Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is an epic title. To say that we are simply impressed is a severe understatement. Our staff feels that this is the greatest game of all time and will be playable for many, many years. Yes, greatest game of all time. The stunning graphics, the sound track, the game play and most of all it's addictability (yes, we've coined a new term for this game).

We've been playing computer games since the late 80s, when console and PC gaming first started. We've played the Leisure Suit Larry, the Wolfenstein 3D series, Duke Nukem, Quake, James Bond Goldeneye 007, all the Halos, all the Half-Lifes, as well as many others over the years. Call of Duty 4 is the epitome of all computer games, not just first person shooters. This should be the game that all others are judged by. Something is just different about this game and it was expertly designed by the folks at Infinity Ward. If you played COD2 or 3, forget that experience, this game is something else.

Of course, there are many other first person shooters out there; Bioshock, Gears of War, Rainbow Six, Halo 3, Half Life 2 with it's death matches, and a number of others. Imagine taking the best aspects of all of those games and combining them into one single amazing game. Unbelievable!

The single player storyline is phenomenal. When playing this you feel like you are starring in your own superhero movie. The soundtrack is upbeat and rivals that of any movie you have seen. You really feel like you are there and doing what the computer monitor shows. It is very engulfing and gets your adrenaline pumping and your heart thumping.

Although the single player game is shorter than usual, much shorter than Half Life 2 or Halo 2 and 3, it is an exhilarating experience. In about 5-6 hours you can "finish the game" at the beginner levels. At first, we were all saying, "Wait, we want more". But then we realized that the single player campaign is only about 20% of what this game really does. We quickly discovered the multiplayer section and we were even more baffled than before.

Even more impressive is how amazing this thing looks. The graphics are top notch. The smoke effect in this game is the best smoke we have seen in any game. Our entire staff feels that we have never, ever seen anything like this on any platform! Ever! Is that clear? This is the most amazing game we have ever seen. We used to think that the graphics for Half Life 2 were the pinnacle of computer graphics, but no longer can we say that. Call of Duty 4 has realism and beauty that has not been seen before. Ever.

If we weren't already impressed enough, we were blown away by the multiplayer version. You can connect online and play against other people online. It may sound simple, but wait till you try it. You will be engulfed in an even more addicting game that never plays out the same way ever again.

In multiplayer, you can play on various servers or game types. You can play Team Death Match, wherein everyone keeps killing everyone and points add up, players respawn continuously after each death. You can play Capture the Flag, which is similar to paintball capture the flag. You can play a game called Domination, wherein your team has to overtake locations and protect them for periods of time to earn points, as well as many other game types.

Our favorite game by far was Search and Destroy. The players are divided up into two teams. One team's objective is to defend two target sites. The other teams job is to plant a bomb at one of the target sites. It's a cooperative effort for the most part, and players do not respawn until the match is over. This is very similar to most paintball games. We like the fact that players don't respawn until that match is over. This game never gets old, and after you die, you can watch other players play and see how they do it. This is by far the best game type.

There are also different game modes. Our favorite game mode is Hardcore. Every weapon has slightly increased damage, and it's usually about one shot, one kill. Of course, the weaker weapons can't do this, but one or two bullets usually take out your enemy. This is also the most similar to paintball and our staff found ourselves only playing on hardcore servers. Once you play hardcore and search and destroy, you will find yourself dominating everyone in other game modes and types. It just won't be fair, you will be a superior player.

The multiplayer maps are amazing! You have smaller maps like Showdown, Killhouse, Bog, Ambush and Countdown that play similar to paintball games on speedball fields. You also have larger maps which play similar to woods or scenario paintball games like Creek, Overgrown, and Pipeline.

Our favorite maps include Pipeline, Strike, Overgrown, Crash, Killhouse, Backlot, and Broadcast. We really like the maps that are set in Middle Eastern towns as opposed to the Russian maps. They just play better and are more fun. If we had to pick one map as our favorite it'd be Strike. It's an all around excellent map with lots of strategies to employ.

We really disliked Downpour and Bloc. Dark and dreary maps that just don't get us excited. Bloc is heaven for snipers, but there are way to avoid them. Downpour is just downright nasty and foggy with a downpour of rain and fog making it tougher. We play well on them, just prefer other maps.

