Call of Duty: World At War

Call of Duty: World at War is the latest instalment from a long line of (taking into exception the superb Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare) American Gung Ho World War II games. Apparently the feel good nature of the victory over the Nazis is still prime capital for the consumption of Gamers. Huzzah, the Americans won World War II again… However, I digress. The premise of the game is fairly similar to that of all FPSs, there is an enemy, you have a gun, fireworks ensue, and depending on the difficulty, either you or the enemy lies bullet ridden and prostate before you.

The graphics of this game follow in the long line of ‘gritty realism’ games before it: this is no Prince of Persia, where you can stop and just appreciate the sheer beauty of the game, instead the graphics merge seamlessly with the gameplay to make you feel as though you’re tired, wet, hungry, on a battlefield churned by the feet of thousands of soldiers in an endless march against the enemy. Explosions are realistic enough to cause a respectable level of fear, and the soldiers are varied enough that you’ll never feel quite like you are shooting the same man twice.

Like all of it’s predecessors, Call of Duty: World at War has a startlingly involving and engrossing single player campaign. Though I won’t spoil the many varied battlefields you find yourselves on; nor the ending which is not only satisfying and cinematic, but also sparks a rare element of pride, as if to say, ‘I am Legend!’ (the book, NOT the film). The campaign itself focuses on two soldiers, one Russian and one American, and therefore centring on the European and Asian spheres respectively. By the end of the game, what with the subtle questions of morality as a recurring theme, Call of Duty: World at War does more than just give you a boost of ego, but it also makes you replay the central issues which appeared at the end of the war. Namely, do the ends ever justify the means?

With this central question comes a big boon of multiplayer gaming. If a player has access to the wonders of Xbox Live, than the Campaign can be played by you and three friends, though I would argue that you should only do this on the hardest difficulty. When on the Easiest difficulty the game quickly feels like a tribute to Rambo. On Easy, a bullet wound is apparently so much less than a flesh wound as to require at least twenty before your adamantium body fails you. However the realism of the hardest difficulty is equally as shot. In the drive to making it as challenging as possible, Treyarch have made it so you can expect more enemies who possess an in-human degree of accuracy, are tougher and do far more damage than might even be possible.

Whether or not you are one for the history and the questions it raises, there is one benefit to completing the campaign. Once the final bullet has been fired on your whirlwind assault on the Axis the feel good moment is shattered by the arrival of a small message on your screen informing you of the unlock of the Nacht of the Untoten or some such. This is the reward for completing the campaign (though believe me the campaign is rewarding enough in itself), and it is also the point that the game becomes a little farcical. Though the actual gameplay of the Night of the Undead is quite entertaining, the very idea of it feels somewhat distracted from the main thrust of the game. And to a certain extent it detracts from the basic aspect of a History based FPS: the history.

Basically, you (and up to three friends) must survive increasingly difficult onslaughts of Nazi Zombies. You get points for every shot, and for every kill, and the game gets increasingly harder. To compensate this potential weapons get more and more powerful. Be prepared for the fight of your life when you get past level 10. And see if you can beat my record of level 16. I bet you can’t.

Once again, I digress. Despite my glowing references to the Single Player Campaign, it is at the multi-player stage that Call of Duty: World at War really shines. You get to use all of the duck and cover expertise you so valiantly picked up battling valiantly against the Nazis and the Japanese, but this time you get the real test and thrill of going hammer and tongs against some real players, who are as prone to making mistakes as you are.

The multiplayer has a ranking system which allows you to progress as you kill the enemy and capture objectives, allowing you to unlock more weapons and design more character classes. It is, overall an involving experience. There are tanks, attack dogs, artillery, and of course a whole panoply of various weapons of different categories. The weakness of this area of the game is more to do with the very play style of First Person Shooters on Xbox 360s; it almost feels as though most of the weaponry doesn’t quite work with the Xbox 360 controller. Sniping for instance is a question of guessing where the enemy will be when the thing stops swaying around, and having, in all likelihood, a split second opportunity to shoot, which more often than not ends in a miss. Likewise Heavy Machine Guns are a little too un-wieldy. However, in many ways these minor details add to the experience of playing Call of Duty: World at War, plus of course there is equality of unfairness in multiplayer.

However, this game is not all good news. For those who are proud of Britain’s major contribution in World War II, Call of Duty can feel a little too designed from an American market. The Russians were included, presumably as a tip of the hat to history, and of course because they provide a sharp contrast (and therefore beef up) the American’s valour, honour and mercy. Where Americans try and take prisoners, the Russians use Molotov Cocktails on any who would lay down their arms.

Then there is also the gritty realistic graphics. Don’t get me wrong, they look good, and add a vital element to the game, on the other hand many of the multiplayer maps appear to have never been before seen under the sun; quite literally in fact, they’re so dark and grey you get the strange impression (in maps set in Berlin particularly) that even the sky is made of concrete.

As an on the whole, I cannot help but give it a glowing thumbs up, though I played the Xbox version I have no doubt the PC one is as good as, if not better. There are of course, minor things that I believe could be introduced quite forcefully into the heads of the developers, but Welsh Flower I cannot play a game without thinking that something could be better. Nevertheless, my advice would be to buy this game, and greatly expand the profit margins of Activision; it is a genuinely great game and well deserves any time you might want to lavish on it.