Post by Dragonistic on Dec 11, 2008 18:59:05 GMT -5
[shadow=red,left,300]Call of Duty: World at War[/shadow]
As promised I'd review this game, it's taken a long time to finalise my thoughts for the latest addition* to the COD series but here goes.
You all probably know the details of this game already, running of the sublime Call of Duty 4 engine, World at War takes COD back to WWII, throwing you through 2 perspectives, the US Army during their time in The Land of The Rising Sun, and on the frontlines of the Red Army against the Nazi's driving your way deep into Germany.
Now, of course the biggest change is the settings, going back to WWII was a brave move after Modern Warfares fantastic success, but despite all our worries Treyarch did a good job of capturing the environments, it's a little annoying sometimes when you find yourself stuck on a thin path (mainly in wooded areas) where you'd like a bit more freedom, but it's not a major issue and is only something you notice on rare occasions. The environments themselves look good from buildings to trees, the colours and textures always look good and a smooth frame rate helps to immerse you into the war. The weapons look great as well as do your fellow men and enemies from either conflict with great lighting and a decent soundtrack to boot, it is very much COD4 graphics in WW2. There's plenty of objects you can shoot through as well and it all presents itself very well but it's not much of if at all an improvement from COD4, which is no bad thing really.
So now you're finished staring at the enemy it's time to shoot them! Controls are intuitive, smooth, responsive and still feels natural just like ummm... COD4. Of course now you have old weapons and this means much less visibility as you look down iron sights instead of the scopes and red dot sights all over COD4, which I think is nice as it brings a bit more marksmanship back and let's you admire some of the attention to detail present. The campaign is good as is the story, although the US half of the story is much less immersive then previous COD offerings, however the Soviet side of things is very believable, with their hell for leather attitude and ridiculous charges against the Nazi war machine, they feel more unique then the overdone US WWII soldiers we see ALL THE TIME in games. You get used to some familiar faces and voices but again the Russians spring to mind much more and are the stars of the show really. There is also the addition of vehicles (only in one mission on single player) and they're ok to use but the main experience remains the standard over the top firefights. The difficultys range from pretty easy to very challenging to the point where enemies place grenades PERFECTLY on you from miles away and honestly it feels unfair sometimes when the grenades come in 3 or 4 at a time but you still keep trying because it's always possible. There's also a nice reward at the end of the campaign which you'll enjoy with friends on co-op.
Speaking of co-op, another big addition is full campaign co-op, everything is pretty much the same in co-op as single player (bar one mission is removed from co-op but it makes sense to remove that one. The co-op works well and allows you to revive downed teammates unlike single player where you just die right away, you get the chance to live on and fire your pistol until you eventually die or your teammate comes to your rescue. It runs well, split screen is ok but sometimes difficult to see, and nigh on impossible to see in standard definition on a medium sized or smalled TV, but in HD you can generally see what you need to see. The graphics remain good on co-op as well unlike games like Rainbow Six where textures take a battering during split screen, and it's generally a fun mode. You can unlock cheats for use in co-op which are mainly novel rather then things like infinite health but they're good for a quick laugh.
Now of course we move on to the most important part of COD, the multiplayer. This is something Treyarch couldn't afford to screw up because Infinity Ward did a great job with COD4 so what has Treyarch done? Made everything pretty much the same with the new weapons, and all new maps. Perks remain very much the same plus one vehicle perk but again the vehicles are ok but not much fun to be in. They are powerful tools of destruction but a couple of charges and it goes down, or one charge if you get it underneath! Weapon attachments also remain similar and the weapons feel generally balanced although the bolt action rifles require skill to use, they can one shot kill people. The maps are larger and have alot more hiding places on the whole which is good, it feels more like a war then squad combat if you're in the Ground War mode (18 players), however once you venture into the normal (12 player) modes you find you don't really get alot of room to move and it can turn into a spawn camping frenzy which ruins the experience completely. There are plenty of variety with modes (again alot from COD4) though and there's enough for everyone so you'll likely find something you enjoy and it doesn't get boring quick.
To summarise, World at War is good game, infact a great game just like COD4 but that is also it's biggest problem, it's just like COD4. It doesn't differentiate itself much and you kinda wish they'd tried to be a bit more outlandish, but nonetheless COD4 is so good, World at War is still a great game, but just lacks the innovation to be as great as it's big brother.
