Call of Duty: World at War

"Utterly Frustrating"

Let me get something out of the way. I do play Call of Duty 4, and I enjoyed every minute of it: Both in the single player mode and on multiplayer mode. It was a near perfect First Person Shooter (FPS). Now, that being said, I will be comparing some aspects of this game to CoD4, simply because this game was made using CoD4's engine. Comparing this game to CoD4 makes this game look like trash; comparing this game to other FPS's still makes this game look bad. Why?

GAMEPLAY: 4/10

This is why. The gameplay is flawed in many, many ways. Now where to begin?

First of all, let me just say that this is either the hardest FPS in the universe or I'm a terrible FPS player. I don't think it's the second one since I got 1000/1000 gamer score for CoD4 pretty easily. I'm going to go with this game being extremely frustrating. On regular mode, I died no less than 75 times, and I'm being serious. This is not because the enemy AI is smart or anything. Rather, it's because the enemy AI is cheap. Remember grenade spamming during multiplayer in CoD4? Well, it looks like Treyarch took that element and incorporated it into the enemy AI during the single player mode. Over half of my deaths in this game came from grenades. Not only that, but most of my grenade deaths came from the enemies dropping them when they die. This is called Martyrdom (All CoD4 players know what this is) and it is THE WORST part of this game. It is the cheapest, dirtiest, most annoying thing ever put into a video game. Here's a scenario: You kill an enemy in a tunnel and he uses Martyrdom. You run forward and another enemy decides to throw a grenade at you. You run backwards and see two grenade icons on the screen at once. At this point, you have no choice but to run in either direction and die from an explosion. This happens so many times that you will throw your controller down in frustration during every level.

Another problem in the game deals with the respawn points. When you die, chances are you will respawn in direct enemy fire. Sometimes, you might die when the *Checkpoint* sign appears on the screen. If this happens, you will probably respawn in the spot you dies at. One time, I respawned while a grenade icon was on the screen. Now that's unfair. Speaking of checkpoints, they are placed infrequently. Sometimes, you might not see a checkpoint for 15 minutes or so, while other times you might see two checkpoints in a row, one appearing right after the other. If you decide to play on Veteran mode, you have to be flawless on the last three stages, because checkpoints only appear 4 times or so on those levels. It's tough, and it's an unfair toughness.

As for weaponry, it's ok. Just ok. There nothing special about any of the weapons. You basically have near-useless bolt action rifles that reload constantly and have poor aiming sights, and sub machine guns that also have iron sights. I couldn't tell the difference in the sub machines guns in terms of firepower. There's some shotguns, snipers, and pistols too. There's also the flamethrower, a new addition to the game that is less enthralling than it sounds. It overheats after 4 seconds or so, and it requires you to be moderately close to the enemies. The molotov cocktails are terrible, and hardly hit more than one enemy at a time, but maybe that's just me.

The levels don't really get exciting until the second half of the game. In the beginning, you basically have short, 15 minute levels that just prepare you for the last few stages. The last levels are great in terms of design, but in terms of enemy placement and difficulty, it's just plain unfair. There's one level where you control various machine guns on a plane that is not is actually more fun than the plane mission in CoD4. There's also one level where you control a tank and must destroy enemy weaponry. Regardless to say, these levels are easily the best in the game.

There's also one level where you must fight for survival against a zombie hoard of Nazi's. You score points by killing zombies and use these points to access new areas, buy weapons, and purchase ammo. It's fun for a while, but it is not a sole reason's worth to buy the game.

One thing I did like about the game is that limbs can be blown off, and a head shot actually means that an enemy's head is blown off, unlike CoD4. Though there is a lot of blood and guts, but that makes the game more War-like.

STORY: 5/10

To be honest, I didn't care for the story at all in this game. It's told to you after each level is completed and doesn't make sense. From what I can tell, you play as a member of the Red Army and as a member of the Marines. The Red Army kills Nazi's and the Marines kill the Japanese. It's a World War 2 storyline that tells the events of the real war, which has already been done before. The story advances with clips of WW 2 footage, that are plain boring. If you can follow the story and be captivated by it, than I salute you.

SOUND: 8/10

I honestly didn't care much for the music in any CoD games. This game isn't any different. Music is OK, voice acting is average, and weapon noises sound like they should. You get some *pew pew pew's* and some *kabooms*; pretty OK sounding weapons.

GRAPHICS: 9/10

It uses CoD4's engine and everything looks rendered pretty well. I don't have any complaints, except the game uses repeated scenery way too often. You will see many of exactly-the-same-looking palm trees, trucks, rocks, barricades, etc. throughout the whole game. I think it's just used to take up space, which isn't a bad thing, but I think that the environment could be used is better ways.

MULTIPLAYER: 5/10

Here's the premise: Take CoD4's awesome, balanced multiplayer mode and try as hard as humanly possible to mess it up. The multiplayer mode is extremely unbalanced, specifically, in terms of weaponry.

There are tanks. These powerhouses are extremely overpowered and can be used to decimate an entire team quite quickly. If you team get two tanks side by side, you can easily rack up 15 kills or so in a minute for your team. They can be destroyed easily though: a rocket launcher and some satchel charges will do the trick. But still, these beasts can be used to cheaply turn the tide of the battle.

Next, martyrdom is back, and it's just as bad as ever. No need for an explanation of this cheap, horrible perk.

Next, you're restricted to playing only four game types when you first play the game. You must level up to access other modes. That mean, no search and destroy or headquarters for a while.

Kill streaks are back. After three consecutive kills, you get a UAV. After five kills, you get an airstrike. After seven, you get...dogs. Not a helicopter like CoD4 (Which was cheap yet awesome), but dogs. You release a pack of dogs when you get seven kills that go out and attack unsuspecting enemy players. They are next to useless half the time. I called in dogs twice during one game and got only one kill from them. Why? Could it be the fact that they're barking could be heard from a mile away, or that they can be killed in a few shots? How about both. The dogs are just awful.

The community for World at War is better than CoD4's. That doesn't mean that it's good though, as there's still the occasional 10 year old, the mute, the non-stop talking machine, and the guy that thinks he's God.

The weapons are overpowered at high levels, and tuned down to useless on lower ones. Weapons can be upgraded after a certain amount of kills. You can put on a dot-sight or a silencer on most weapons. The dot-sight is no where near as useful as CoD4's red dot-sight, and the silencer is practically useless, as it lowers range to slightly reduce a weapon's sound.

Grenade spamming is back, better than ever. People seem to like using grenades more than weapons for some odd reason.

Perks also return, with some new ones and many old ones. Some are useful (i.e. bazooka) and some are completely useless (i.e. tabun gas, lead foot, bomb squad, etc.).

OVERALL: 5/10

If you're itching to play an FPS, be it online of offline, get CoD4. The story mode is more captivating, and the multiplayer mode is balanced. Overall, everything is better in CoD4. I don't Infinity Ward or anything, but I think that Treyarch messed up big time deciding what's fair and fun in World at War. Skip this game, or rent it if you so desire.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/24/09

Game Release: Call of Duty: World at War (US, 11/10/08)