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War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing... (say it again - Ed) but enough of my political views, plenty of people buy consoles for the express purpose of fighting battles, be they in the boxing ring, the trenches, or the football pitch. War is big business and the same can be said for the virtual incarnations. The Call Of Duty series, borne out of the design talents of the original Medal Of Honour team is one of the biggest franchises in modern gaming, with every incarnation seeming to take the player further towards military gaming perfection.
This time in COD4 the emphasis is very much on modern warfare, SWAT teams assembled to infiltrate enemy strongholds to gather intelligence, recover WMDs or make assassination attempts on bent dictators. This represents quite a move away from the traditions of the genre, fighting in World War II trenches against the Nazis. Now your distinction between enemies and allies is hazy - the very president of a country you helped install has become your assassination target.
Modern warfare isn't for the feint hearted, most of your operations take place at night, sometimes in treacherous conditions at sea and COD4 makes no bones about its challenging nature. If you don't have the patience or skill to take part in these extremely tough missions, you'll be floundering at the first hurdle. Of course, if you've been preparing for this moment all your life, you'll be rewarded.
Everything about the combat mechanics in Call Of Duty 4 is not only super-realistic but immensely enjoyable too. The 'aim assistance' mode means waving your gun near an enemy will allow you to lock-on to their position. Popping in and out of sniper mode in this way can allow you to dispatch multiple targets quickly and efficiently. You can turn these settings off, but frankly they go a long way to establishing a more realistic simulation, it's arguably harder to aim a gun at an enemy 6 feet away using a control pad than it is in real life, this compensates for that fact.