Call of Duty review

The bombers attack.

Call of Duty is a team based, tactical first person shooter game from Activision and Infinity Ward set during WWII. As a soldier in the new paratrooper regiment you help lead your squad through a series of missions set in the battlefields of the Second World War. Call of Duty is stepping into a crowded FPS market place, setting itself in a time period that is already infested with combat titles and so needs to be something special to be able to compete. Call of Duty draws on the features and ideas presented by other titles to try and put you in the battle. There aren’t many new ideas here, but by combining the best features from other games and learning from other developers’ mistakes Activision are hoping that they’re on to a winner.

Campaigning

In the plane prior to parachuting behind enemy lines.

The single player game takes the form of a progressive campaign taking you right from D-Day, when you parachute behind enemy lines to take a key strategic position to aid the beach landings. This is where the game eases you in. You start off taking out a couple of lone guards, before the rest of the squad lands and you must help to clear a building crawling with enemies. You then progress across a field with enemy machine gun emplacements laying down constant fire at you. From this point on you’re in the thick of action throughout. The game is loud and tense, as you somehow manage to dodge a constant rain of bullets. The squad AI is intelligent and strategy focused. You can hear your squad leader barking orders at you to lay down suppressing fire or to clear the building. You’ll find the level that much easier if you listen to your commander rather than trying to be a hero and going gung-ho all by yourself. The squad will also give covering fire for you, allowing you to get into a better position to take out the enemy. The enemy also has good AI and whilst their use of tactics isn’t as strong they use cover well, ducking out to fire off a few rounds before disappearing again and won’t just run at you waiting to be slaughtered.

Dressed smart soldier

The russians try to save their flag from the bombardment

The graphics in Call of Duty are pretty good. They’ll look great on top end hardware but the developers have put them together so that they’ll look good on PCs at the lower end of the requirements spec as well. The result of this is that even on the most powerful PCs the graphics don’t look as good as those of some rival titles but they do look, nonetheless, impressive. The character models are solid and smooth with joints not showing how the model was constructed. The textures look good as well and the detail on the models means that they look convincing even close up. The facial detail, whilst not first rate, is pretty good with expression and speech being well animated. The graphical quality isn’t restricted to the character models - the weapons, scenery and artillery are all treated with the same care and attention to detail. The maps look good with plenty of detail in buildings, roads, trees and vehicles. This adds to the overall atmosphere and can help to make the game feel more real. The weapons look the part, whether looking at discarded guns on the ground or looking down the barrel they look like what they are meant to be.

Take Cover

Taking cover to attack an enemy outpost

The story progresses with diary entries from you to mark what is going on both in your thoughts and within the mission. This helps to establish your character and to generate some emotion in the story as it progresses. These are helped along by in-game discussion and a few cut scenes. The voice acting throughout is to a high standard for a game whether in the cut scenes, discussions or just general battlefield chatter. This goes for the sound effects generally. The hectic and frantic nature of the missions means that there are lots of explosions and gunfire effects going on through most of them and these are faithfully recreated by the sound effects. The gunfire and explosions have a weight and authority to them which, combined with the visual effects really puts you in the action.

Taking control

Get the anti-aircraft guns on the incoming bombers.

The game handles like a typical FPS title. The standard controls and control configurations are there to be used with crouch, lay prone, and peek round corners all being present and correct. Anybody who has played another FPS title will feel at home almost immediately with Call of Duty. The first level of the campaign is a tutorial mission, which can be completed pretty quickly but takes you through the basics of movement and combat before throwing you into the heat of battle to fend for yourself. You have no control over AI team mates so, although you can go about a level however you like, you would be advised to stick with your squad and follow their tactics. This also leaves you with fewer controls to worry about giving the fast paced levels a slightly more arcadey feel than a more in-depth strategy title like Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six would have.

Allies vs. Axis

Call of Duty features online play with standard modes such as deathmatch and team deathmatch, as well as some modes for Allies and Axis gaming. These include retrieval missions and search and destroy, as well as Behind Enemy Lines. In this latter mode a few players will be Allies and a much larger number will be Axis. When an Axis soldier kills an Ally they become an Allied troop. Points are awarded for surviving as long as possible as an Ally and for killing Axis troops. These features extend the life of an otherwise fairly short game. The campaign itself, although fun and rewarding, can be completed in around 10 hours despite featuring a decent 24 levels. This is about the only shortcoming with Call of Duty. The game oozes quality and finesse, which isn’t to say that it’s perfect. The AI can be flaky occasionally, it’s too short, some of the levels can be repetitive and the graphics could be slightly better. These are very minor points and Call of Duty ranks as one of the best WWII FPS titles to date. The game feels complete and polished, drawing you into a world of combat behind enemy lines.