Call of Duty 2

"Answer the Call Again"

Call of Duty 2 brings back the essential Call of Duty you got on the Xbox and brings with it a whole new dramatic experience along with a good standing concept in the World War 2 European Theater. Call of Duty 2 hits on three different regions with three different Ally perspectives. The concept behind Call of Duty 2 focuses on German aggression and the battles you fight all involve the struggle to shrink the vast and short lived empire and culminates in the Allies crossing into Germany. The concept is a very general idea that allows for a lot of specific battles to be fought that symbolizes the idea of aggression. So how does Call of Duty 2 hold up today almost a year after the release of Call of Duty 4 and with the anticipation of Call of Duty 5? Well let us just say that the series has been improving itself over the years, but also losing the general aspects of the original Call of Duty to replace with more specific storylines.

Story

Call of Duty 2 is definitely in line with the Medal of Honor series and the whole glory war ideal of the big fight between good versus evil that was World War 2. World War 2 games do not sell this concept short, but it does get old after awhile. It is not that it is a bad concept and you could make a whole game based on one battle or one unit in the war, but these games are getting over-baked and this finally fell through for the last game in this line-Medal of Honor: Airborne. The story in Call of Duty 2 is as I have mentioned before, focused on how Adolph's Germany began an empire and how each Ally country resolved to defend itself. This concept is best presented with the first chapter in the game as you begin as a young Soviet recruit who has lost his family to the war and now only wants to kill him some "fascists". The Reds have to complete a number of objectives to retake the city of Stalingrad and so you will repeat a lot of the defend and attack strategies of ruined city warfare. The second chapter features British special and tank forces that eventually lead to the Battle of El Alamein to shut the Germans out of Africa. It is a wonder why they would have needed to invade Africa in the first place since all that armor could have helped to take on the Russians. The third and final chapter is of course the Americans (specifically the Rangers) who are about to embark on their great crusade to take care of the invasion of German forces in western Europe. You get the actual D-Day speeches of Eisenhower as well as a special voiceover tribute from Ronald Reagan many years later at a service for the veteran Rangers who fought at Pointe du Hoc. There is some really good stuff packed into this game concerning the authenticity and history that is presented in Call of Duty 2.

Game Play

The game play is still standard from the original Call of Duty. Playing this game after spending days on Call of Duty 4 really annoys you when you pull up your binoculars every time you click the left thumb stick to try to run. The difficulty is set just right with the Easy mode being almost a simple walkthrough and the Hard mode being hard as in do not pop your head up when someone is still shooting at you hard. There is no cook meter to time how long you got until the grenade you are holding goes off. Grenades have fuses so it is not that hard to count to three. This was added in for Call of Duty 3, but right back out for Call of Duty 4 and that is good. You also get to experience some tank blasting fun in Call of Duty 2 which is always a must but most of the controls and game play are standard from the original game. While there is some drama in the game you do not get attached to your squad mates. Everyone has a name including the tanks, but beyond serving a few battles with them there is no character development between you and them. Playing online is hardly an option now, but you still have the opportunity to play split-screen or system link multiplayer.

Sound/Graphics

I do not want to be too harsh on Call of Duty 2 because the graphics are pretty nice, but some of the effects in the game get out of place or repetitive. This is a major problem with war games that try to put on a first person experience inside a full-scale battle. Unless you are running through this fairly quickly you will notice how a lot of the effects are repetitive. Say you want to stand behind a wall for a few moments to regain some health and you shoot one enemy in a window. Well in a few seconds he will reappear again. If you stay there a couple of minutes you will have gone through a couple of these reappearing enemies until you actually move up to an objective. The enemy characters are not fully developed and there are noticeable clones encountered throughout. Objects in the game do not react when you shoot them and bullets tend to go straight through. You also have a lot of the repetitious voice bits being said over and over as well as mortar rounds going off over and over in the same place so you cannot stop to take in the view without noticing this. The music is great though and typical of such a glory war game. The voiceovers parts throughout the game work well and although you may hear the same line repeated there are a lot of different bits in the game.

Replay Value

Call of Duty 2 has some considerable replay value to it although the Xbox Live community is going to be small if any that are still online. Call of Duty 4 really took away the communities of both this game and Call of Duty 3. Call of Duty 2 is excellent for unlocking achievements so you will have a reason to go back and play through on Hard difficulty. Some of the battles are nicely done with respect to the history and authenticity of the actual battles so you will learn from this game.

Final Recommendation 8/10

Call of Duty 2 has its glitches, but it delivers on being another great World War 2 game. I would actually recommend Call of Duty 2 over Call of Duty 3 as it is much more in line with the original game of the series and has a broader and more general approach than Call of Duty 3. Call of Duty 2 is an excellent historical game and offers plenty of gaming as well as learning value so I would recommend this game as a buy if you have not played it. This was one of the big early release titles when the Xbox came out and although the online community may have forsaken this game it is still a good single player game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/17/08

Game Release: Call of Duty 2 (US, 11/17/05)