Preview: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

The world is on fire. A war, waged in far countries on distant shores, has ignited the spirit of the unified nations of the Earth. England, America, and their combined allegiances have targeted the progenitors of terror and destruction across a vast network of intimate, interconnected battlefields. Blood dampens the dusty streets of the Middle East. Bullets pockmark the windswept fields of Eastern Europe. Families of the fallen on both sides of the conflict sing prayers to their lost loved ones.

This is today’s war, fought with today’s weapons by today’s heroes. It isn’t a re-creation of true events; it isn’t real and it isn’t meant to be. But it’s very, very close, and it is, perhaps, one of the best reflections of modern warfare ever seen in a game. And though it is, in every way, a game — for developer Infinity Ward, realism always takes a back seat to gameplay — it’s close, fast, brutal, and just real enough to make it a chillingly provocative diatribe on both mankind’s interminable inhumanity and its endless pursuit of righteousness.

Put simply: Call of Duty 4 is going to be one hell of an experience.