t13monkeys's Full Review: Call of Duty: World At War Activision for Xbox 360
After the transcendent Modern Warfare by Infinity Ward, Treyarch had an incredibly tough act to follow with Call of Duty: World at War (CoH:WaW), returning the series back to its roots in WWII. While it isn’t a bad effort- especially on the graphical side of things, the engine is finally showing its wear and tear, and the glitchy last levels make World at War less than the perfection we’ve seen from most of the Call of Duty series. Bottom line, WaW is far from just an average everyday shooter given the high standards of the series, but compared to its predecessors, it definitely could have used some more polish.
World at War – Two Fronts
Set in WWII, the game has you fighting on two fronts, the Russians against the Germans in the West, and the Americans against the Japanese in the East. The story is minimalist, told with only a few broad theater of war- CG-heavy scenes dispersed with ACTUAL footage- which is a bit disturbing given the realism of the game. Characters do have a few in-game cut scenes, but they’re on a whole less effective than the previous CoD games.
Cooperative Single Player Mode
The key element missing from Modern Warfare was the lack of cooperative play, and so CoD:WaW answers that by directly addressing this and giving users not just cooperative play over LIVE but even the rare and coveted split-screen coop. The problem is given the raw graphic intensity of the game, it ends up not just splitting the top and bottom screen but carves out little boxes- meaning you’ll either need a huge TV or you’ll have to get up and close to spot your enemies. It’s not so bad that it’s unplayable, but the coop is far better on LIVE. One caveat on this mode is that it’s a bit rough around the edges- cinematic scenes are the same for both screens in that you’ll mesh into the same player. If they had spent just a little more time hashing out two distinct characters to play, it could have made a world of difference.
Variety of Level Design
Call of Duty’s greatest strength is in its immersion and WaW continues to do this very well. As in the former series, they’ve also included a highly detailed sniper level that has you running from burning buildings in the middle of heavily enemy fortified combat, in yet another one of the best missions yet in the Call of Duty series. The flaming wreckage tumbling down as you dash from area to area gives you a true feeling of the chase, but as with the rest of the CoD series, it’s also extremely linear.
Like Modern Warfare, to give some more variety than just ground infantry, there’s a great airplane level that has you dashing from turret to turret inside a detailed fighter during a battleship run, and also a few tank levels, which while basic add a welcome mix to the standard ground run and gun. In terms of gameplay there’s nothing more than just typical aim and shoot but again it’s all about the environment.
New Weapon – Flamethrower
The flamethrower offers a new gameplay element, especially since this game has you fighting against the Japanese in WWII. Here you’ll use the flamethrower to take out fortified bunkers- literally cooking soldiers inside pill boxes, or even using it to take care of snipers that are camping out in palm trees. It’s extreme and grisly to see burning corpses run toward you, but that leads to another thing with this game. World at War – Too Real?
There’s controversy in this game for trying too much to be real and then failing to be culturally sensitive. The opening scene already shows a Japanese interrogation that involves a Japanese commander stabbing his cigar in a prisoner’s eye, and the game offers some gripping decisions in the Russian campaign that a gamer isn’t really equipped to deal with. In one scenario you’ll have the choice of shooting Nazi soldiers who have surrendered, or taking them out in cold blood. Providing such moral choices in a video game where you’re literally mowing down hordes of faceless drones (with bonus multipliers popping up) shouldn’t be a problem, but the Japanese soldiers that run up to you with bayonets screaming “Kamikaze” can be unnervingly life-like. It’s a balance that has you wondering how far is too far and as games begin to get more realistic it’s tough to say where one should draw the line.
Zombie Game
As an added bonus for beating the single-player you’ll unlock a zombie survival game that is similar to a thumbed down Left 4 Dead-style level where you’ll be defending yourself in a small barricaded room with other friends against hordes of zombies. Kill the zombies and gain points, which you can use to rebarricade windows and buy weapons. If you have Left 4 Dead, you will never ever use this mode, but if you don’t, it’s a decent distraction.
Buggy AI
What messes up WaW the most out of anything is just the buggy AI at the end that fails to react to you. Up to the first few levels everything seemed to be working fine, but at the end when the game’s body count begins to reach epic proportions and the mayhem is getting out of control, all the extra enemy models will begin to pop up and freeze, failing to attack you and sometimes even failing to move or die when you shoot at them. This might be forgiven if it only applied to a few cases, but we’re talking entire level segments with this glitch, which only gets rectified when you’ve reached a narrow corridor or a place with a small enemy count. It shows this game engine is definitely reaching its limits, or Treyarch just failed to write in the proper code for the AI. Either way, a messy finish for the game destroys the otherwise great level design.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer isn’t worthwhile if you’ve played other CoD games because it just isn’t as polished or balanced as the other CoD games and it’s hard to go back to WWII after playing a game like Modern Warfare. If you get WaW don’t get it for this factor- get it for the coop single player because that honestly is the highlight of this piece.
Conclusion
Top-notch level designs, great cinematic music and yet another twist on the already been done before WWII theme still make WaW better than most 3d shooters. It could still use though, some heavy polish on the buggy AI, a better multiplayer treatment, and a more refined coop storyline that actually takes its time to define two separate players. While WaW isn’t nearly as good as its predecessor, Modern Warfare, it still holds up to the CoD name and is a worthy rental. The single player mode will give a good 5-6 hours worth of gameplay if not more, and then after that how much you ride the multiplayer and zombie experience is up to you.
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