Jason: The bit of online play I have had time for lately has been very enjoyable. The diverse weapons and classes, around a dozen battle modes online and xp all add depth to the online experience. Wait did I just say xp? That I did. In a interesting twist weapons and upgrades are now unlocked via xp which you receive for various achievements online, as you move up in levels you can swap out your rank for a special icon by your name and start over back at level 1. It adds a lot of meat to the online game play but it also brings in balance questions and ramps up the difficulty for new people to get started, beyond the normal learning the game curve, as there is now a weapons and outfit curve also. While not so bad for public play this leads us to interesting questions for online leagues and competitive CoD4 play. Do we use the leveled up players and weapons, or stick with the base configurations team wise to create a more fair and balanced game play? Questions, questions.

Infinity Ward should have a winner on its hands. This game is available on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 which is only going to help their name brand and popularity. The only complaint on this front is lack of cross platform play. Can someone get this done? Hopefully someday much like online play, cross platform play will become a standard. The realism, great graphics and sound, and engrossing single and multiplayer puts CoD4 in the cream of the crop of this years games.


Thomas: Hmm, I don't know if this departure from traditional Call of Duty multiplayer will pan out well for the competitive side of the game, but I guarantee you it will attract more casual gamers. For evidence check out NEXON's KartRider. People who race more have more money, can buy upgrades, and have higher ranking than those starting out. That doesn't necessarily mean they're better, either; it just means that they play a lot more. Millions of people play KartRider, as they did GunBound before it, to be a part of this ranked community and get better gear than their counterparts. While CoD4 differs in that it is not a cartoon, I imagine the effect will be quite similar. I agree with you about cross-platform play. I had heard some rumors a while back that Halo 2 for Windows Vista was going to allow gamers to play against people using Xbox. I was pretty stoked about that considering it would be easy as cake to smoke everyone with a mouse and keyboard. Then it didn't happen. That sucked. Cross platform play, though decidedly tricky to implement, will introduce a whole new level of unity in the video game space. And when a game finally has this functionality, you can rest assured that it will be tremendously successful.

I actually went back into CoD4 today to replay some of the levels that I particularly enjoyed the first time around. Destroying ant-like bad guys from the AC-130 was just as fun in round two, and even more so was the Chernobyl sniping mission. After giving it some thought, I believe the latter to be the defining mission in this game from a tactical standpoint.

Conclusion
Call of Duty 4 is certainly not a perfect game. It still has some of the old irritating problems we have had in previous Call of Duty games, and the multiplayer side appears to have changed significantly as well. However, the graphical and gameplay updates more than make up for whatever deficiencies these problems cause. Perhaps the fact that Infinity Ward was no longer required to adhere to the limits of history with their story telling (CoD4 is based on the unwritten present/near future) has allowed them to pull out all of the stops necessary to turn the Call of Duty franchise into something truly phenomenal. Whatever the case, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is not a game that you will want to skip if you have any interest in first person shooters. This title must be considered for a place in the top five video games of 2007 - probably the most competitive year the market has ever seen.