Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Windows

I think I've finally found a game to replace Battlefied 2, and it's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I played the first two Call of Duty games, and this newest one goes above and beyond any precedent set by those early entries to the series. This game combines all the best elements of the Battlefield series with some amazing graphics and very accessible online play. This is definitely the first person shooter to buy right now.

In this game, you get to play as either U.S. or British Special Forces and travel around the world taking out military targets. You'll have a huge variety of weapons at your disposal, ranging from various machine guns to shotguns and sniper rifles, plus an array of explosives. Luckily, you won't have to go at it alone, as you'll always have your squad members there to back you up.

In the single player portion of this game, you have to play the lead in each mission. One thing I immediately noticed was that the enemy soldiers will continue to spawn until you reach the preset rendezvous points that are designated by field commanders. If you just hang back and shoot, you'll be there all day long. This can get a little annoying when you can't open doors, but enemy soldiers will still come out of them. While the single player part of the game is a great way to learn the controls and weapons, the real reason to play this game is for the online multiplayer action.

The graphics in this game are amazing, though you will need a fairly high-end video card to get the most out of the visuals. I'm running an Nvidia 8400GS, which is the low end of the 8000 series cards, but my AMD 5000+ processor and 3 gigs of RAM help take up some of that slack. Just make sure your video card is DirectX 9.0c compatible or else the game won't work on your machine.

What I found most impressive was the detail of the buildings. You play in various war zones, so there is smoldering debris strewn all over the place. The environments aren't interactive, in that you can't knock down walls or anything, but they are reactive in that debris will go flying if you set off a grenade near a brick wall. You can also shoot through thinner surfaces, so hiding behind a piece of aluminum siding may not be the best thing.

This game is set in a variety of environments that show off the graphical quality of the game engine. Not only do you fight in desert areas, but there are also wooded areas and bombed-out cities. From burning cars to downed helicopters and dead tanks, there are plenty of things to hide behind or climb upon. There's also a huge variety of maps for online play, though I've noticed a small handful seem to be the main favorites for most servers.

I was very impressed by how quickly I was able to get into an online multiplayer game. I'm used to waiting a couple of minutes in Battlefield 2 because the maps had to be loaded, plus I was always refreshing the server listings for the lowest ping. Although I do get some weird ping ratings on the servers in this game, I have had no problem finding games to get into and play. There are several thousand different servers going with this game, and players from all over the globe are in there having fun. With the amount of people supporting this game, I can imagine that people will be playing it for the next few years, just like they are the Battlefield games.

Another thing I really liked about the online play was that it employs a ranking system based on your score from how well you play each mission. As you gain points from making kills or accomplishing mission objectives, you will be able to unlock better weapons and gear. Battlefield 2 also did something similar, but this game allows you to progress more often and there's a lot more stuff available for fighting. You can even create your own custom classes of soldier where you pick your main weapon, sidearm, and accessories.

The only downside to this game is the inability to operate vehicles. One of my favorite parts of playing the Battlefield series was being able to drive tanks and other vehicles around. A lot of online gaming sessions disallow vehicles during the battles, probably because they give the driver a superior advantage over the common foot soldier, but I do still miss them. Since everyone is playing infantry in this game, it levels the playing field quite a bit.

I own an HP computer and initially had some problems getting the multiplayer portion of this game to work with Windows Vista. I checked around a few message boards and found out that there is a known problem with Realtek sound cards, which is the type of card built onto the motherboard of my HP system. All I had to do was go into the Sound options on the Control Panel and enable the Stereo Mix option under the Recording tab. After that, everything worked fine. Hopefully, this will be fixed in a later patch update. This game worked great with my 5.1 surround speakers, but I haven't yet hooked up a microphone to test the online chat. Every now and then I will hear somebody talking while playing online.

Overall, I am very impressed with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It has great graphics and sound, nimble controls, and the overall gameplay experience is spectacular. Fans of the Battlefield series should definitely give this one a try.