Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360)

The graphics in the game are top notch, they have all the next-gen features and lighting effects that we've come to expect. There are dynamic missions that change from night to day (probably scripted) and the texturing for everything is sharp and spot on. The game is packed with tracer fire, explosions and special effects that are enough to induce eye-bleeding joy without skipping a frame on the 360. The levels are also varied and some are quite big, they show off the engine nicely and provide some stunning vistas to fight in.

When something explodes in the game, you know about it. It looks gorgeous and coupled with the sheer amount of bullet holes and battle debris it keeps the war-torn feel of the game alive from beginning to end.

The animations in the game are another area where the developers didn't shirk, they look good. Granted you only really see them when the AI performs an action. The weapon designs as well as their animations are likewise excellent, the reloading animation for each gun is set up and timed to near perfection. It's worth switching out for another weapon however depending on how pressured you are in a battle. There's nothing more embarrassing than being shot full of holes because you're in the middle of a reload.

The game has great sound as well, from the gunfire to the music, it's all been packaged together to provide the best possible experience for the player. It features a good solid voice cast and some nice grim lines to go with the cinematic campaign.

The AI is good, it provides a decent level of challenge and the allied AI is not quite the hindrance as it has been in past CoD games. There are times you think you might be playing with a human player when the AI bails you out of a particularly nasty situation. I do have one issue with the game at this point though, it seems as though you have to battle hordes of respawning AI enemies until you hit a certain checkpoint. I never did like constantly spawning enemies.

Once you're done with the single player game you can take the game online. CoD4 has some of the best online multiplayer with a variety of excellent game types, I've played before. I was actually in the beta so I knew what to expect. You earn experience for playing in matches and can rank up, unlocking ranks means you also unlock perks. These are bonus abilities that can drastically change the way you play the game. Some examples include deeper bullet penetration, more damage soak and silent footsteps (great for a covert ops style class).

There are numerous classes on offer in the mp side of the game, and you can also create your own custom class once you advance to the right rank. The experience has been improved from the beta and whilst some servers experience lag and disconnects the majority of the games are pretty much perfect.

There are a lot of options on offer for mp in CoD4; team based game types as well as solo deathmatch kill-athons for those lone wolf players. There are certain game modes that you can apply if you feel like playing old school, Quake style, as well as hardcore mode where you get shot once; you're pretty much dead…there's no fancy HUD or anything.

Basically the game's mp has been crafted to give you: the player, the choices that you want right from the get-go.

There is also a nifty kill-cam that triggers when you die; it gives you a player's eye view of the last few moments of your life as you bite the bullet. Useful for plotting revenge and settling the argument of how you ended up being shot from half-way across the map by a sneaky prone sniper hiding in the long grass.

So all in all, Call of Duty 4 is a superb game that deserves the scores it gets. It's let down by being painfully short in single player and that's about it. The game has a definite feel of playing a war movie but there are times that you feel like an extra rather than the star of the show. There are some interesting new missions that haven't been done before and I'll leave you to find out the ones that I mean.