Call of Duty Review

I just finished the single player portion of the game Call of Duty. Call of Duty is a first-person shooter set in World War II on D-Day and the push to Berlin. You play the part of a soldier in three campaigns; one as an American, one as a Brit and the last as a Russian.

The game's scripted parts are excellent and go a long way in making you feel like you are part of the action. I played on the hardest difficulty setting which forces you to make it through each level without the benefit of picking up additional health. The weapons were fairly easy to get the hang of and the AI (both enemy and friendly) was, for the most part well done. There were a couple of spots where the friendly AI threw grenades at my location, but most of the time the AI was helpful. The enemy AI was above average and were able to keep me looking for cover. There were levels that I got through on sheer luck. But I suppose that is a good thing since many that survived the war would probably agree they did so more on luck than any special talent.

The game played well and I didn't have any crashes on my Pentium 4 1.8GHz machine. There were a few spots where the action caused things to slow down noticeably but this was infrequent enough that it did not take away from the overall feel of the game. IF you like this type of game this one is well worth the expense.

I have tried a couple of the multiplayer modes, Search and Destroy and Team Deathmatch. Search and Destroy is similar to counter strike. One team is searching for targets that they will try to blow up while the other defends the targets. Of course with this type of game you have the usual problem of having to learn where the objectives are on each map. Fortunately, a radar/compass instrument shows you where the targets are located so you can use that to try to find things. Also, as a new player, you find yourself dead much of the time just hanging around waiting for the round to end. Team deathmatch is a typical team game where the object is to eliminate the other team's players more often than they eliminate you. In all the multiplayer game styles, Call of Duty has implemented a death-cam replay which shows you how you were killed from the perspective of the person who shot you. This is a very cool feature especially when you are trying to learn the game, but I can see that the snipers out there will not find this feature very pleasing as it gives away their position. So far I am not blown away by the multiplayer game. But sometimes these kinds of games can grow on you and getting in with the right bunch of players can make a world of difference.