Call of Duty’s exciting story has backstabbing, betrayals, takeovers, breakaway factions, a determination to succeed no matter what the cost - and that’s just the developers. The series has earned over three billion dollars in seven years, which is more money-for-killing than every hitman in the world. And some of the smaller armies. Lets look over the highs and lows of one the best-selling series in the history of shooting other countries in the face.

We’ll start with a Metacritic roundup of all the games.

You may notice a slight up-down trend. Let’s look closer.

Call of Duty (2003) 91%

For younger gamers: that thing in the lower right is called a “health bar”, and we hated it.

The original and not-best, because that’s the way series should be: starting with a good idea and then getting better instead of running it into the ground. Built on the Quake III engine, the first Call of Duty was a huge success, and you’ll still find people playing CoD servers despite seven games and nine years between then and now. It won Infinity Ward multiple Game of the Year awards, and set the course of the company for the rest of the decade.

Call of Duty: United Offensive (2004) 87%

Now we have textures as well as polygons!

If the popularity of Call of Duty defined Infinity Ward’s approach to making great games, United Offensive defined Activision’s determination to milk it- even if that meant getting someone else to make a less-great game. United Offensive servers are certainly fun, an assortment of extra levels for enemies, multiple, for the shooting of, but by bringing in other companies (Gray Matter Interaction and Pi Studios) Activision proved early on that they cared nothing for IW’s ownership of the series. The reduced score showed the effects, but the continued sales meant Activision didn’t care.

Call of Duty 2 (2005) 86%

A brave soldier, a rifle, and no health bar! Regenerative health will win this war!

Back with Infinity Ward for a true sequel, but Call of Duty 2 was the first to show signs of a major new factor in PC game design: the fact that it was really XBox game design.  CoD2 was a spectacularly successful Xbox launch title, and this early on the console-cannibalization of the series the PC version didn’t suffer. The review scores did, dropping by 5% from the first game, but that’s probably due to World War II fatigue - by now videogamers had spent far longer in that conflict than everyone who actually fought it put together, and as a setting it was becoming played out. A lesson Infinity Ward would learn, but Activision wouldn’t.

Call of Duty 3 (2006) 0%

So how are we meant to aim these things with a thumbstick, sarge?

Treyarch’s first main entry in the series, and one which showed their complete and total contempt for PC gamers. Call of Duty 3 was released for every games console in the world except the PC (that silly machine where the series began, the one with the “mouse” - you know, the best controller for shooting games.) This gives it an effective PC metacritic score of sweet Frag All. Treyarch made the game based on their experience, and that experience was making “Call of Duty 2: Big Red One” for the consoles. AKA “Copying Infinity Ward’s stuff for money because Activision told us to.” Call of Duty 3 showed the same level of innovation, in the same way the Sahara shows the same sea level as the Gobi desert, keeping the series stuck firmly in the mud of the war.

These extras were brought in because Infinity Ward had all these crazy awkward ideas like “You can’t make anything more than a level pack in a year” and “We’d like to release appreciably better games, not the same game for more money.”

Modern Warfare (2007) 94%

What it felt like to be a rival shooter at the time

Back with the real developers and the real series: great success! Call of Duty 4 invigorated the series like three lightning bolts turbocharging an espresso machine, giving the series a fresh setting, an engrossing story, and creating a multiplayer mode that’s as near as possible to an MMOFPS. Modern Warfare servers are still busy, always, and the ModWar mode allows private servers to customize their playstyle.

The closest anyone could come to insulting the game was the idiotic XBox World 360 complaining that it didn’t revolutionize the genre. Which was like complaining that the fountain of youth serves crappy drinks because you still have to drink with your mouth.

World At War (2008) 83%

When a game’s addition is “TANKS!”, that game is good

Let’s be clear: World at War servers are some of the best World War II shooting you’ll find - there are weapons from all the major factions, you get to level up your skills and perks (Treyarch copying from IW’s work example number five hundred), and it’s a lot of fun. But we’re still back in the bloody war, again, despite Infinity Ward demonstrating that everyone loved not being there. One of the few aspects of warfare players share with actual veterans. Treyarch are great programmers, but they’re about as imaginative as vanilla-flavored ice-cream knock-knocking on a chicken crossing the road. The aggregate score fell over ten percent, proving IW right in getting out of the World War business.

