Five reasons why COD4 will make you soil yourself

Because of certain twists throughout the game, you're never confident that any high-intensity moment will work out in your favour. Which makes this speedy escape from a Russian military base all the more exhilerating.

It doesn't hurt that, along the way, you'll have to gun down trucks full of soldiers, or that half-way through you're chased by a Hind gunship. And the fact that hardly a second passes without something exploding or a missile being aimed at your head means you'll never feel safe, even when it's all over...

#5 - You're caught in a terrifying nuclear blast

Modern Warfare succeeds brilliantly in subverting your expectations and giving you the fright of your life when you least expect it.

So, for instance, when you're high-tailing it out of a hotzone, having just rescued a downed pilot and dragged her to safety, the last thing you expect is to find yourself the victim of a fantastically-realised nuclear explosion. But it's the aftermath that really hurts.

We can honestly say we may have underestimated Call of Duty 4 before playing it, but this single sequence was enough to convince us that Modern Warfare was something really special. And, all the while, you're expecting to be rescued. Because, well, that's what happens in games. Isn't it? Help!

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.