I recently rented a copy of Call of Duty 4 (or, affectionately known as COD). Now, I should start this post by stating that I’ve grown out of the war based, military FPS genre. It was fun 5 years ago, but everything seems to be the same to me. Either that, or I find the controls too clunky or confusing, ala Rainbow Six. That’s not to say that I won’t play them, they’re just not very high on my list.

Call of Duty though, took me a bit by surprised. Obviously, the details were fantastic. Realistically, when you shoot through a wooden box, the person on the other side gets a piece of the shrapnel. I felt that this is the first game I’ve played that really utilized that. The other thing that really impressed is how immersed I felt in some of the environments. I’ve been in the Middle East (not the war torn parts, but enough to know what it looks like), and some of the levels really captured the essence of those territories. In fact, I commented on how one of the levels really reminded me of Black Hawk Down (the book and the movie).

So COD gets a plus for the look and realism, what about the controls? Well, I actually thought the controls were very easy to use. There didn’t feel to be a dependency on the D pad and most of your actions could be done with little movement, mostly using the trigger buttons and bumpers. I liked this fact a lot as most military games over-utilize the D pad to control your squad and to use peripherals. COD gives you a squad that knows where they need to go and how to get there so you could focus on eliminating the enemy targets.

The other plus with COD is the fact that you don’t play the game as just one guy. You actually go through the story as several different characters and even a few different takes on certain situations (I’m not going to say any more as there was one level that was really , really, cool!). But all these different characters ultimately lead up to the same objective which tied the game up nicely. It also kept the game fresh as you didn’t just run through and blast everyone.

So the game looked and played good, and it didn’t rely on the same old FPS strategy, so what’s not to like about it? It’s way too short! I beat the game in just under a week of playing. Granted, I put a good amount of time into it, it just didn’t take me very long. I’m sure that there will be downloadable content in the future, but I didn’t feel as there was enough to make me want to replay it. I’m sure people will disagree, but that’s just me.

The multiplayer never seemed to work for me the few times I tried it so I won’t even comment on that. From what I hear, it’s pretty good though!

So my rating for COD4 is a 4.5/5. I really enjoyed everything about the game and would encourage everyone to give it a try. My guess is that this is much better suited as a purchase than a rental as the opportunity to download additional missions is there. But even if you rent it, you’ll certainly get your enjoyment out of it!