Modern Warfare 2 (2009) 85%

The clue is in the title - instead of another innovative upgrade to the series, IW pumped out a sequel to the previous game. One so obvious (and so demanded) that they didn’t even bother with a new name, just sticking a 2 on the end of the title. Which is as close as the authors of a series can come to being sarcastic since they’ve basically called their own game “Call of Duty 4, 2.” They couldn’t be admitting it was any more unoriginal if they found it in Treyarch’s photocopier.

This is where the real problems set in, with Activision basically firing Infinity Ward after making one of the best-selling games in either company’s history so that they wouldn’t have to share the money. For more information on that, please refer to any gaming website ever. For more evidence of the growing problems with the series, note how Modern Warfare 2 doesn’t allow private servers. Which is basically the company saying “Don’t get any ideas about playing this for long - we’ll have another game next year.”

Black Ops (2010) 82%

We’re back with Treyarch, back with dropping scores, and back with treating PC players like foul-smelling hobos. This game featured the the amazing piss-take that was restricted private servers: the ludicrous idea that while you could rent “private” servers, you could only rent them from the one company allowed by Activision. Which proves that as well as photocopies of every scribble the good IW employees made while they were in the building, Activision also have a a radically different dictionary from the rest of the English-speaking world. This company then gives more of your money to Activision, pumping up the price for less than no extra service, and keeping strict controls on what you were allowed to do on “Your” server. It did at least feature Treyarch finally moving on to a new setting, albeit only after Infinity Ward did it. So, standard Treyarch, then.

As if to counter this daring departure from the norm, they kept to their main norm twice as hard. The norm of “releasing a giant paycheck, sorry, ‘game’, every year no matter what the cost.” The cost in this case was game-breaking multiplayer lag on the PC (call us finicky, but if we were going to restrict our entire game to one set of servers we’d at least make sure those servers worked), broken graphics on some PS3-TV combinations, and generally a sense that if the release date had arrived any earlier they’d have sold the game boxes for $60 with an “IOU one game” note inside. The game has been brutalized on user-review sites like amazon, despite scoring 82% on metacritic. But it’s not like a series now built on immense hype and gigantic advertising budgets would ever do anything to affect official reviewers.

Summary

Short form: Call of Duty games good, Infinity Ward ones great, and the best bit is how games stay good as long as people want to play them. From the die-hards on original Call of Duty servers to the series’ apex of Modern Warfare, it’s all still online for you to jump in and play. While we all wait to see what Infinity Ward are legally allowed to make next, and whether the next CoD will even be playable.

Making a gun game sequel should be simplicity itself: if shooting something works, shooting it twice should be even better - double-tapping is something you actually do with real guns, after all.  But just like lots of (in fact, almost ALL) other things you do with guns, they’re a lot less fun in real life.   While they should be the best thing ever - instead of aching in the uncertainty of an experimental project, the development team know people love their game - the problem is that franchises attract marketing like fruit attracts flies.

Bioshock wasn’t just brilliant: any game which allows you to read Atlas Shrugged by shooting killer genetic bees at people could revolutionize the educational system.  But while the first was a nightmarish journey through a sinking Art Deco dream, the second felt like you’d forgotten your keys: an annoying return which should never have happened.

Modern Warfare 2 was the worst kind of sequel, retreading the same ground only to extract extra money and abuse the popularity of the previous game, not as a basis for improvement, but as bait to ram through horrifically bad features.  The loss of dedicated servers crippled the gaming experience, while the focus on Xboxers instead of proper PC controls damaged even regular gameplay.

How To Do It

It’s been four months since Activision unleashed their unholy experiment in server-less shooting, and the results are in:  Modern Warfare 2 is a catalog of disaster. A collection of horrific mistakes inflicted on more players than there are people in Switzerland - although the Swiss don’t get pissed off with connection issues and emigrate to Bad Compania.  It’s earned Activision sales in excess of three billion dollars, i.e. more than the GDP of Greenland, so the important question is why don’t they give a rat’s ass about players?