The game is very, very deep. There are so many layers, that combine the best of all previous first person shooters. There is an online ranking system. As you play longer and earn more points, you rank up and unlock more weapons, and more perks (more on that later). Initially, when we were not ranked very high, we would play a game called Team Headquarters because you can earn a lot of points quickly and rank up to unlock new weapons and perks.

Another added layer of depth is the weapon attachments and camouflage. As you use your weapon more and gain more kills, you can unlock more weapon attachments, sights, scopes, grenade launchers, red dot sights, camouflage, and eventually a golden gun. What? If you finish all the achievements for a certain class of weapons, you can unlock that class' Golden Gun. For the assault rifles, it's a Golden AK47. The fastest way to do this is to go to a hardcore Team Death match game being played on a map called Shipment and just aim for heads with your weapon the second you spawn and respawn.

Another layer of depth is the Perks system. This is a brilliant system which allows you to customize and choose your abilities. Some perks give you more health, some give you more stamina, some allow you to aim better, some make your grenades stronger, some allow you to reload faster, some allow you to pull the trigger twice as fast, some give you special grenades or weapon attachments, some allow you to hear opponents private chatter, some make you invisible to radar, while others give you claymores and bomb sniffing ability. The higher you rank, the more perks you can unlock and use.

Another layer of depth is the Class system. The class system allows you to customize your setup including primary weapons, secondary weapons, and perks. So you may have an assault class, a sniping class, a run and gun class, a close quarters combat class, a spy class, a silent class, and a bomb squad class.

Even more intriguing is the ability for the ammunition to penetrate walls, just like in real life. This adds another layer of realism and depth. Most of the maps include walls that are penetrable to ammunition. Many times you can take out your enemy by shooting through walls of buildings where they are known to hide, even though you can't actually see them. Combine this with your radar, and you can easily take out enemies hiding in buildings before they even realize you are around. We really enjoyed using this feature a lot. Eventually, playing Search and Destroy you quickly learn where they like to hide and can shoot them before they can see or hear you.

Another added layer of excitement is the challenges. There are a number of challenges that you will achieve without even knowing what they are or what you did. Completion of a challenge earns you a lot of points depending on which one it was. For example, if you fall 30 feet to your death you complete one of the challenges. Others include using nades, claymores properly, killing people using a knife, prone shots, etc. Some are bizarre like the challenge you can earn by shooting and opponents claymore through a wall and killing an enemy player.

Console or PC?
We loved playing this game on a regular computer. Our nod goes to PC. Yes, we played countless hours on the Xbox as well, but it just doesn't compare to PC play. On the PC everything is so customizable and configurable, that you just can't play on anything else after playing on PC. Most gamers you ask will always choose PC over any console when given the choice and it's obvious why.

First and foremost, on PC you can choose your game type, the map you want to play on, and filter the servers based on mode or other features. On Xbox you can't choose your map, you can simply choose the game type (Team Death Match or Search and Destroy) and game mode (hardcore or old school or classic), but you can't select what map you end up with. The PC is far more user friendly and customizable in this regard. 

In terms of performance, consoles are limited to what comes built into them. Games are usually slightly dumbed down. The graphics can't be increased, the sound effects are standard and you can't tweak the settings. For example, you can't turn off the blur effect (depth of field) when you aim down your sights. On the PC you can turn off this feature which allows you to see clearly all the time. Of course, ranked servers will only allow you to change so much, but you get the idea. PC gives you tons more options, and doesn't limit you to the outdated console graphics cards and processing speeds. 

Obviously, the benefit to using a console, is that everyone has the same setup; same ram, same processing power, same graphics and settings. The downside is that even entry level PCs today have better processing power, graphics, and ram than the consoles. You just can't say no to faster performance, graphics, and most importantly superb gameplay. Using a keyboard and mouse is far more intuitive and easy to use than a console gamepad. If you really like gamepads, you can plug one in and use that as well on your PC.

Another distinct advantage of PC play is the ability to play on modified (moded) servers with custom maps, characters, and weapons. You can quickly download these mods and this opens up the game to endless customizations. You obviously can't do this on consoles. In fact, Xbox Live charged users for downloading the new maps. PC online play is free, while on Xbox, you need an Xbox Live account which costs money. Playing online of the Playstation 3 does not cost money. PCs are far superior in regards to downloading, customizations, modifications and cost.

