Call of Duty 4 Beta and Impressions

At Microsoft's E3 Press Conference tonight, the developers of Call of Duty 4 announced an upcoming public multiplayer beta for the Xbox 360. The official website for the beta is http://www.charlieoscardelta.com.

Now the beta and even the signup for the beta is not open yet. I would suggest creating an account at the Charlie Oscar Delta website so you can have quick access to any information they put out about the beta. I would also bet that you need an account to register for the beta.

While I was at the site, I looked around, and I have to say that I have been underestimating Call of Duty 4. It looks amazing. I hadn't paid much attention to it before because it's a wartime FPS, and I figured they are all pretty much the same.

But I didn't predict one of the coolest features I've seen implemented in a FPS in a long time: Perks.

So far they have only revealed three perks, and it looks like perks may only exist in multiplayer. But even if that's true, I'm still very excited about them.



The first perk is Last Stand. See the guy in the picture above, laying next to a chopper with a pistol in his hand? That's Last Stand. When you would normally be dead, you instead fall on your back and pull out your pistol. You cannot move from this position but can fire off pistol shots as you slowly bleed out. Anyone shooting you again will also kill you. And if you don't want to waste time laying around the battlefield, you can also take the "Coward's way out" and kill yourself. This perk allows you to get a last chance to kill someone. I imagine it can be a surprise when the guy you just shot down starts shooting you with a pistol. It's what the Germans would do sometimes in Call of Duty 2.

The next perk is Deep Impact. In COD 4, some guns and bullets will penetrate certain materials such as thin walls, ceilings, floors, etc. The perk of Deep Impact allows your bullets to go further through cover than they normally would. This can mean that your enemy believes he is safe behind a wall, but with your Deep Impact perk, you are still able to kill him without ever seeing him.

The third revealed perk is Double Tap. This allows you to shoot faster than normal with every gun. Obviously, the more bullets that hit an enemy, the faster he dies. Of course, you can also run out of ammo quicker, but you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the Double Tap.

It appears that there will be default "classes" in COD4 multiplayer that will already have perks, but you can choose your own perk to suit your playing style better. I think this will make playing much more enjoyable and unpredictable to everyone involved.

Good job, infinity ward. And I'll see you at the beta.