He’s looking for a Mod to do something about the Javelin Guy.

The answer’s simple: players are expensive, annoying, and probably don’t exist as a word in Activision HQ because “sales” sounds so much nicer.  Which is why Activision have been on a quest to get rid of the troublesome things since acquiring Infinity Ward, the goose that laid the golden egg which revolutionized a stale shooter market.  First they pulled Call of Duty from the goose, painted Treyarch the same color and shouted “Make something just as good while doing exactly what we say!”

Then they went back to Modern Warfare but stripped out the most important multiplayer bit - online shooting without server control is like driving without gearbox control - and as soon as it became one of the bestselling games of all time anyway, they very publicly fired the people responsible.  Over the resulting hullabaloo they’re insisting that there will be another CoD next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and then for bonus points they erected a vast neon sign above their headquarters reading “CALL OF DUTY IS JUST A BRAND WE CAN STICK ON A BOX TO SELL WHATEVER WE LIKE.”  Effectively.

So what can we expect in the conversion of Modern Warfare servers from “Amazing shooter” to “Activision’s Q3 budget Report Powerpoint Item #2″?  Well you can permanently forget that server business for a start.  Activision’s accountants cunningly calculated that developing both a PC and XBox 360 version of a game is twice is expensive, and all beancounters know nothing more expensive can ever be good in any way.

So they chose to make the XBox 360 version for both systems.  Because why on Earth would you improve both with the option of private servers, where players can control their games, set up specific matches, or hang out with their friends?  That’s practically cyber-communism!  Private servers and modifications only leads to terrible things like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress (and TF2), insane alternate playmodes like prop hunt or highlander, none of which provide money for Activision.  Just stupid non-accountable things like “happy customers”.  If Activision want good alternate games, they’ll buy the companies making them, sack key staff, and then sell you the results as DLC and you’ll like it.

Because the scruffy “paying players” no longer have any real control of any kind, this turns every server into a wild west frontier town where civilians have their arms tied behind their backs and the nearest Sheriff lives in Antarctica.  The combination of random match-ups, code more hideously flawed than the elephant man, and the fact that the average online person is an asshole - the entire reason we build private servers and friends lists - turned Modern Warfare 2 into a “What magic powers do you want douchebags to destroy you with today?” competition.  Infinite ammo?  Suicide bombing?  The Flash charging around with a knife?  Whatever it is, you’d better enjoy it until the patch is carved from stone and everyone complaining about it is banned!

Oh, and if they happened to make a game where the knife outperforms an assault rifle?  Pay $59.99 for the sequel and hope they fixed it, because they aren’t going to do a damn thing!  They’ve announced plans for a CoD game every year without exception - why would they fix a game six months after release?  That might mean you keep playing it!

Who do you think they are, Valve?

Cries of joy substituted for shellfire across the servers last night, as millions of Allied troops celebrated victory in World War II for the three thousand and sixty-fifth time that day.

“It’s been a hard struggle” said Sergeant Martin, who first answered the Call of Duty in 2004 (and again in 2005, 2006, and once more in 2008.)  “Those dirty Huns sure are persistent, and seem to keep reappearing five-to-seventeen seconds after you kill them, but by God we pushed forward and stood on the designated map marker for thirty seconds.  Thereby resolving the entire nightmarish tangle of debts and international pressures which drowned a quarter of the world in blood.”

The Reichstag Falls (127.7 times per hour)

“We fought for this one,” agreed Private Brigs, surveying the streets of dod_avalanche - now silent as combatants rested and checked their kill/death ratios.  “When I think of the millions of deaths in this struggle - several thousand of them my own - I can only hope future generations remember what it is we did here, and why.”

The spirit of Private Jones, reincarnated into a Wolfenstein server by the intensity of the combat (and the dynamic vertex-based anchored animation technology of the  modified Quake III graphics engine) reported confusion over the victory.  “In my day, we just shot them,” he complained.  “I don’t recall ever watching a timer and shooting them three seconds later to do more damage.  Most peculiar.”