Consoles do beat out PCs in terms of hacking and cheating. It's much easier to be accused of hacking and cheating on PC than console. We did tons of research and yes, cheating does occur and there are all kinds of hacks being sold online. They are expensive, and it takes the fun out of playing the game. However, Call of Duty 4 comes with Punkbuster services built in and if you play on Punkbuster enabled servers, the chances of cheating and hacking go way down. In our weeks of playing we never really could say that we knew for certain that someone was cheating.

We also monitored various websites on hacking and cheating and it seems that Punkbuster always ended up catching them and they would get lifetime bans. You don't want to be banned for life from such an amazing game. Cheating is less likely on consoles, but it is possible.

A lot of times players that play well and know all the hiding spots are accused of cheating. This is unfortunate. Not everyone that plays well is cheating, but it's easy for people to throw out the accusation when they don't play well. Yes, sometimes people take lucky shots, react faster than you, and know your favorite hiding spot. That's not cheating.

In terms of gameplay, the game options are endless. You can select any map, any game type (team death match, search and destroy, capture the flag, etc) and any game mode (hardcore, classic, old school, etc) on the PC version. You can filter servers however you like, you don't have to go through a matching system like on the Xbox. You can also go to custom modified servers with custom maps and characters as well as weapons, and game types. A whole new world of customization is available. Very powerful!

Our Test Systems:
We tested this game on two systems. Both were running Windows XP 64 bit operating systems. We bought and played the game through Valve's Steam platform. Very easy process and smooth running game. We played using the name gamertag "PaintballTimes" on the multiplayer servers, you may have seen us there.

People using Vista experience a 15% drop in speed on the same hardware as those using XP. World records for gaming speed and processing have been set on Windows XP 64 bit systems, and we like Windows XP 64 bit very much. Yes, sometimes drivers are a little harder to find, especially 4 years ago when we first switched, but now all device drivers are compatible.

Our first system was a single Core Intel Pentium 4 running at 3.0 Ghz with 4GB ram on Intel motherboard with a NVidia 7950GT with 512MB ram. Four years ago, this was top of the line. Our second system was a souped up Intel Quad Core 2.66Ghz on an Asus motherboard with 8 GB of ram using a NVidia 8800GT with 512MB ram. Both played extremely well and there was no noticeable difference between the two systems in terms of gameplay. We were able to turn the graphics all the way up on both systems.

Rarely, but at times the weaker system with the 3.0 Ghz Pentium 4 would slow down and lag, but it was unclear if this was from the system or from a slow internet connection. Otherwise, no one could identify a difference in frames per second or gameplay. We never actually measured frames per second, but just evaluated this subjectively based on gameplay experience.

One major difference we noticed was that we had much lower pings with the Asus motherboard than the older Intel board we were using. The new Asus motherboard was equipped with a Gigabit LAN ethernet connection, the Intel was not. Our pings on the old board usually ran around 90ms and went as high as 200 to 300ms. Our pings on the new Asus board were running around 33ms, which was pretty apparent while playing. Now we know why we were not reacting as fast as some of the other players. If you plan on upgrading your motherboard, make sure the one you buy says Gigabit LAN. Of course, this may be due to network traffic issues.

Our keyboard and mouse was the Microsoft Desktop Elite from about 4 years ago. Its a simple wireless keyboard and mouse. We did not purchase a gamer mouse with billions of buttons. Our Microsoft mouse already had tons of buttons. We used the mouse wheel for grenades and special grenades. Scroll the wheel up for grenades, and scroll down for special grenades. We also mapped the press wheel (the wheel is also a middle mouse button) to toggle the grenade launcher or claymores. We also used one of the extra buttons on the mouse closest to the thumb for Melee (knife attack up close) for faster responses to knifing. The other thumb key on the mouse we mapped to reload weapon. We also used the 'E' key as the shift key to toggle sprinting and holding one's breath. It's easy to hold down 'W' to move forward and press 'E' next to it to run. This setup made the most sense. These were the only deviations from normal that we made.

Tips, tricks, strategy:
In order to rank up quickly, play a lot of Headquarters games. If you get a good amount of kills and win you do fairly well. Even if you don't win you do fairly well. This is the fastest way to rank up.

