With many shooters you can cover the multiplayer game within a short paragraph when writing a review, but doing so in this case would be doing the game a great injustice. There's so much more to the multiplayer game in Call of Duty 4 than simply a few deathmatch and capture the flag maps added to the game almost as an afterthought.

It's not the game modes themselves that make Call of Duty 4's multiplayer so engrossing. You get your standard deathmatch and team deathmatch games, as well as modes that have each team trying to capture and hold control points or trying to defend/destroy strategic equipment. The map variety is good and features 16 different maps that range from large open areas to tight quarters, and kill streaks are awarded with the ability to call in an UAV to scout enemy locations and the ability to call in air strikes or helicopter gunship support. All of this is great, but what really makes the multiplayer game stand out is its custom class feature.

When playing in multiplayer matches you'll be awarded experience points for actions such as making kills and capturing control points. As you accumulate experience you'll advance in rank and with higher rank comes access to more equipment. Not only that, once you achieve a certain rank you'll gain the ability to design your own custom soldier class. This doesn't just mean that you'll be able to set your own weapons loadout; you'll be able to select a set of specialized skills known as perks.

When creating a custom class you'll be able to select three perks from those available to you. As you achieve higher levels more perks will become available to you, so you'll find yourself always tweaking your custom classes and trying out new perks. The first perk slot is weapons-based and gives you access to more grenades or heavier weapons such as a rocket launcher or a grenade launcher attachment for your main weapon. The next two slots are for special ability perks which range from stat boosters such as increased health to some cool abilities such as Last Stand and Martyrdom. Last Stand gives you a moment to fire your pistol as you lie on the ground dying and is a nice way to get a little revenge on your way out. An even better revenge perk is Martyrdom, which pops the pin on one of your grenades as you die turning your corpse into a lethal weapon.

The perks certainly give you an advantage, but they don't ruin the gameplay for new players just starting out. It's possible through luck or skill to take out an ubersoldier at a higher level than you and it's not that rare an occurrence either. The first time I played the game on Xbox Live I was placed into a game filled with higher level players. Although I was killed more often than I took out other players, I still managed to gain enough experience in that game to advance a level. And that was in a deathmatch game. If you stick to the team-based modes at first you'll have an even better chance to level up since you can gain experience for actions such as assisting on a kill or for being part of the winning team.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 96%. Call of Duty 4 easily earns its place among the elite shooters available for the Xbox 360.

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