Red Orchestra units on the Gazala Line were too busy to comment as a three-man team is required to move each tank effectively, though many gunners were heard to comment on “balancing” of the Allied and Axis units” - removing any incredible technical superiority one side may have had, for example - had helped with the American victory.  Did they say American?  Sorry, they’re sure they meant Allied and no disrespect for the millions of British, Russian, Australian and other nationalities who carried the bulk of the fighting.

“It’s strange, mankind seems to keep fighting these same senseless wars over and over again,” said Martin, visibly tensing for the resumption of hostilities.  “And I don’t mean wars of greed, or fear, or against those who look different.  I mean these exact wars.  I’ve taken part in Market Garden so often I’ve left a furrow, and I’m thinking of bringing a bucket and spade for the next time through the Normandy beaches.  Desperately fighting for survival there is beginning to get a bit samey.”

“We can only hope that future generations will live in peace,” he concluded, hurrying to reload the Thompson which has been rendered by seven different graphics engines in the time he’s used it.  “That they’ll understand the importance of brotherhood, and respect, and basically not calling people you’ve never met stupid noob faggots for no reason.”

Dino D-Day hasn’t won the Lifetime “Gravity Gun Throwing BFGs” Award for Best Concept Ever, but only because that award doesn’t exist. And the award doesn’t exist only because we never knew that Dino D-Day would be invented, creating an impossible spiral of awesome which risks destroying the laws of logic by being a better concept than our universe was built to withstand.

This isn’t some trash flash web-garbage where the ‘funny’ title took three-quarters of the development time: this is a full Source engine game pitting a lone hero against the entirety of a Jurassic Reich. With a free demo already online you can go download it right now and be blasting dinosaurs within the hour, for free, effectively making the next sixty minutes an intelligence test. Because anyone who doesn’t do that is a fool.

All your old favorites from World at War, MoH, and Day of Defeat servers are present and correct: the Thompson, the stick grenade, and of course the Garand which - as always - musically ‘tings’ as it ejects a spent clip. What isn’t as always is that it tings because you’re desperately pumping those shots into a charging triceratops, which is exactly the sort of shakeup you need to make these weapons fresh after approximately one million World War II titles.

The only time it’s acceptable to NOT shoot a videogame Nazi.

Because this game doesn’t rely on its gimmick: it’s a real shooter, and if the demo level is anything to go by that’s short for “really fantastic shooter”. In a single level there are several modes of play: standard Nazi-plugging; a three-way armed misunderstanding between you, Nazis and a Triceratops; being stalked through a maze of ruins by a swarm of raptors; and a final battle against if-I-even-need-to-tell-you-what-you-won’t-get-it.

Now you tell me

Particularly pleasant is the tightness of the weapons: like Half Life 2 Deathmatch servers before it, the game really rewards accurate shooting instead of spraying. Yes, that does extend to dinosaur headshots. A phrase so incredible we’re going to say it again without even pretending to have an excuse: DINOSAUR HEADSHOTS.

You can also do this! (If you don’t want to do this please leave our site.)

There’s also real humor and skill in developing the brilliant concept. The website is stuffed with great propaganda material (including an announcement that Eisenhower is serious about sending only one man against the entire Dino horde). The full game will be released on Steam later this year, featuring a full multiplayer deathmatch (so you can see Source physics on something other than Counter-Strike servers for once) and all sorts of goodies. But don’t just take our word for it: watch this, and if you’re not excited by the end please check to make sure that you aren’t dead.

Let’s be honest:  first person shooters live on PC.  They might survive as crippled console versions, thumbsticks turning at the same speed and accuracy as the average wheelchair, hooked up to auto-aiming life support to stave off Terminal Lack Of Mouse, but it’s only on real computers that the ability to aim actually means something.

