The first thing you need to do is launch the game and from the main menu select “Start New Server”. This will bring you to a setup screen to customize the settings of the new game you are starting. You are going to want to set the game mode to Team Deathmatch and for the “Dedicated Server” setting select No. Then on the right side of the screen select which map you want to play on. You shouldn’t have to mess around with any of the other settings on this screen. Once you have done this click the start button in the bottom right hand corner. After several seconds a countdown to the start of the game should come up and we can proceed to the next step.

Now that you have the game started you need to customize the gravity and jump settings via the console. First from the “Controls” menu make sure you have the console enabled, the default should have it enabled. Then open the console by hitting the “~” or tilda key on the top right hand corner of your keyboard below the Escape key. This will open a dark sewage green colored menu bar on the top of your screen where you can type the commands to change game settings. Here are the commands you need to type in:

/g_gravity 5 – Number from 1-800, changes how strong the gravity is.

/jump_height 100 – Number from 1-100, changes how high your jump height is.

/bg_fallDamageMinHeight 10000 – Number bigger than 1, changes how high you need to be to inflict Minimum fall damage.

/bg_fallDamageMaxHeight 10000 – Number bigger than 1, changes how high you need to be to inflict Maximum fall damage.

The specific numbers I gave are just an example, you can customize them further to your own liking. Once you do this you should now have the ability to jump around to any place on the map and essentially fly. If you get to high up and want to come back down to earth just set the /g_gravity 800 and you will come crashing back to earth. You can do some pretty cool stuff in mid-air, trying firing an RPG press the sprint button.

If you want to take this to the next level there are even multiplayer servers that play in reduced gravity, you have to look around a bit to find them though. Tomorrow we will have some more information on customized games, this time a tutorial on how to join modded servers.

Jumping – Jumping is useful in close range confrontations to avoid bullets. Jumping in long range battles is not going to do anything because you are still easily in the field of view of the enemy. At close range the enemy has to move their weapon considerably to get the target back on you. This gives you time to aim yourself and fire off a few rounds and hopefully get a kill. Contrary to a lot of whining people on multiplayer game servers you cannot bunny hope in COD4. You get decent jump and then a bunch of feeble half inch attempts to escape the gravity of the earth. This makes spamming jumps a bad idea, what you want to do is use the first jump and wait for jump height to recharge, if the battle continues long enough then use the second jump.

Prone – Going Prone is best for mid-long range encounters. By going prone you force the enemy to move their sights and create a smaller target to aim at. This small advantage can mean the difference between life and death. Never go prone in a short range situation because the enemy can just run behind you and knife you in the back, which you cannot prevent because being prone restricts your movement. It is also critical to stay for you to stay on target with the enemy and continue firing while you go prone so you don’t waste the precious seconds gained by going prone initially.

If we combine sprinting, jumping and prone we get something called a Strafe Jump. The strafe jump is simple to execute, all you have to do is sprint forward, jump, go prone and fire your weapon, all in one motion. This makes you an almost impossible target for your opponent to hit. You should use only when the initial sprint isn’t visible to the enemy because in that sprint you are totally defenseless. For example you can use the Strafe Jump to go around corners that an enemy is camping and clear the way for your allies to move in.

There are many other great combinations of these basic moves so experiment with them and feel free to comment and post your own moves.