With a decent singleplayer experience and a superb multiplayer, Call of Duty 4 is one of the best shooters of all time.
When you start the singleplayer campaign, the first thing you do is playing a pretty dull tutorial, which shows the basics of the CoD gameplay. At the end of it, the computer sets your recommended difficulty level. After this, the actual campaign starts off...
You find yourself in a British SAS chopper flying over the ocean, with an enormous amount of rain falling down. In the distance you see a big ship. It's from the Russian Spetsnaz. Once you're on the deck, everyone starts shooting through the windows. Five Russians are killed. We get inside, go downstairs and infiltrate the ship. A lot of minutes and tons of dead soldiers later, the pilot says over the radio: "Enemy helicopter inbound! They've opened fire! Get the hell out of there!" What follows is one of the most intense moments ever in video game history. With a ship going almost vertical, you're running for your life. At the end of the run, the helicopter's already flying away. A jump follows. You almost fall off in the water, but a teammate saves you. Impressive.
The rest of the singleplayer is old-fashion Call of Duty style: kill people and follow your teammates. There are absolutely no tactics involved. There is no cover system either, what is a slight dissappointment. Anyway, in the rest of the campaign you will either play with the SAS or the US Marines. There is also a sniper level set in Chernobyl, which is a pretty neat experience considering you'll take out a key guy sniping. It's very cool at first, but if you play it the second time it's exactly the same as the first. Actually, this isn't that bad because the experience is so good.
The multiplayer is probably the best part of the game. What makes this multiplayer so good, is a combination of very well-balanced maps, weapons and perks, which are special abilities like Martyrdom, which lets you drop a frag grenade when you're killed. There is also a perk called Bandolier, which means that once equipped, you have extra ammunition magazines on your disposal. One of the most original perks is Last Stand, which means that if you're almost dead and laying on the ground, you'll pull out your pistol to take down any enemies nearby. The perks are one of the most important things in combat.
In CoD4's multiplayer, you've got over 15 different game types to play, like basic modes like Team Deatchmatch, Free-for-all and Domination, but also more unique options like Search and Destroy (one team has to plant a bomb, the other one needs to stop them, no respawns) and Sabotage (my personal favorite, 1 bomb, 2 teams and the first team that successfully plants and detonates the bomb on the enemy defend point wins)
At maps CoD4 doesn't fail to deliver. The only map that's not that great, is Shipment, a far too small map where there is an enemy on almost every corner. Especially in Domination, this is extremely frustrating to be killed in almost every 10 seconds.
In all, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is one of the best shooters you've ever played, and in multiplayer you'll have more options than you could ever imagine. With a pretty fun console-exclusive option called Prestige Mode (which allows you to do the multiplayer mode all again from Level 1 to 55) this is a game that you could play for weeks, months or even years.
Note: maybe you've heard, but Call of Duty 5 will be made by the studio that created the worst CoD in the series (it's called Treyarch, they made CoD3). It will return to WWII. Pretty lame.
Erik van Klinken
PSN Name: evklinken