Learn to use your HUD (radar). If you are not on hardcore servers, you can see where your enemies are hiding, you can use your radar to figure out which walls to shoot through and where they may be hiding. Keep an eye on your HUD at all times. In hardcore mode, try to earn an HUD for your team and use it at the correct time; towards the end of a match when you need to find out where the last few guys may be hiding. 

Don't always run and walk upright. The game allows you to crouch and move slowly. Use this often. Enemies can't hear you walking if you are using this technique. Yes, you can use a perk that makes you dead silent, but you don't need to waste a perk, when you can choose to be silent when you need to be.

Listen! If you hear someone walking, that means someone is nearby. It's not always a team mate. You can hear all sorts of things, turn up the volume and listen. You can hear grenades land nearby, you can hear people walking, running, picking up ammo, falling as well as many other things. Pay attention and you will last a lot longer.

Avoid running. When you run, you can't react and start firing your weapon fast enough. You have to stop running, bring up your weapon, and then fire. Always walk when you can because you can quickly fire your weapon. Only run when you have to.

Switch your sidearm soon. As soon as a teammate dies you can switch to your sidearm, and exchange it for your dead buddy's primary weapon (or a dead enemy for that matter). Do this whenever you can and you don't need to waste a perk on this. One of the perks allows you to carry two primary weapons. If you do this, you don't have to waste a perk.

Shoot through the walls. There are well known hiding spots in certain areas. Take a shot or two through the wall and see if you get anything. You'll be surprised. Kind of like fishing. We like to do this and people have called us hackers. As you play more often, you will figure out the areas where this works the best and you can take out enemy players long before they know you exist.

Don't try for fancy kills. I see a lot of players who spot an enemy player and want to sneak up on him to knife him. The enemy eventually spots them and shoots them first. Don't let this happen to you. As soon as you see them, take your shot. Don't try to show off.

To quickly complete weapon challenges, play on the Shipment map in hardcore mode and only take headshots on a server with 20 versus 20. You will quickly complete challenges.

Learn to use the grenade launcher. This is by far our favorite weapon attachment. You can launch grenades into all different areas. Learn to use this device and become an expert at it. Launching grenades (or throwing them) into areas where there are cars will cause the cars to explode and get you even more kills.

Use your air strikes and helicopters appropriately. Helicopters are useful to call in at the beginning of a match. Air strikes are useful to clear an  area or eliminate players trying to defuse a bomb you may have set. In team death match games, helicopters and air strikes can help you rack up more points and more kills to call in more air strikes and helicopters.

Use the stun grenades, not the flash grenades. The stun grenades cause more damage and have a hit detector. Also, enemies are stunned and can't do much. The flash grenades only work if the enemy sees them (is facing the flash) and they only blind them. They can still fire, shoot, run while blind. The stun grenades stun them completely no matter what direction they are facing. Also the stun grenades have a hit detector. When it explodes, it will show an X on your screen letting you know that an enemy was hiding there, and you can rush in and take them out.

Compared to other games?
Like we said, no other game comes close. If you examine just Microsoft Live statistics and reports you will find that at any point in time about 4 million Xbox Live users are playing Call of Duty 4, while only 2 million are on Halo 3. Add in the PC users and PS3 users and you have over 15 million people world wide playing Call of Duty 4 at any given moment. Pretty amazing! The big game this past year was supposed to be Halo 3, obviously this game was a huge disappointment. It seems to be a slightly revised Halo 2, with poorer controls.

You can't really compare Call of Duty 4 to any other game, because of how amazing the game is. Call of Duty focuses on realism, graphics, and true first person shooter, while Halo is more cartoonish and designed as a fun kid's game. One online game magazine said that Call of Duty is for mature adults while children should be playing Halo. Obviously, we know that adults play Halo as well, but this doesn't change the fact that Call of Duty is focused on realism, amazing gameplay and depth, excitement, and stunning graphics.

One complaint that console users have is that you can't play online with more than one person on each console. For example, four people can be at home using 1 Xbox unit to play Halo online against others, while Call of Duty only allows 1 person to use the Xbox to play online against others. This never bothered us since we prefer a full screen to view and play this game, but we understand the concern. And yes, if you have a home network setup, you can use two different PCs to play online against others.

