It's October 1942. My company of British infantry has driven the Germans out of a small desert town -- a choke point in the minefields laid down by Rommel's Afrika Korps south of El Alamein -- and is now fending off a counterattack. I'm on a rooftop sighting German tanks through my binoculars and shouting coordinates to the gunner at the 88-millimeter flak cannon we just captured. After the gunfights with dozens of Nazi soldiers it took to get here, it's satisfying to watch from a safe distance as the stricken tanks burst into flame.

No, I'm not an actor on the set of a World War II film -- but I might as well be. I'm playing Call of Duty 2 on Microsoft's high-powered Xbox 360 gaming console, and I'm in a state of immersion -- not just on a sensory level but, surprisingly, on an emotional one, too. It's almost as if I were at the movies.