operative as well as a US Marine. The campaign takes you from a rainy night out at sea on a boat that's in the process of sinking to a missile silo where it's on you to save millions from an unsavory nuclear-powered death. Along the way, there are plenty of jaw-dropping moments where you'll look around the room for someone to whom you can say, "I can't believe that just happened." In a world filled with war games in which the good guys come out unscathed and the world is left at total peace, Call of Duty 4 will wake you up like a face full of ice water.

The action in the campaign is usually very straightforward. You have a compass at the bottom of your screen, and the direction of your current objective is very plainly marked. But getting from point A to point B is never as simple as running in a straight line, as you'll be conducting full-scale assaults in Middle Eastern countries by moving from house to house, taking out what seems like a never-ending stream of enemy troops along the way. You'll also get an opportunity to raid Russian farmhouses in search of terrorist leaders, disguise yourself as the enemy, and, in one sequence, don a brushlike ghillie suit and crawl through the brush as enemy troops and tanks roll right past you. It's a breathtaking moment in a campaign filled with breathtaking moments. Unfortunately, it's about half as long as the average shooter, and there are plenty of sequences where you wish there were just one or two more hills to take.

Of course, if you're looking for longevity, that's where the multiplayer comes in. Up to 18 players can get online and get into a match on one of 16 different maps. Many of the levels are taken from portions of the single-player and they offer a healthy mix of wide-open, sniper-friendly areas and tight, almost cramped spaces where grenades and shotguns are the order of the day. There are six game modes to choose from. The old standby is team deathmatch, though you can also play in a free-for-all deathmatch, which isn't as much fun as the team modes. The other modes are more objective-oriented, and a couple of those have you lugging bombs across the map to blow up enemy equipment, or preventing the enemy from blowing up your base. Others have you capturing control points. Lastly, you can change up the game rules a bit with a hardcore setting that makes weapons more realistically damaging or an old-school mode that puts weapons on the ground as pickups and generally moves away from the simulation side of things.



The campaign takes you to multiple locales, but they're all full of guys who are begging to be shot in the face.

Excellent fast paced first person shooter...awesome game play in single and online multiplayer action..fantastic graphics..a great assortment of weapons with ability to improve and gain rank with multiplayer..a must buy for the avid FPS gamer..

Only played COD-WAW because I bought it at a garage sale for (believe it or not!) $3! (while it was selling in the stores for $50!) Found it to be a revelation, and made a point of buying all in the series. Modern Warfare is a SUPERB game that you will want to leave to your descendants, if you are into first person shooters! Some have argued that the series has gotten formulaic, and although this is arguably true, they are addictive in the way DOOM and DIABLO were when they were the in thing! Try it, you'll like it! And when they drag your whitened withered form out of your bedroom into the sunlight, you'll hiss and spit at your "rescuers" as you strive to crawl back to your computer to annihilate the evil enemy!

First of all, graphics are stunning! It makes it so hard to play any other games anymore because of the quality and amazement the game's graphics bring. Just trying to look at another game puts you down because they don't look as great. Even with the minimum allowed graphics card (which I am using) this game STILL looks so beautiful.

Online gameplay is awesome, and with the patches it makes the online play never get old.

Only con to this game is that since it is rated M, it gives an excuse for online players to act immaturely and they all seem to use vulgar language often. THOUGH there are many servers that prohibit such language and have several rules to a FUN gameplay.

Overall this game is excellent!

one of the best FPS games to date for multiplaying. unlike MW2 this game has plenty of servers running, or you can create your own server to play on. MW2, Black Ops, and MW3 don't give you that.
the only other game of this kind that I would recommend is CoD World At War.
I've had this game for about a year and I still enjoy playing it.
I have the Battlefield games(1-3 and others), Medal of Honor games(from allied assault to the latest),Code of Honor games and Ghost Sniper,and many others, all sit collecting dust. CoD4 actually gets played.