by Dave - November 7, 2003

Not too long ago, I wrote a preview of this game based on the public single player demo. I used some pretty colorful phrases like ��set to become the definitive WWII game.� And ��what is to surely be the new benchmark in WWII gaming!� When the game was released, I waited by the computer, praying for that email from my local gaming store telling me that it had arrived. The wait was excruciating, but finally the message got through� They were holding a copy for me! Like a giddy schoolgirl I ran (alright maybe not that giddy, but still very much like a schoolgirl) to the store, snapped up my copy and rushed home, eager to play the game that had impressed me so much as a demo.

Gameplay

Call of Duty puts you in the shoes of three soldiers rather then just one. You get to play as an American Paratrooper, a British Commando and my favorite of the bunch, a Russian Conscript. Although the box will tell you that you are playing four campaigns, you�d be hard pressed to separate them. Perhaps because of the games rather short length, it doesn�t feel like four separate entire campaigns.

You start off playing the American Campaign as a Pathfinder, one of those lucky few who got to drop behind enemy lines before the D-Day Invasion. After planting the radio beacon you link up with other squads and start clearing out the villages in Normandy. It�s not all hand to hand urban combat though, in an interesting side-trip, you get to ride shotgun in a car driven by a fellow paratroop. Normally, that wouldn�t be such a bad idea, but you have to drive through six miles of German held land to deliver a message. The US campaign was great fun and really sets the stage for what is to come.

Up next is your stint as a British commando. The best mission of the British campaign is where you have to defend a bridge from German counter-attack. Manning a Flak 88, I had to listen for instructions from my squad leader on which direction German tanks were approaching and gun them down. In addition to my role as anti-tank gunner, I had to fend off hordes of German infantry. It�s a frantic race against time in a bid to hold out for reinforcements as you are assaulted from all directions in a last stand battle. By the time the British campaign was over I was really impressed with what Call of Duty was offering up. But I was a little dismayed that at a little over 3 hours, half the game had been played.

Next on the plate was the Russian campaign. The battle for Stalingrad was perhaps one of the bloodiest battles in the History of warfare. With both sides determined to win and neither willing to give an inch of ground, German technology was countered by the sheer weight of a Russian army that was more then willing to send an entire generation of men to their graves to stop the nazi advance. The campaign opens up with an almost exact reproduction of the scene from Enemy at the Gates. As an unarmed �patriot� you are crossing the Volga River in a shoddy boat, along side dozens of other boats making the same ferry trip. Stuka dive-bombers tear them apart without mercy, artillery rounds turn others into fiery death-traps and perhaps worst of all; the commissars, who will shoot any deserters on sight. After you land the fun really starts. As in the movie Enemy at the Gates, there are not enough rifles to go around and you are not one of those who enter the fray armed. The Stalingrad mission is this games showpiece, much like Omaha Beach was for Medal of Honor. And like Medal of Honor, it will leave you feeling very much in awe of how much is going on around you. The final campaign is the push into Berlin and it�s more of the same gritty, urban fighting that Call of Duty excels at.

First person shooter fans will adapt quickly to the keyboard/ mouse default commands and in addition to the WASD movement, you have not only the ability to lean around corners, but also the ability to crouch and go prone. You will be using these features a lot in this game because although the incoming enemy fire may not be terribly accurate, the sheer volume of lead flying at you will force you to take shelter behind any scrap of available cover. Over the course of the campaigns I found myself cowering behind dead farm animals, trees, ruined buildings, crates, destroyed vehicles and anything else that might be able to stop a bullet.

Call of Duty is perhaps the most authentic feeling WWII game I have played to date. You might not be the super-soldier of the competitions games, but you feel that you are still a cog in the great war machine, performing a small, but vital function.

Graphics

Call of Duty is a lesson in how to squeeze the most out of a game engine. You�d be hard pressed to see any resemblance to a Quake 3 powered game, but powered by id she is. The weapon models are really well done with believable muzzle flashes and recoil. The character models are also well done and, with the exception of the almost comical hopping/run animation, are fairly realistic. This game is heavy on the special effects and they are worthy of any game to date. From explosions throwing pieces of debris high into the air (not to mention bodies) to the dust from bullets striking brick and concrete, this game is a joy to look at. I found myself emptying entire clips at bad guy�s just to watch the dust settle from all of the rounds that missed. The folks at Infinity Ward have had some practice in making WWII games, but Call of Duty�s levels capture the look and feel of WWII far better then any game to date. So a big thumbs up to the artists at Infinity Ward, you�ve done yourselves proud this day.

