Tripp Fenderson

Will someone please tell video game publishers that WWII ended 63 years ago? It’s time to move on.

I dropped EA’s Medal of Honor: Airborne into the Xbox 360 over the weekend and couldn’t be bothered to play beyond a couple of levels. The entire game seems tired.

I was accepted into the COD 4 multiplayer beta for Xbox Live this past weekend and finally had a chance to jump in last night for the first time.

A co-worker, STL KR10, set up a party for a number of Media General employees who also got into the demo using the game’s excellent lobby system and we were able to play together as a team for the entire night.

The game is a healthy cross between BF2MC and Rainbow 6 with a dash of Gears of War style gameplay mixed in - a fast paced, tactical shooter.

The maps, Crash, Vacant and Overgrown, all offer excellent gameplay - Crash being the most fun because of the choke points and flanking opportunities.

Points and ranking is handled though a great system that includes kills, assists or other scenarios like kills through thin walls. Ranking up allows you to begin tweaking your character class similar to a RPG - you can modify your weapon loadout, abilities, camo and much more by filling your 3 “perk” slots with things like C4, claymores or rocket-propelled grenades.

What’s more, you’ll be able to save various character setups for different games - meaning you can customize your gameplay depending on the map or team with which you’re working.

I found the character classes, weapons and the upgrade system easy to understand and the control layouts intuitive—and despite being a low rank in the game last night (meaning I got killed A LOT), the game offers something for n00bs (like me) and experienced players alike.

Forget Halo 3. Without question, this is my game of choice for the rest of the year.