In 2007 – arguably the best year for video games, ever – none captured our attention more than Call of Duty 4. Here are three big reasons COD4 gets GameDaily's big nod as game of the year.

Edge-of-Seat Story Mode

On the single player front, you have a taut thriller that grabs you by the back of your neck and drags you through two expertly woven narratives in Europe and the Middle East. Chock full of dramatic scenes and intense shootouts, the campaign excels where most of its competition fails, delivering a nail-biting experience we couldn't walk away from until the explosive finale. From a wild gunfight in a Middle Eastern TV station to bombing enemies across the European countryside, there was no escaping the game's irresistible pull.

Frenzied Online Shootouts

Multiplayer further enhances COD4's value, dropping us in frenzied shootouts that are the pinnacle of video game combat. Snipers picked us off from remote locations, helicopters riddled us with bullets and jets bombarded us with their payload. Yet, despite getting brutalized by a fierce online community, the desire to level up our soldiers and earn new equipment, the goal to become the ultimate badass, drives us to this day.

Alternate Reality. Really.

Most importantly, Activision did what few companies manage to achieve, which is create an illusion of reality. Games like Rock Band, for example, let us experience fantasies, but at the end of the day, we're in our living rooms strumming plastic guitars. It's that disconnect that separates games from everyday living. Call of Duty 4, on the other hand, scares us. We don't have military experience or know what it's like to live a minute in Iraq, but with thousands of bullets zipping by our heads, bombs exploding all around us and fellow comrades dying en masse, we couldn't help but feel respect for every man and woman serving in the armed forces and the horror they experience on a daily basis. Call of Duty 4 took what we've seen on TV the past few years and dropped it into our living rooms. It made us feel more patriotic. It encouraged us to do research to enhance the experience. Few, if any games, had such a profound effect on our lives.