Call of Duty 4. Now With Less Nazis.

The Call of Duty series has finally moved away from focusing on World War II. Don’t get me wrong it’s a great series but there are only so many times that I can kill Nazis without it getting repetitive (Note: Nazis are still bad). But the new setting has to deal with many of the same issues of repetitiveness that plagued Call of Duty one through three.

Now, there isn’t a lot of room for innovations in first person shooters, the mechanics are always the same. Point at something and shoot until it dies or blows up, whichever comes first (sometimes an enemy dies and blows up). So the real change has to come in setting, weaponry, and bonus features. Story is not a real factor in the FPS genre, so that doesn’t count. Call of Duty makes an effort to change all of these things, and while I applaud them, it’s still pretty much just shooting at things.

I played the multiplayer game with a couple of friends. We played a couple of normal matches where we ran around and shot at each other in ways that would get any real soldier sniped. But after a while we found ourselves mixing it up to stay entertained.

What I really enjoyed was the addition of special abilities to each of the different soldier classes. For example, there is an ability called Last Stand. It essentially means that if you are killed, you have a chance to kill the opponent as you slowly die. It adds a level of realism, not to mention that it makes for fun moments when the dude that just killed you tries to teabag you and ends up with a bullet in his rectum.

Getting that impossible kill is still fun as all hell, but it isn’t new. As I played with my friends whooping and hollering over the fact that one of them popped up behind the other and pumped him full of lead, I had the feeling that I had played this before.

I’m not a tactician, I really only play these types of games to enjoy my time off. I may not see the intricacies of every weapon, the detail of all the terrain, or how realistic sniping is, what I do know is that this isn't a game I would play by myself. It’s the same FPS experience as before, granted that it is just slightly above average thanks to the special abilities and the fact that I’m no longer transported to Normandy 1945 every time I load up the game disc.

The joy of games like these really comes from those who you play it with, so all I can say is avoid the jerks online if you don’t want to take your headset and send it flying across the room. -- Elvis Ramirez