Games become great by giving you a feeling, scene, or image that sticks in your mind long after the credits have rolled.

The ultimate survival of the characters was called into question with this opening scene, and while American audiences see death in the Middle East on a nightly basis on the news, this scene showed us how cheap life is in first-person perspective. The game wanted to make a point: no one was safe. The game opened with the player looking out through the eyes Yasir Al-Fulan, the president of a nebulously defined Middle Eastern country, and the scene ended with his execution. The things we saw in Call of Duty 4 were shocking at the time. In the same way, Call of Duty 4 left its mark on every war game developer since. The difference is that everyone played Call of Duty 4, and its stamp on gaming has been both obvious and wide. It's been said that few people saw the Velvet Undergound play live, but everyone who did started their own band. If you have not played the single-player portions of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare or Modern Warfare 2, this post contains spoilers. Our first pick? Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. We'll be updating irregularly, and our choices are bound to get people talking. Ars Technica is happy to debut a new series of articles celebrating games that are nearly perfect, or that mark a major turning point in the industry.

Call of duty 4 heat