Sound

If the animators and artists can feel proud of their results, the people responsible for the sound should be ecstatic over their accomplishments. From the compelling mission theme music, to the ambient background noise, Call of Duty immerses you into the sound of combat like no other WWII game. Weapon noises sound great and the Flak Panzers sound just as savage as they did in the demo. For those nitpickers, the muted weapon problem from the demo isn�t around in the full release. The voice actors do a credible job as well, from the voices of the characters in the game to the miscellaneous screams of the wounded and dying. In one level, as a Russian sniper, you have to sneak past the battle lines via underground sewers. Right off the bat your ears are fed propaganda being pumped over loudspeakers, urging you to surrender and be welcomed into the loving arms of the German army. It bolstered my determination to send Jerry packing and run him out of my beloved Stalingrad.

The ambient noise is incredible and really gives you a feeling of being in a massive battle. Some levels, with heavy armor and machineguns blasting in every direction, combined with the background explosions and the screams of my wounded or dying teammates almost reduced me to a fetal position curled up at the base of my chair screaming for my mommy. If there were ever a game that would make me splurge for a 7.1 sound system, Call of Duty would be it. It sounds incredible over my 5.1 and more then once, my ever-lovable neighbor downstairs would start banging on my floor/ her ceiling. Any game that can make my neighbor even more cantankerous than usual scores high in my books.

Funfactor

You can fly through the game on the easy (greenhorn) setting in about 7 hours, which makes Call of Duty one of the shorter games out there. However, those are seven or eight hours well spent. For an added challenge, throw the game onto its hard (veteran) setting and let it rip. I found this level of play to be the most enjoyable, even though I was dying multiple times per mission. There is an adequate level of replay value in the single player missions thanks to the auto-save feature. Should you feel like replaying a mission by using different weapons (try only using the bolt action rifles) you simply have to select it from the load menu.

Multiplayer consists of the ever-present Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, plus three other modes of online/LAN bloodshed�
Behind Enemy Lines: The players are split into two teams with only a couple being Allied and the remainder being Axis soldiers. The goal of the Allied players is to stay alive (earning points as they do so) and knock off the Axis players. Should an Axis player manage to kill an Allied player they switch spots, giving the Ex-Axis player a chance to earn even more points as an Allied target.
Search and Destroy: An objective based, team game. One side tries to destroy the objective/target while the other team defends the objective.
Retrieval: One team has to secure one or more items from the defenders grasp and return them to a safe zone/ exit point before the time limit expires. This is by far the most exciting game of the bunch and can sometimes come down to a nail biting race against the clock.

Bucking the recent trend of multiplayer games having specialized classes, Call of Duty turns everyone into a grunt. You do get to select your weapon though and the submachine guns seem to be the weapons of choice in the multiplayer maps. Take care on the open maps however, it seems that everyone and their mother�s second cousin is a sniper. Overall the multiplayer game is a fun experience and runs incredibly smooth thanks to a solid engine and relatively tight netcode. On my system I was able to handle servers with as many as 30 players before it became jumpy enough to warrant turning down the details (which were maxed out).

Plasmafactor/Closing Remarks

There isn�t much to find at fault with this game. Although short by today�s standard, I found the single player campaign to be extremely fun, with well-written missions and absorbing gameplay. Great graphics and incredible sound combine to immerse you into the most ambitious WW II game to date. This is a game that makes you feel part of something larger, where you aren�t the hero of heroes, but still play a vital role in the completion of the game.

When I played the demo for Call of Duty, I knew something major was in the works, and I am glad that my hunches panned out for once. Congratulations to Infinity Ward and Activision for putting out one fine game, it�s not everyday that a game as good as Medal of Honor gets removed from my hard drive. If you crave WWII games, then this is one to add to your collection. Now if only they would release a Juno Beach expansion pack