Favorite Weapons:
Our favorite weapons by far were the assault rifles, namely the M16 and the AK47. When playing paintball, our staff prefers playing up front and aggressively, this class of weapons allows you to play that way and is quite versatile.

The M16 was our favorite weapon of all and everyone starts out with it. It has the least sway when looking down the sights and taking aim. It also features no recoil when firing. The only downfall is that it only fires in a three shot burst mode. Because of this it works great for medium to long distance range, but in up close battles, you will have some difficulty. It does a serious amount of damage at almost any range. It inflicts a damage rating of 40 damage points to your enemies (everyone starts out with 100 health points in Hardcore mode). We like to equip this with the grenade launcher for a very versatile weapon. We kept trying to switch to the M4 Carbine which has automatic fire but a damage rating of only 30, but always ended up switching back to the M16. Also, the M4 Carbine has a lot more sway when looking down the sights to aim. One thing you can do is start out with the M16, and pick up an automatic weapon for your sidearm as soon as you can. Our favorite perks for this are always Deep Impact for better wall penetration and Stopping Power for more bullet damage. This was our favorite weapon up until we got the golden AK47. 

The AK47 is a beast when you learn to tame the recoil, which takes a lot of practice. It also has a damage rating of 40, but the recoil is out of control unless you tame it. The advantages is that the AK47 can fire in full automatic mode. So in close quarters combat it plays just as well as long distance. The trick to taming the recoil is to take a few shots at a time, not just holding the trigger in full auto mode. Also, don't place any attachments like a red dot sight or silencer on the AK47, the damage rating goes down to 30. If you want a silencer or red dot sight, you may as well switch to the M4 Carbine since you will have the same damage rating. The M4 has less recoil, faster rate of fire, and quicker reload times. We also like to equip the AK with a grenade launcher, Deep Impact and Stopping Power. This setup is very powerful, and with practice, you will be unstoppable at any distance or any type of battle. The slight disadvantage is that reloading a grenade into grenade launcher takes longer on the AK than most other assault rifles, probably to even out the playing field, otherwise, the AK would be overly superior.

Of all the other weapons we like the Skorpion. The clip is not large and you have to reload a lot but it has a damage rating of 50. It's great in close quarters combat with Stooping Power and Deep Impact. You can't add a grenade launcher to this, so choose either a red dot sight or silencer. Very nice little weapon with no sway at all when looking down the sights to aim.

If you don't like the lack of automatic fire on the M16 or the recoil on the AK47, choose the M4 Carbine, it doesn't do as much damage as the AK47, but seems to be a great compromise. Most players online seem to be using the M4 so you can easily pick one up to replace your sidearm or primary weapon to try it out.

Of all the handguns, the Desert Eagle has the highest damage with a damage rating of 50. But also has the smallest clip which only holds 7 shots. All the other handguns have a damage rating of 40. Of those, the M9 has the largest clip at 15, hence no one should have anything besides the M9 of all the rest of them. In all our classes we have the M9 as our sidearm. It just doesn't make sense to carry around anything else with equal damage but smaller clip.

Also, if you pair the M9 handgun with the MP5 submachine gun, you get a very nice class and they share ammunition, so you get 30 more ammunition for the MP5 as well. You won't have to waste a perk on carrying extra ammunition. The MP5 has a damage rating of 40, like the AK47. This is a very fun combination of weapons as well, but the MP5 has a lot of recoil and is not very accurate.

Our Classes:
Most of our classes include the AK47, Stopping Power and Deep Impact. We have one sniper class using the M16 with a grenade launcher with Stopping Power and Deep Impact. We also have a close quarters combat class that uses a silencer on the M4 Carbine as opposed to a grenade launcher for those little maps and dark maps. Sometimes in close quarters in small maps we use the Skorpion and 3 frag grenades.

We don't really care for the snipers at all. We don't play paintball in a style compatible with sniping, but some people like it. The thing we hated the most is watching a sniper try to shoot at enemies from afar when all the action was happening up front. Especially in Search and Destroy games where no one is left but the sniper, the bomb needs to be defused and he is still a mile away looking for people to shoot as time expires; very frustrating. Also the ACOG scope and the sniper scopes block most of your peripheral vision and this was unacceptable to us. You can't see except in your limited field and you are vulnerable to side attacks.