Call of Duty 4: PC Demo 10/11/07

Lalalalala. It's like my birthday almost everyday in October!

COD 4: The Bog Revealed

WATCH BOG LEVEL VIDEO PREVIEW

by Ben Silverman

With their legacy of tight scripting and intense firefights, the Call of Duty games have earned a reputation as being some of the most cinematic first-person shooters ever. That's sure to be the case with the upcoming Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but so far fans have been limited to a multiplayer-only beta on the Xbox 360. While that's garnered its fair share of praise, multiplayer Call of Duty is only half the battle.

Luckily, fans will get their first taste of Call of Duty 4's single-player next week when Activision breaks the internet by releasing the much-anticipated Call of Duty 4 PC single-player demo. (We'll be here to support it in an exclusive download premiere on Yahoo! Games.)

Set in a bombed-out Middle-Eastern city, the 'Bog Rescue' drops you into a nighttime conflict-in-progress. Your primary task is to locate and secure a friendly Abrams M1A2 tank, although first you have to get to the damned thing by navigating through an absolutely chaotic firefight.

Right off the bat, it's clear that the battlefield is more dynamic than in games past. Soldiers bark out orders left and right, taking cover and firing back at the enemies tucked away in partially destroyed buildings. Though the folks at Infinity Ward have repeatedly stressed the importance of taking cover in Call of Duty 4, we were rudely introduced to the concept of 'exploding vehicles' after lingering too long behind an overturned car. It's dark and crazy and bullets whir through the air like mosquitoes. In other words, it's Call of Duty after drinking thirty cups of coffee.

As they follow their squad mates through the remains of the town, gamers will finally get to utilize the much ballyhooed night vision. It's a bit disorienting at first, but soon enough the tactical advantage of seeing your enemy as a bright splotch in the green field of view becomes apparent. The experience is relatively short-lived, however, as soon enough you're instructed to take down a fleet of enemy tanks using the Javelin, a monstrous anti-tank missile launcher. It's an absurdly fun weapon - missiles pop out horizontally and linger for a second before their rockets engage and they zoom vertically into the air, reach their apex and streak down in a hail of smoke and fire.

The Bog's climax comes as you attempt to defend the Abrams tank against a throng of enemies in the round. This highlights everything that makes Call of Duty 4 such an exciting game: gorgeous graphics that hold steady despite tons of onscreen elements, enemy and friendly A.I. engaging each other realistically, gunfire erupting from every which way and you somehow caught in the middle trying to meet your objective without getting killed. It's as intense and frenetic as first-person shooting gets.

And in a matter of days, it will be sitting on your hard drive. Get a sneak peek now in this exclusive video and check back on Oct 11 at 9AM PST to snag the PC demo.

This game is going to look sick on my new system. XD