Second honesty: single player is practice.  That’s all.  It might be the most cinematic practice you’ve ever seen, with incredible set pieces and innovative action scenes allowing to you to indulge in every Hollywood fantasy, but as long as the enemies are AI it’s just a glorified Tutorial.  You played through Modern Warfare for the fun, World at War for access to the Zombie servers, but it’s all sort of pointless unless you’re plugging people so that victory means “You’re better than someone”, not “The computer was programmed to let you have that.”  That’s what game servers are for, and that’s why we’re looking at the most popular multiplayer FPSs:

1.  Counter-Strike

If this is news then please, stop wasting time here and get your ass onto a Counter-Strike server right now.  Right now there are more people playing CS than there are holding hands, which might sound like it says something scary about society until you realise romance never killed any terrorists.  Various versions take up the first, second and seventh positions on the most-played list - and that’s not just shooters, that’s in terms of every game Valve has (to say nothing of the thousands of pirate players out there).  Counter-Strike: Source is now outperforming 1.6 servers (despite the complaints of purists), and even the relatively unpopular Condition Zero servers are stuffed with several thousand players at all times.  Or to put it another way: statistically speaking, Counter Strike is more popular than Shakespeare.

2.  Call of Duty 4

Things can get a little hectic

Modern Warfare servers continue to crush even their own sequel, with World at War servers lagging behind because of “Less impressive weapons”, “Not being made by Infinity Ward” and the all-important “Being yet another World War II game even though the reason we were excited before was because Modern Warfare didn’t do that” factor.  Cod4 is the top FPS on X-fire’s total playtime charts ranking only behind World of Warcraft overall - and ranking below WoW in playtime is like ranking below the universe in size.

3.  Team Fortress 2

It’s all about class balance

Valve’s magnum opus of online play, and proof that a decade of development time pays off.  Team Fortress 2 servers rank second only to Counter-Strike on Valve’s charts, and even outperforms Football Manager 2009, the biggest non-shooting-people-in-the-face title on their service.  For some reason.  The constant addition of new maps, fixes and unlocks keeps the population pumped up, although it’s still a factor of four behind even the closest Counter-Strike game.  But then, many religions have less devout followings than CS.

4.  Left 4 Dead

This game is fun

Multiplying the number of players by the average game bodycount, L4D servers shoot through three million zombie corpses an hour.  It seems those protesting the sequel were an extremely vocal minority, with most players far too busy “actually playing the game” and “enjoying themselves” to waste much time on such silliness.  It also means that at this very second there are at least four kilo-Louii running around with machine guns.

5.  Day of Defeat

There’s a slight learning curve

Ruggedly hanging in at number five are the Day of Defeat servers (both Source and old-school) - guilty of being set in the same time period as 90% of all known games, but at least with the excuse of coming from a time before the problem wasn’t quite so bad.  It also shares the status of being a Half Life modification, meaning that the altered adventures of Gordon Freeman literally have the entire FPS table surrounded.

The best thing about having your own server is that you can take some of the greatest games ever made, and play them exactly how you want. Some scum won’t stop using rifle grenades on CoD4? Kick him! Want to play Well despite nobody in the world liking that map? Go ahead! And thanks to the hard work of modding community FPSBanana, you can redecorate in ways you never thought possible:

1. The Glorious Francis Heavy Skin

In the best cross-over ever (until the Portal gun turns up in Half Life Episode 3), Left4Dead’s Francis can escape the infected - to a TF2 server. This skin retextures everyone’s favorite weapon-wielding Russian into Mr “I Hate Everything” himself. Install it client-side and only you’ll be able to see it, but if you host a TF2 server you can upload the upgrade for everyone to enjoy!

I hate RED!

Just imagine if Francis could take Natascha to fight the Horde - why, he’d be invincible! For about ten seconds. Then he’d run out of ammo and die, but man, it would be so sweet up till then!

2. That’s Not A Knife, THIS Is A Knife!

It’s a fact that Counter-Strike servers are still the most popular around. It’s also a fact that the most popular skins are all insanely detailed knives and weapons, which would be more worrying except the whole point of the game is “Use knives and weapons.” If you’re the kind of CS server master who can run around eliminating enemies with nothing but a knife, you should definitely make it a nice one. The terrifyingly specific “M9 Probis III” knife is the most popular.