90%
As promised I'd review this game, it's taken a long time to finalise my thoughts for the latest addition* to the COD series but here goes.
You all probably know the details of this game already, running of the sublime Call of Duty 4 engine, World at War takes COD back to WWII, throwing you through 2 perspectives, the US Army during their time in The Land of The Rising Sun, and on the frontlines of the Red Army against the Nazi's driving your way deep into Germany.
Now, of course the biggest change is the settings, going back to WWII was a brave move after Modern Warfares fantastic success, but despite all our worries Treyarch did a good job of capturing the environments, it's a little annoying sometimes when you find yourself stuck on a thin path (mainly in wooded areas) where you'd like a bit more freedom, but it's not a major issue and is only something you notice on rare occasions. The environments themselves look good from buildings to trees, the colours and textures always look good and a smooth frame rate helps to immerse you into the war. The weapons look great as well as do your fellow men and enemies from either conflict with great lighting and a decent soundtrack to boot, it is very much COD4 graphics in WW2. There's plenty of objects you can shoot through as well and it all presents itself very well but it's not much of if at all an improvement from COD4, which is no bad thing really.
So now you're finished staring at the enemy it's time to shoot them! Controls are intuitive, smooth, responsive and still feels natural just like ummm... COD4. Of course now you have old weapons and this means much less visibility as you look down iron sights instead of the scopes and red dot sights all over COD4, which I think is nice as it brings a bit more marksmanship back and let's you admire some of the attention to detail present. The campaign is good as is the story, although the US half of the story is much less immersive then previous COD offerings, however the Soviet side of things is very believable, with their hell for leather attitude and ridiculous charges against the Nazi war machine, they feel more unique then the overdone US WWII soldiers we see ALL THE TIME in games. You get used to some familiar faces and voices but again the Russians spring to mind much more and are the stars of the show really. There is also the addition of vehicles (only in one mission on single player) and they're ok to use but the main experience remains the standard over the top firefights. The difficultys range from pretty easy to very challenging to the point where enemies place grenades PERFECTLY on you from miles away and honestly it feels unfair sometimes when the grenades come in 3 or 4 at a time but you still keep trying because it's always possible. There's also a nice reward at the end of the campaign which you'll enjoy with friends on co-op.
Speaking of co-op, another big addition is full campaign co-op, everything is pretty much the same in co-op as single player (bar one mission is removed from co-op but it makes sense to remove that one. The co-op works well and allows you to revive downed teammates unlike single player where you just die right away, you get the chance to live on and fire your pistol until you eventually die or your teammate comes to your rescue. It runs well, split screen is ok but sometimes difficult to see, and nigh on impossible to see in standard definition on a medium sized or smalled TV, but in HD you can generally see what you need to see. The graphics remain good on co-op as well unlike games like Rainbow Six where textures take a battering during split screen, and it's generally a fun mode. You can unlock cheats for use in co-op which are mainly novel rather then things like infinite health but they're good for a quick laugh.
Now of course we move on to the most important part of COD, the multiplayer. This is something Treyarch couldn't afford to screw up because Infinity Ward did a great job with COD4 so what has Treyarch done? Made everything pretty much the same with the new weapons, and all new maps. Perks remain very much the same plus one vehicle perk but again the vehicles are ok but not much fun to be in. They are powerful tools of destruction but a couple of charges and it goes down, or one charge if you get it underneath! Weapon attachments also remain similar and the weapons feel generally balanced although the bolt action rifles require skill to use, they can one shot kill people. The maps are larger and have alot more hiding places on the whole which is good, it feels more like a war then squad combat if you're in the Ground War mode (18 players), however once you venture into the normal (12 player) modes you find you don't really get alot of room to move and it can turn into a spawn camping frenzy which ruins the experience completely. There are plenty of variety with modes (again alot from COD4) though and there's enough for everyone so you'll likely find something you enjoy and it doesn't get boring quick.
To summarise, World at War is good game, infact a great game just like COD4 but that is also it's biggest problem, it's just like COD4. It doesn't differentiate itself much and you kinda wish they'd tried to be a bit more outlandish, but nonetheless COD4 is so good, World at War is still a great game, but just lacks the innovation to be as great as it's big brother.
90%