Regardless of your opinion of World of Warcraft, you can’t deny the game is a juggernaut. Sure, it may not have implemented many new ideas, but what it offered was a package of elements so refined, it may as well be purest heroin to people who like that kind of game. Call of Duty 4 has managed to do the same thing with the FPS. Sure, you’ve played the modern combat shooter before in other games; you probably already know by heart the assortment of weapons you’ll wield throughout both single player and multiplayer campaigns. You’ve probably even been in the virtual Middle East enough in the past few years to pick up a little Arabic. But Call of Duty 4 isn’t just another modern day shooter; it’s not even just another FPS. It may well be the pinnacle of the genre to date-and that’s saying a lot given the competition this last year.Doubtless, you’ve already seen the game in action, so I don’t need to tell you the game is graphically stunning and aurally amazing. But they’re more than just pretty graphics and high-fidelity sound. Developer Infinity Ward combined next gen sights and sounds with story elements to make this virtual war both dramatic and evocative. Dust motes drift to the earth in quiet moments. Laser sights lance across the night sky when you don night vision goggles. Distant gunfire echoes hollowly. Mortally wounded enemies crawl away from you, cough out gurgled last breaths or even take shots at you before they expire. Obviously, this isn’t your father’s World War II game; this is modern combat with all its moral intricacies. On top of all this, COD4 takes an event I’ve witnessed thousands of times in a video game and made it a truly stunning event. When you play it, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Just like they did with World War II in previous Call of Duties (Calls of Duty?), Infinity Ward created a single player campaign that made me all the more grateful toward our veterans. The video game is intense and enjoyable, but at the same time makes it all too easy to imagine how horrible war can be in real life.The single player campaign may leave you shaken, if not stirred more than other shooters, but there’s still more. The multiplayer campaign may lack some of the community features and outlandish weapons of your Halos or your Gears of War, but once I played COD4 online, I never looked back at those admittedly excellent games. COD4 borrowed some of that video game heroin from WoW: leveling up. The more you play, the more experience you earn. The more experience you earn, the more weapons and options you unlock. The more weapons you unlock, the more you want to play. Rinse, repeat and never sleep. In addition to weapons, ranking up on COD4 also opens up more perks. Perks are COD4’s equivalent of power-ups, and you pick three before each match in either pre-loaded player classes or in classes you create for yourself. Want more hit points? Pick Juggernaut. Want to do more damage? Pick the Stopping Power perk. Tired of those damn teabaggers? Pick Martyrdom and drop a grenade every time you die. The highest praise I can give an online multiplayer game: it’s fun enough to make tolerating the mental 12-year-olds who seem to flock to the online FPS more than worthwhile.If you’re even remotely interested in first person shooters, play this game. If you’re even remotely interested in marital or neighborly harmony, play this game with headphones.