I’m the one holding it and this thing terrifies ME.

3. Tuxedo Sleeves

Slick stunt-style shooter The Specialists may not have a Source upgrade, running off the original Half-Life engine, but it still has class. Modder “Jeffysan” certainly thinks so, tweaking the code for nothing more than giving you trendy tuxedo sleeves as you obliterate the opposition.

On one hand this is wasted effort - it doesn’t affect the game, and you barely see it. On the other hand, it makes you feel that tiny bit more like Bond and is therefore absolutely essential.

4. Band of Brothers on the Day of Defeat

Day of Defeat servers get some pop culture love with a TV-upgrade, swapping out one of the skins for Ronald Speirs. If you just asked “Ronald Who?”, you don’t watch Band of Brothers and can move on to the next item. Fans may wish to have a look at this fun skin:

5. Dead4Left

Technically the easiest mod on the list as it only copies the survivor skins over the infected, but come on, that’s pretty fun looking. It’s also a bit of a cheat on our part - the mod is single-player only, so you can’t run it on your L4D server, but we figured it was more than cool enough to let people know. And you just know that the community are working on a full multiplayer infected/survivor switch.

6. The Most Terrifying Mod Ever

Say goodbye to Silent Hill, because this is the most mentally scarring videogame you’ll ever see. That chick from the Ring could get on BitTorrent and come out of every computer in the country, and it’d only be a welcome break from the screaming. Of course it’s for L4D servers, and we warn you: don’t scroll down if you’re eating:

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

How can the Boomer be made so much more terrifying by putting more clothes ON? What horrible inversion of fashion, flesh and mortal sanity makes a spraypainted thong worse than infected nakedness? We don’t know, but we salute Darksider1972 for advancing the frontiers of Lovecraftian insanity to find out.

Video games have come a long way in forty years - the average controller has more buttons than the first computers, and the internet connects you to so many people Nintendo are terrified to let you do anything but press “A”.  But what does the future hold for those of us who live in online game servers?  What do we want from future technology?

1.  A wargame where jumping like a tazed rabbit doesn’t confer a tactical advantage

The Call of Duty series creates an incredibly realistic environment, equips you with authentic weapons, has graphics so advanced that ghillie suits work, and then prances all over that with players leaping like turbo-boosted kangaroos.  The only way a marine could jump that high in full kit is by standing on a claymore, and in real life, a terrorist whose panic reaction to an MP5 is jumping?  He’ll be that soldier’s “funniest confirmed kill I ever had”.

On CoD4 servers you can be killed by expert players who bounce and crouch like fast-forwarded gymnasts.  An amphetamined-Mario couldn’t keep up with them.  You’re pouring machine gun fire right into them, and when they land behind your corpse after a triple inversion somersault you expect them to score 6.0 for Grace, 5.9 Agility, and 0.0 in Realities of War.  Halo servers technically suffer this problem even worse, with ten-tonne armored space marines leaping like they have trampoline-simulators in their futuristic space boots, but the great thing about cyborg soldiers fighting a race of space-mushrooms is that it never claimed to be realistic.

2.  Mice which administer electrical shocks to people who miss five times in a row but still play Sniper

Achievements, the greatest gaming breakthrough of the generation. Back in the 8-bit days, no-one was paid to say things like “Shooting monkeys in Monkey Shooter II is fun, but it would be EVEN BETTER if there was a little ‘ding’ noise for shooting monkeys!” Truly, we have progressed as a species.  In some direction.

Achievements are all-dominating ambition overrides - players will abandon their teams, jobs and families to color in those bewitching boxes, and a single malicious Valve update could kill 20% of all gamers:

Some real achievements are even worse:


1. Does It Hurt When I Do This?

Complaining about free TF2 server updates is like complaining about free money. Then again, if that money turns your team-mates into idiots you might have a point, and that’s exactly what happened with the Medic Update. Valve’s explanation for the abomination-selection of achievements was that they were “experimenting”, see what could work.

