Call of Doody (Call of Duty World at War (PC))

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Call of Duty World at War (PC)
Date:	24/02/09 (128 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Decent sound and visuals

Disadvantages: Poor gameplay, over-priced, short game time in single player

I was never a huge fan of games set during World War 2 and although I had enjoyed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, I wasn't particularly taken by CoD5. Even when fellow members of a football forum I frequent were being very vocal and enthusiastic about the game, I still wasn't rising to it... until I found myself off work over Christmas, bored and with little to do. As first person shooters are my genre of preference, I trundled down to Game with my wallet in my hand and...

I paid £30 for CoD5 - the most I've spent on any PC game, ever.

I hate it.

It's terrible.

Graphically and aurally, you really can't fault it. It does look good (though it is based on the CoD4 game engine which is brilliant) and the Eastern Europe and Pacific settings look very realistic. Sound effects are decent, if not outstanding and the voice acting is good for a game of this type. The voices of the two main supporting characters sounded very familiar to me. I quickly identified one of them to be none other than Jack Bauer himself, Kiefer Sutherland). It was only after I'd completed the game that I realised the other was Gary Oldman.

With a reasonably new PC, you should be able to run the game using the higher specifications. On my 1 year old PC (see specifications at end of review), I was able to max out most settings and play the game at a resolution of 1680 x 1050. Sexy!

With regards to the single player campaign, level-wise, I think the game suffers in one instance from the invisible corridors it forces you down. During the Russian/German levels, this isn't a huge issue as you're moving down city streets etc. but in the Pacific levels, when you're in the middle of a jungle, things seem forced and artificial and it's frustrating to try and outflank the enemy, only to run into an invisible barrier or six inch high fallen tree that you can't step over.

Just like CoD4 (and possibly earlier versions, though I can only admit to playing CoD4), there is a little variation in the missions, though I don't think there's as much or is as well implemented as CoD4. It also seems to me that CoD5 is simply a version of CoD4 set in an World War 2 environment. CoD4 is widely regarded as being one of the best games of 2007 and possibly a contender for one of the best FPSs of all time and the developers this time around have simply cashed in on that success rather than build upon it.

There's also an issue with the fact you have to be the point man... it's your character that has to push forward and hit the trigger points, otherwise your (re-spawning) compatriots will just huddle behind the same cover and get shot, before re-spawning and cowering behind the same cover and getting shot... etc. Part of this problem is due to the fact it's not immediately obvious what you're meant to do or where you're meant to go. You can find yourself running through the battlefield, throwing grenades only to find that you're suddenly faced with dozens of the enemy and your so-called mates are still ducking behind that burned out car at the other end of the field because you haven't hit the trigger point. Thanks a lot, boys. My frustration levels at playing this game and encountering this "unique playing experience" were causing me to swear loudly and repeatedly.

Even with the amount of time I wasted playing the game and not hitting the trigger points, the single-player campaign seemed awfully short. CoD4 was a short single-player camping too, but at around eight or nine hours it was about 30% longer than CoD5. Consider that I'd also bought GTA4 for £25 that has at least three times the single player game time as CoD5, then you have to wonder why this game is so short.

There is a multi-player aspect to COD5, but the frustrations I felt with the single player game (trigger points plus short playing time) meant I really didn't want to delve into it. There's also a special zombie game mode that unlocks when you complete the game, but I played that twice and then uninstalled the entire thing from my PC.

The Call of Duty series is developed by two development teams - Treyarch and Infinity Ward. Infinity Ward are the original developers (and the team behind the excellent CoD4). It's Treyarch that are responsible for this travesty. I've been disappointed and underwhelmed with PC game purchases before, but I can't recall one ever leaving me this frustrated and angry.

Recommended Specs:

CPU: Pentium 4, 3 GHz or equivalent
Memory: At least 512 MB (1 GB for Vista)
HD: 8 GB of free space
Graphics: 256MB Nvidia GeForce 6600 or ATI Radeon X1600
Sound: DirectX 9.0c compliant card

My Specs (where different):

CPU: Core 2 Duo 3 GHz
Memory: 2GB
Graphics: GeForce 9800GT

Summary: Call of Duty 4 set in a World War 2 setting, only much, much poorer.