There are people who will tell you Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is no big deal, just a prettier version of the last shooting gallery that was released last month or last year. That it's just a big interactive movie, a game where everything from explosions to enemy rushes is all carefully scripted.

Those people are wrong. Ignore them.

That's because Call of Duty 4 is arguably the finest first-person shooter of 2007, from its gripping have-you-ducking-in-your-seat single-player campaign to its addictive I-just-need-a-few-more-kills-to-get-this-cool-weapon spin on multiplayer. If you don't like it, there's a good chance you simply don't like shooters.

As implied by the title, Call of Duty 4 marks a shift for the franchise, leaving World War II behind for a modern-day story set in a fictional version of the Middle East. There are these terrorists, and this Russian ultranationalist... well, really, the particulars are irrelevant. All you need to know is that you play a few different characters chasing down bad guys in an effort to save the world.

Most of the time, you play as "Soap" MacTavish, a British SAS agent, and for a brief period, his commanding officer, Lt. Price. You'll also fill the shoes of Pvt. Paul Jackson of the Marines, as the story routinely shifts back and forth between different POVs. Part of the action happens in the aforementioned fictional Middle East setting, while other missions take place in Eastern Europe, and sometimes even in the past.


While the settings have changed, the basic combat model has not. CoD's "no man fights alone" mantra remains in force here, as you're always fighting as part of a squad, whether it's a small four-man team or a larger infantry unit attempting to rescue an M1 from hostile territory. The game is indeed tightly scripted, but as you move from location to location, you're often thrown into large-scale firefights that offer a great deal of freedom in how you approach them. In the mission "War Pig," for example, you can fight in the streets using rubble and cars for cover, or you can sneak through the collapsing buildings on both sides (at the risk of running into a few more enemies). Many of CoD's missions are worth playing through multiple times, as you'll discover new paths from point A to point B that you didn't realize were available to you.

Like the previous games, CoD4 does an amazing job of bringing its battles to life in a way that will have you crouching in your chair to duck from the constant hail of bullets. Adding to the constant feel of uneasiness is a bullet penetration system that lets you shoot through walls. If standing out in the open dodging makes you nervous, imagine how you'll feel when you think you're safe inside a building and bullets start coming through the walls. Thankfully, enemies don't abuse this ability (at least not on the standard difficulty), so it's more of a benefit to you than the other side.

CoD4 also contains a number of impressive set pieces. Without giving anything away, some are on rails, where you're just along for the ride and shooting anything that pops up in front of you, others put you on the clock and turn you loose with a time limit to achieve an objective, creating even more tension within the missions. To Infinity Ward's credit, these set pieces aren't just fun to play through, but often lay the groundwork for several interesting gambles within the story, and by the time you reach the finale, there's some doubt as to how it'll all turn out. It won't take particularly long to get through the single-player game -- maybe six or seven hours for average players -- but it's satisfying all the way through. (Be sure to stick around after the final credits roll for a little bonus.)