But this wasn’t “Let’s try mixing these chemicals” experimenting, this was “Let’s implant the brain of a serial killer in this gorilla and give it nuclear weapons for hands” experimenting. There was no possible way this could work - you’re setting the class who shouldn’t be fighting in the first place, using the worst weapon in the game, against the hardest to hit target on a Team Fortress 2 server. A target who can easily run right through twenty stupid syringes and bat the doctor into two-dimensionality.

If you’re playing on Call of Duty 5 servers, and you should be because TANKS!, then you know it’s all about the K/D spread. A hundred kills doesn’t mean jack if you died a hundred-and-one times doing it - in fact, that makes you a slightly worse player than Leroy Jenkins during a power cut.

No wonder they lost the war- they only had ONE good player!

Team Deathmatch is decided entirely by score, in Search and Destroy a positive K/D means the enemy is outnumbered, and in Domination the more time your enemies spend dead and sprinting from their spawn, the longer you have the flags. Even without the minor “actually winning” incentive, World at War servers reward kill streaks like a drunken Santa Claus handing out winning lottery tickets. Recon flights are the key to victory, Artillery is literally a rain of airborne death, and Dogs! Dogs, run-ohgod-enemy-mincing Dogs!

So how can you get that vital number out of the negative? Here we show strategies for four basic class types. (Sorry, you Snipers and Solid Snakes will have to wait till next time.)

1. Rifleman

This class sums up everything you need to know on a World at War server: it demands accuracy over rate of fire, you need cover slightly more than oxygen, and if you run around like you’re on a Quake server you’ll get minced. Then the mince will be run over, pureed, the puree will be fed to genetically enhanced piranha which will then be shot. Time spent with your trusty M1 Garand teaches you all about using cover, aiming, and just how far away people can be and still blow your head off. Hint: quite far.

Can you see that infantryman? My rifle can!

You need to kill two players to justify every existence, like some sort of inferiority-complexed vampire: the best way is to find good cover near the front lines and hammer five rounds into anyone dumb enough to stick their head up. Notice how you’ve already learned what’s dumb, and what not to do?

2. Sub-machine Gunner

You can swap range for rapid-fire by equipping a sub-machine gun. This is the mode most like a Halo servers, running and gunning to rack up a bodycount, but it’s a dangerous game. Even more dangerous than running around a battlefield with a machine gun normally is. The more you move the greater the chances of an enemy just happening to be point the right way (for them) as you enter, ending your streak. On CoD5 servers, flanking outranks twitch-aim.

Hey, Mongoloid, how about YOU go check out that enemy-filled room first?

K/D cultivating commands:
- If you still have grenades when you die, you’re doing it very wrong. Use them early every life to clear rooms, disorient enemies and get your justification kills.
- Stick to the small areas - the open spaces of Seelow and the Airfield are for people with sniper scopes or deathwishes. Stick to the buildings and check those corners!
- “Enemy recon” means “They can see you!” Try not to run into enemy infested rooms while they’re all waiting with guns pointed at the door - or at least, let someone else go first. We recommend “Mr Grenade”.

3. Machine Gunner

With a heavy machine gun you can unleash incredibly volumes of fire. You can also get your face ripped off and mailed back to you, via your own ass, if you run into someone when you aren’t ready. Heavy machine guns are all about location, making finding a firing position job #1 every time you spawn. You need good cover and a clear field of fire over advancing enemies - find somewhere just behind the current battle lines and mow down anyone who approaches. If the war moves the wrong way, follow someone with a close range weapon until you find a better spot.

Coming out this door right now is a bad idea

Remember: in real war, killing someone is the end of it. Also, real war totally sucks and you wouldn’t do it for fun. On a WaW server, the man you just machine-gunned has already been reincarnated and knows exactly where you are - don’t stay in one place too long!

These firing slits are awesome, just be ready to sprint from grenades and pick knives out of your back from time to time.

4. Shotgun

Some say that the shotgun is ideal for room-clearing in places like Asylum, and you should really hope you’re playing against those idiots on CoD5 servers. You’ll have a better chance if you throw your gun at the enemy infantry, and probably get better range too. Add the incredible reload delay and you’ve got a gun that’s slightly worse than your knife without the advantages of silence. Avoid.