I’ve been playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare online on PS3 for about three weeks now. As I reach ever closer to Level 55 I’ve recently been made aware of this thing called “Prestige Mode.”

Once you reach the highest level (55), you get the choice to (A) stay at your 5-star general level with all the guns in the game or (B) give up all of your guns and start from scratch — resetting to Private — in order to be a “prestige” player. This process can happen 10 times at which point you are a Prestige 10 player, proving to the world that you have no life.

According to my in-game play timer (found in the Barracks) I’ve wasted 1 day, 23 hrs of my life reaching Level 54 of the non-prestige levels. How much longer will it take to me reach Prestige Level 1? After that, how much longer will it take to get to Prestige Level 2? Will I have enough patience to go through the ranks again? In case you are wondering: yes, I have a job. Yes, I have a girlfriend. No, I do not have a life.

To date my promotion strategy has been to use the same weapon until I finish the basic Marksman I – III challenges (25, 75, 150 kills) and start overfrom there. I have noticed that games with objectives (Headquarters, Domination, etc.) tend to give more bonus points at the end of a match. Headquarters has also proven to be a good way to rack up a lot of kills because there is no kill limit, because of the single objective, enemy players tend to pile up in predictable areas near the flag. Pop, pop, pop that’s 3 sniper kills.