Finally, after I thought I was forgotten, I received a nice email from charlieoscardelta.com that supplied me with the code I needed to enter the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare multiplayer beta. I made a beeline for the Xbox 360 so that I could experience first hand modern combat from a series previously known as the best of the hoard of World War 2 first person shooters.

 

The strategy of Call of Duty 4 begins immediately with picking a class, in keeping with the realism of the game you have to pick between sniper, demolitions expert or several other specialized jobs or simply create your own. Call of Duty 4 began by giving me an unpleasant chill as I thought it was only a pretty Counter Strike. (And when I say pretty I mean it, this is a gorgeous game that wonderfully shows off what should be expected of this generation of consoles) Fortunately the comparison to Counter Strike begins and ends with the fact that this is somewhat realistic modern combat, because Call of Duty 4 is actually a blast to play. A wealth of strategy and variety exist in CoD 4 that most first person shooters only wish they could attain.

 

These choices are important as you are limited to carrying only one main weapon and a handgun as back up. The main weapons run the gambit from a variety of sniper rifles, shotgun, assault rifles, light machine guns like the SAW and close range automatics. Each weapon provides a solid feel and emulates its real world counterpart. Even reloading these weapons is accurate enough that it can get you killed to be caught in the middle of the process. Grenades to come in a variety covering the gambit of your standard fragmentation to the more exotic flash, stun and even smoke. The grenade physics are well in place as they seem to have real weight as the hit the floor and those brave enough can attempt to toss them back at opponents. The overall solid feel of all the weapons offer a lot of replay and experimentation.

Classes though are more than simply the weapons you will start with as Call of Duty 4 introduces one of its most unique mechanics known as Perks. Perks allow you special abilities in the battle field that can range from something as simple as carrying additional grenades to being able to pull your pistol out when you are shot down to try and pull off a few revenge shots. Infinity Ward (creators of Call of Duty series) seem to be working very hard to maintain balance between the various perks by putting them into three separate categories so that they cannot be stacked onto the same class unfairly. Perks really give Call of Duty 4 an amazing sense of unique character in each player because from one guy to the next you do not know what he may be capable of, this kind of system if done well should be borrowed from by any multiplayer heavy first person shooter in the future.

Taking a page from the book of achievements and role playing games Infinity Ward has also introduced Ranks and Challenges. Ranks are achieved by gaining experience in combat through kills and assists and overall team performance. Gaining ranks unlocks additional weapons and perks making the end of each match more rewarding by seeing the experience tally up. Challenges are like achievements as they are specific goals like a certain number of kills, certain number of head shots, or shooting down an enemy helicopter. Challenges reward players with bonus experience and with weapon specific challenges unlock customizations like different scopes and camouflage styles. All of this adds up to giving an already solid game an extremely addictive quality.

 

All in all the Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare beta has been a great experience and I am looking forward to what is to come when the full game releases later this year. Call of Duty 4 is not just for fans of realistic shooters, but for anyone who is a fan of great games.