Call of Duty 4: War Porn

I don't play games much lately, but I do enjoy an occasional game of Call of Duty 4. It's intense, it looks great on the HDTV, and the multiplayer is oodles of fun.

But the game also has a sort of primordial appeal that reaches to the dark recesses of the male brain not unlike conventional pornography. There's a level in the single player campaign where the player takes the gunner seat of an AC-130. The mission plays out in gun camera view (think of those Gulf War missile cam videos). Before the mission begins, a stylized computer graphic lovingly accentuates the AC-130's instruments of death: 40 mm Bofors cannon! 20 mm Vulcan! 7.62 mm minigun! As you dispatch the hapless ground forces, a breathy voice provides commentary: "Get those guys! Cleared to fire! Oh yeah, you got 'em! There's one for the highlight reel!" It's all quite well-done, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I felt queasy afterwards.

And then there's the structure of the multiplayer itself. More kills earn you more experience, which in turn gets you more weapons. This relentless urge to unlock weaponry -- to progressively build oneself into the ultimate badass -- is hard to resist, and its appeal defies easy explanation. Apart from the glib statement that CoD4 is, well, war porn.