Call of Duty 2

"A solid grassroots shooter!"

The WWII genre of First Person Shooters is a genre that has really been done to death and to many a new WWII game is merely just beating a dead horse. That said however, Call of Duty 2 is genuinely a unique and enjoyable experience that now Xbox 360 owner should not experience. Whats more impressive is that the game is a port of a somewhat old PC game. Ports usually are ripe with problems and only a few are ever any good and its safe to say that Call of Duty can be considered part of the latter. So what makes Call of Duty 2 standout from the rest...

With regards to gameplay players can expect the standard affair that the Call of Duty games have become renowned for. That is being a single infantry soldier of various Allied forces battling in historically accurate Allied Campaigns. Developer Infinity Ward has not strayed far from this concept and truth be told doesn't need to. The gameplay worked then and it most definately works now. In game the only way to describe the experience is intense. The game presents an overwhelming amount of enemies as well as allies. The game really convinces you that you are a small part of a much bigger conflict, a feet that few war games successfully do.

Call of Duty follows a simple objective based system and any given mission has sub chapters and each sub chapter has a variety of missions to complete to complete that sub chapter. The missions are fairly simple but offer exciting battles. You will do anything from planting bombs, destroying tanks, taking an enemy postion, holding position waiting for reinforcements or a plethora of others. The gameplay itself is fast and intuitive. You'll enter an area, identify your enemies, aim down your sights and take them down to advance. Again its simple but its beauty in its simplicity. Everything from a gameplay perspective works and delivers a refined experience.

However, the gameplay is not without faults. There are instances where your allies are just too dumb and impede your progress by getting in the way of your grenades or your line of fire. Furthermore, the game lacks any means to cook grenades which can lead to some frustrating exchanges on the harder difficulties. Additionally, the game lacks any kind of peeking or cover system which would certainly of added a lot to the game in terms of advanced tactics. However, these faults are easy to overlook in the grand scheme of things and will rarely ruin your experience to the point of stopping play. In all the gameplay of Call of Duty 2 is refined and heavy on the fun factor.

The graphics in Call of Duty 2 are certainly impressive. While the game will not wow you with high poly counts or excessive use of specular effects and HDR lighting it will impress you with its realistic and organic presentation of the game world. Objects look the way that objects should and the gun models are incredibly accurate. The most impressive graphical point of the game is on the people themselves. Every NPC that you will see in the game move realistically and looks like a natural person. You won't see any steroid built Quake characters here. Rather the game bears more resemblance to a game running source which is nice to see as opposed to the current trend of most 3D games. The game also runs at a very stable framerate and almost never hitches up. In all the graphical presentation of the game is definately impressive.

The real star of the Call of Duty 2 show is the audio. Words cannot describe the audio of Call of Duty 2. Its loud, powerful, and in your face. The sounds of war have never been brought to life in quite this fashion in any war game before. The game sounds good on virtually any system, even on TV speakers. However, users with a surround sound setup will definately appreciate the games Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. Every little detail is placed perfectly to engulf you in the entire sound stage. If the graphics and gameplay didn't convince you that you're in a war then the audio will add the icing to the cake. Simply playing D-Day will blow your mind with how authentic the game sounds. Grenades boom, guns bark and friend and foe alike scream out commands and warnings. Thats not even mentioning the powerful musical score that has been composed for the game. Though the integration of the score is sparse it comes in at just the right moments to add that little extra spice to an otherwise solid presentation. If there ever was a game that had a perfect performance on the sound front then Call of Duty 2 is that game.

Now with such an impressive performance its painful to have to admit that the multiplayer is Call of Duty 2's biggest letdown. The game has all the right stuff for a solid multiplayer and when it works its bliss. However, the network code is not very well optimized and games are frequently plauged by latency issues. Patches have been released to address the issue and have improved the problem significantly but problems still remain and it definately hurts the game. Again theere aren't many options to customize your online experience but whats there is enough to spend many hours playing online. Additionally the learning curve isn't very steep and new users can be pulling off advanced techniques very quickly.

In addition to online Call of Duty 2 offers the Infamous Veteran difficulty. This mode will add the most amount of replayability. In this mode the enemies are extremely tough and will push you to your limits and then some. Many have tried and many have failed but continue to press on because of the exciting challenge that it offers. Furthermore for each mission that you complete on veteran you receive another achievement which adds further incentive to do it. Along with Xbox Live, Veteran mode will keep you playing the game for months if not years thusly giving the game a lot of replay value.

Call of Duty 2 was one of the Xbox 360's best selling launch games for a reason. It wasn't because it had the prettiest graphics or the most destructive environments. It was because the game at its core was just downright fun. From the humble training mission to the final mission of Crossing the Volga you'll enjoy everything that Call of Duty 2 has to offer. The gameplay is solid and refined, the graphics are impressive, the audio is sublime and the game has replay value for ages to come with Xbox Live and Veteran difficulty. If you're looking for a quality shooter to add to your collection then Call of Duty 2 is one that you should definately pick up. Its that good.

-Indy Billing.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/06