Call of Duty 4: Multiplayer Beta Hands-On

The Call of Duty series has finally left World War II and – like the Battlefield series before it – entered the modern era. And despite initial scepticism, the move is actually looking like a good one, wowing critics at E3 and subsequent events. Recently, a multiplayer beta has been running on Xbox Live, so we decided to arm ourselves, take a deep breath, and prepare for the inevitable slaughter that would follow.

By this time, you’d think that the developers of Call of Duty would have gotten pretty good at creating a tight, focused, and fun multiplayer experience – and you’d be right. Much like Battlefield or Counter Strike, the matches we played were pleasingly solid, especially considering it’s still in beta. The lag was also – for the most part – surprisingly good, with only the occasional hiccup ruining the experience.

For the most part, CoD 4 multiplayer is relatively standard, albeit well polished. You’ll be able to choose from one of several classes (or make your own later on), including a demolitions expert, sniper, heavy gunner, and so on. The usual modes – deathmatch, team deathmatch, and objective-based missions – are all there, and play out exactly how you’d expect. We spent most of our time playing team deathmatch, if only because it meant we died less.

And be warned: unless you’re some sort of first person shooter god, you will die a lot early on. The beta’s match-finding system doesn’t really account for skill level or rankings, so we often found ourselves playing against extremely experienced players. What makes this worse is that you unlock new (and better) weapons and abilities the more you play, with the end result being that the better players also had better and more efficient ways to kill us. If you can put up with a lot of frustrating losses, however, you’ll be able to slowly crawl your way up the rankings ladder, earning promotions and unlocking new upgrades until you actually stand half a chance.

Not coincidentally, this is about when the game started getting pretty fun and addictive. Once we had gotten hold of some better weapons, and learnt to not blindly rush forward into large open spaces, we actually managed to take down some of the enemy, although there always seemed to be another one lurking behind us, who we would spot just as they pulled the trigger.

All in all we were very impressed with the level of polish present in the beta, and the speed and fluidity at which it ran. If things improve even more before the game hits store shelves, gamers keen for some decent multiplayer action should have a field day. But if you’re new to this sort of thing and are looking to get your feet wet, just be warned that you will die a heck of a lot. Either that, or we just really suck at this sort of thing – but it’s a testament to the beta that we still had fun even when we were dropping like flies.