Call of Duty 4 AU Interview

''IGN AU: What have you learnt from your time helping out with the Call of Duty series?

LTC retired Hank Keirsey: I've learnt there's good people in this business. I'm biased - I love soldiers, and their ethos, their physical strength, courage and loyalty and duty - you think that might be the privy of a unique profession that you are in. But when you go out and see an organisation like Infinity Ward, putting everything into this game, you see there's still some of those elements there.

Even though these guys are pasty faced, a little flabby, kinda fish-eyed from being squirreled away in the back of some studio 14 hours a day for seven weeks, when you sit with them at the bar, as I did last night, you see the intensity to duty they have. This is more than just making money, they want to make the best game possible. There is honour in all kinds of professions, and there are good people in the video game profession.

''IGN AU: Back to the game, what's the coolest thing that you've seen in it?

LTC retired Hank Keirsey: I do like the weapons, and the way they look and feel when they're brought up. I like the MP5 particularly, as I was using that in Iraq not too long ago. It brings joy to see that they've recreated that so nicely. I like seeing the missions and the dialogue between the AI guys, it seems pretty accurate.

IGN AU: What about the radio chatter that's going on?

LTC retired Hank Keirsey: The chatter is absolutely accurate. In an earlier game, I heard them give a seven digit grid co-ordinate - there is no such thing as a seven digit grid coordinate. The point I'm making is that the timbre and tone of the game's chatter is on the money. They actually got Marine Force Recon guys in here. I spoke to Infinity Ward at the beginning of the game and they said they were going to do Marines. I love Marines, but I'd do Army instead. So I said do Army, do the Rangers, do the Delta Force guys. But there were a lot of Marines out here and Infinity Ward went against the advice of their advisor, they're allowed to do that, and they picked Marines.

But to make sure they got the Marine chatter right, they brought out the Marines. Marines are great fellow warriors, I'm just not as familiar with the tone of their chatter. It was good that they brought those guys out. They also went out to the range with them, and shot the weapons, recorded the sound effects. I've said this about a former game, but I'll say it even more about this one, the game has gotten to a level of intensity that would make a weak man soil himself. The fact that you were able to come out of that training session looking relatively unsoiled, I think is a tribute to your manliness.

IGN AU: About the fire-fights in the game - in a real firefight, an enemy couldn't really be that dumb - they don't hide behind a wall with a little bit of their body sticking out, do they?

LTC retired Hank Keirsey: We all pray for dumb enemies. I don't know if you saw footage of some of the enemy in Iraq about three years ago. They were running out in the street, shooting over their head, shooting around a corner. So there are dumb enemies. A wonderful god would always allow us to go to war against enemies like that. I'd say that the portrayal of the forces in COD4 aren't too far off the mark.

They're not really well trained. I remember my driver in Iraq, he'd served in the Iraq army for four years. We were shooting AK-47s at the range, and I put a Coke can down at about 30 yards, and told him to shoot it. 30 rounds later, where one round from my MP5 caused the can to flip up and down in the air, 30 rounds later he just about disturbed it by moving some dirt around. I watched the way his cheek wasn't on the stock, the way he didn't pull it tight to the shoulder. For somebody with four years in the Iraqi army, he hadn't had a whole lot of marksmanship training.

When I was over there, if you were the guy they were shooting at, you were the guy who wasn't going to get hit. Apparently now they're doing better, bringing in some ringers from other countries. But we were fortunate with their lack of accuracy with small arms.

IGN AU: Is there anything else you'd like to add about Call of Duty 4?

LTC retired Hank Keirsey: It's a great game. It's a great tribute to the guys serving overseas, much as our earlier games were a great tribute to that generation that fought that great fight, this is a tribute to the folks that are deployed today and have answered the call of duty.

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