"[with disdainful sarcasm throughout] Never let it be said that I'm an impressionable twenty-something-gaming-media prick. If I reviewed every bloody game people told me to I wouldn't even have the free time to mainline the heroin necessary to keep me from putting a gun between my teeth; so for the most part I let requests go fuck themselves. The only time I review a game from recommendation is when it is simultaneously recommended by about four thousand bleating lambs (which was the case with Call of Duty 4). This game came recommended more highly than a triple- cunted hooker and brace yourself for a shock because it deserves the praise it gets. ...Mostly. I was surprised because I have this presumption about "serieses" like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor being samey shooters with futile pretensions to realism time-locked Bill-Murray-style somewhere between 1941 and 1945, endlessly repeating America's sole moment of glory in living memory by punching out an endless stream of cackling Nazis with one hand and scoffing apple pie with the other. Call of Duty 4, conversely,is set in the present day which inevitably means that the enemies will either be Arab insurgents, Russians, or both, and the plot will involve the theft of nuclear weapons. And while this turns out to be right on the money it's executed in a very compelling way. The plot deals with a conflict in a Middle East country that tactfully goes unnamed (undoubtedly because the state of that region fluctuates so much that it could be a water slide park by the time time this comes out), and your perspective shifts twitchly between a number of different participants in the conflict, allowing you to experience various different environments and combat styles. The U.S. Marines posted in "Unspecifiedistan" whoop their way into open warfare with their guns balanced on the ends of their massive erections while the stealth-based British SAS scurry around in the bushes like cockney weasels. These changes in perspective in gameplay ensure that boredom is impossible. The controls are tight and intuitive enough to be effective however you have to apply them and to balance the unentertaining seriousness of this sentence: "Boingo boingo whoopsy knickers." What I like about Call of Duty 4 is that there's less of the smarmy, black-and-white "My Country 'Tis of Thee" jingoism that turns me off most war games. While the U.S. Marines act with short-sighted self-righteousness convinced that they're the heroes in their own personal war movie (you know, just like in real life), their attitude eventually leads to them screwing the pooch so hard that the pooch has to lock itself in the bathroom for an hour with a tube of soothing cream."