There are quite a few folks on our friends list who are new to “Call of Duty 4.” As a public service, I offer Ropoleon’s Top 3 CoD4 Tips:

1) Thinking is your enemy. If you ever find yourself planning, scheming or otherwise reasoning your way through the game, you are almost certainly putting yourself (and your team) at a disadvantage. No matter how clever you think your plan may be, it will invariably be foiled by a blindly thrown grenade, unfortunate enemy spawns (¡Que lastima!) or the Random Gods of CoD4. Truly successful CoD4 players shut down the rational part of their brains and operate on a strict stimulus/response cycle.

The most basic cycles include:

• When you hear, “We’re losing A/B/C,” immediately run to the flag in question. Do not look out for danger. Do not try to sneak up on the flag. Do not check to see if the coast is clear. Instead, run blindly into the capture area and hope that no one is around. If someone happens to be defending the flag, hope that your martyr grenade kills them so that you can respawn and take the position later.
• When you see a bunch of your-teammate-is-dead skulls surrounding a flag, immediately run to another flag. Avoid the catfight that always surrounds the downed helicopter, statue or junkyard. Your chances of successfully capturing flags using stimulus/response cycle A are much better in a quieter part of the map.
• When you see a bunch of your-teammate-is-dead skulls while playing team deathmatch, immediately run towards the skulls. The skulls mean action and action means kills. If you are lucky, you may be able to get in a kill or two yourself.
• When you see a group of your teammates 90% of the way to capturing a flag, run as fast as you can to get in the capture area, and take advantage of your teammates’ hard work. The best flag capture is the one that only takes one second of your time.
• When you hear the tink-tink-roll sound of a martyr grenade, run away from the dead guy. Nothing kills the buzz of a successful stabbing quite like the ignominy of death by martyr grenade. Even worse is death by Last Stand. Keep shooting until you see the +5 or +10 of a kill.
• When you see a little red dot near you on the map, immediately run towards the dot. Think of CoD4 like 3D Pac Man with guns.

2) Shooting only works if your gun is actually pointed at your enemy. While shooting near your enemy may seem like great fun, shooting into your enemy is even more satisfying. If your crosshairs aren’t on top of the enemy, don’t even bother to pull the trigger. You’ll just waste ammo and attract attention to yourself. (The only exception is if you are a truly terrible shot. In that case, get a light machine gun and shoot whenever an enemy is on your screen. Hope that they stumble into the line of fire.) On a related note, shoot at EVERYTHING. It’s hard to tell friend from foe, so early on it’s best to shoot first and hope that you’re not bombing Canadians later.

3) If you aren’t dying regularly, you’re doing something wrong. Unless you are highly skilled (and no one on this distribution classifies as such), kills are a sign that you are following tip #1 and working to achieve team goals. Think of double digit death totals as a badge of honor and a way of saying, “I’m a team player.” Think of 30+ death totals as a way of saying, “I sacrifice myself so that my teammates are warned of danger.” Unlike real life where dying 14 times is relatively inconvenient, in CoD4 respawns are quick and free, so take advantage.