So like anyone with an internet connection and functioning eyes, I've been bombarded for the past month-ish by everything talking -- endlessly -- about Call of Duty 4. Big whopping deal, thinks me, I played Call of Duty 2 and could probably have only disliked it more if it gave me crabs, so why in god's name am I going to give half a piss about the same damn thing set in the modern era. Ooo, the Modern Era. 'Cause World War II was getting kinda stale after the eighteen-trillion-billionth D-Day scenario, so hey! Let's change it up. Woo. Now we have squad based military combat. Shit, that's right up there with making a Star Wars game with a Hoth level.

The hell do I care about such games? thinks me. I got excited when I found out I could emulate Bubble Bobble and Street Fighter III in the same program without having to change chairs to switch to the Dreamcast; my priorities are probably kinda screwed. If I wanna play Games Where You Shoot Some Guys I'll bust out Painkiller again.

But people wouldn't shut up about it. Oh, the single player is like the best action move EVARS, Oh, it has these awesome unlockable cheats that stains everything sepia toned and plays parlor music, Oh, your AI controlled squaddies aren't a bunch of gibbering retards and actually do stuff instead of running into a wall and dropping flashbangs on their feet, blah blah blah blah.

So yeah, here's me, a couple days later. I went to my girlfriend's parent's house for the holidays and lo, her brother had the game out for his 360 and was in the process of merging with some kind of Xbox Live Consciousness Singularity as far as I could tell. After his mom somehow managed to unhinge him from the console, I plunked down and figured I'd give it a whirl. In about 2 seconds Tim had pointed me into one of the cooler thematic levels wherein you and a buddy are all dressed up in camouflage, armed with silent high-powered rifles, and turned loose in Prypiat to go snipe some nuclear-bomb selling baddie in his face.

I love stealth gameplay (yes we do exist, and fuck off; I was there when Tenchu 1 dropped so don't get all Splinter Cell/MGS/Whatever whiny on me), I love giant abandoned cities to run around in (Stalker basically had me semi-turgid the entire time I was playing it), and while I'm not big on "realistic" run and gunnin', I do love me some sniping.

On top of that, this was actually done right. Checkpoints were fairly generous, the game knew when to take a breather and let the setting sink in, and the actual snipe itself isn't even the climax of the mission. Getting in and out (unseen) is. Modern day Ninjas with Guns and General Badassery is what it was.

When time came for the actual kill, it almost becomes a minigame. You spend the first half of the level sneaking into a hotel a mile(!) away from where your target will be and then waiting there for two days(!!) until he shows up. When you finally do get to take your shot at him, your partner rattles off all kinds of insane shit regarding how tricky the shot is going to be, which Tim translated: "See the flag on the jeep near him? See how it's blowing in the wind? The wind moves the bullet in the direction its blowing, so you either have to lead him or wait for it to die down. It takes like two minutes. I was sitting here forever."

At this point years and years and countless hours of muscle memory and mental dissection of game design kicked in, and I fired the shot about four feet from the guy and watched the wind gently curve it straight into his skull, which flew apart with satisfying results. Score! Tim grunted in what I will assume was approval, and that was pretty much it for me.

When time came to go, my girlfriend's mom was stuck with the unenviable task of trying to pry me away from the game. Wasn't easy.

So yeah, first thing I did when I got home was hop on Steam and buy it. Sigh.

Imagine my glee when it turned out to pretty much be the best thing I've played all year. It's got the "realism" bit in there but at no time does this come at the expense of the gameplay, which is tight, vicious, and just arcadey enough to be fun without turning into gun porn.

So yes I am a giant sellout, score one for the mainstream gaming scene, I hereby revoke my Cave Story rights, whatever. This game lets me solve airplane hostage situations. With guns. And grenades. While in flight.

And I haven't even cracked the multiplayer.

Kill me now.