Six Ways to Frag Your Friends

Server administrators can configure each of the six multi-player modes as standard sessions or as Old School or Hardcore games. The former allows you to jump twice as high and take more damage, with the ability to pick up weapons and perks scattered around the map. In the latter, your heads-up display disappears and damage becomes more realistic, with one well-placed shot potentially taking you out of action.

There are 16 multi-player maps in the game; each one accommodates different game modes.

• Free-For-All: Your classic deathmatch. Your goal is to shoot them before they shoot you.
• Team Deathmatch: Shoot the guys whose names appear in red. Watch your teammates’ backs.
• Search and Destroy: One team must plant and detonate a bomb in one of two locations while the other team tries to stop them. After a predetermined number of rounds, the teams switch roles. Beware: If you die, you sit out until the next round.

• Headquarters: One team must find a randomly selected spot on the map and hold it while setting up a headquarters. Once that’s done, they have to defend that location for a preset period of time. The teams switch sides after a certain number of rounds.
• Sabotage: A bomb sits in the center of the map. Grab it, run to the other team’s base, arm it, and set it off. While you’re carrying it, though, your location will appear on all players’ heads-up displays (HUDs), with the word “KILL” over your head. If the other team frags you, they can pick up the bomb and head for your base.
• Domination: Capture and hold enough areas of the map and your team wins the round.

• Assault: Start the action armed with an M16A4 rifle that has a secondary grenade launcher firing mode and an M9 pistol. This is a good all-around class that can deal out serious damage with its weapons, even from a long distance, while being able to sprint for longer distances than most other classes. On the downside, your opponents will be able to easily see you on their HUD’s radars.
• Spec Ops: The MP5 machinegun and USP .45 pistol with silencer give you an advantage at close and medium range, but don’t bother firing from a distance. You won’t show up on radar when using the pistol, and you start with a pair of C4 explosives, which you can detonate remotely. You also have better aim when firing from the hip.
• Heavy Gunner: Like the assault class, the heavy gunner shows up on radar more readily, but your M249 S.A.W. light machinegun will easily mow down enemies. It takes longer to reload than most weapons in the game, however. You also get a USP .45 pistol without a silencer, three special stun grenades, and extra health.
• Demolitions: Sure, the powerful W1200 shotgun is only good at close range and the M9 pistol is standard-issue, but you start the action with a rocket launcher and a pair of rockets. Like the assault class, you can sprint for longer distances.

• Sniper: Your ghillie suit will help you blend into your surroundings as your M40A3 sniper rifle drops opponents with just one shot. Your three flash grenades will come in handy if someone figures out your hiding spot and comes knocking. On the downside, your rifle has a long reload time and it doesn’t do much damage at close range, where your only other options are your knife or an M9 pistol with a silencer.

• Create-a-Class: This option opens up at level 4 and should become your default. You choose your primary weapon, sidearm, special grenade, and three perks; don’t forget to name your creation. You can see the results of your choices in your accuracy, damage, range, fire rate, and mobility attributes. Of course, you won’t be able to become all-powerful, since each decision you make comes with a downside or two.

  Your perks include the longer sprinting distances, better firing aim from the hip, and other bonuses found in the five standard classes. Once you start creating your own classes, you’ll have many more perks to choose from, such as the ability to reload more quickly or quieter movement. The perks are divided into three groups, and more become available as you reach higher levels, so you can always go back and make changes to the classes you’ve created.

You can also improve your standing in the game by completing a variety of challenges, which you unlock as you reach higher levels. Weapon challenges unlock new attachments, such as silencers, along with new camouflage schemes. Complete all of the challenges for a certain type of weapon and you’ll receive a golden version of it, which doesn’t confer any special bonuses but looks pretty nifty while you’re running around the battlefield.

Call of Duty 4 also features many other challenges that reward you with experience points when you complete them, allowing you to reach new levels faster. These include such achievements as fragging an enemy in mid-air, shooting someone’s C4 explosive to take him out, placing in the top three in Free For All matches, and more. You can learn more about them at the depl0y web site.

You’ll notice laptops scattered around many levels in the single-player game. Collect all 30 of them to unlock a variety of options in the Cheats menu, which becomes active after you complete the campaign once on any difficulty setting. (It’s not available for multi-player matches, of course.) For example, find eight laptops to channel your inner Buster Keaton and make the game look like it’s set during the silent film era, complete with the appropriate graphics filter and a 170% speed increase. Or find ten laptops to make your frag grenades explode five times after they blow up the first time.

Completing the campaign also unlocks the single-player arcade mode, which gives you points for not only disposing of enemies but also killing them in unique ways, such as blowing up a nearby car to take them out. Set the game to a higher difficulty setting to earn more points.

Finally, you can also access a variety of more traditional cheats during the single-player game by pressing the Tilde (~) key to bring up the console. Type “seta thereisacow 1337” (without the quotes) and press Return. Then type “spdevmap” and press Return. You’ll have to exit to the main menu, but simply reload a saved game or start a new one and press the Tilde key again. Now you can enter any of the codes below.

Oh, one last thing: Sit through the end credits after completing the campaign and you’ll get to play a bonus mission.