Rating: R16 - Contains Violence.
Genre: First Person Shooter, World War 2.
Developer: Activision, Treyarch.
Release Date: Available Now.
There were two main players when it comes to great World War Two First Person Shooters on the Xbox; Call Of Duty and Brothers In Arms. Both were as good as each other, yet distinctively different. Brothers focussed on teamwork and squad level tactics, where as Call focussed on action. Movie style action with rich cinematic and shoot from the hip game play. Where Brothers was satisfying on a ‘higher’ level, Call gave you a shot of adrenaline and let you be the hero with all guns blazing.
So when I had the chance to play Call Of Duty 3 on the Xbox 360, I jumped at it. (The same way I’ll jump at the chance to play the latest Brothers offing next year).
So what’s new in Call Of Duty 3? Well for starters you won’t be storming the beaches again. Nope, you’ve got a foothold in France. It’s not the best foothold, and is by no means secure. But that’s where you come in. You get to play the Americans, British, Poles and Canadians as they fight there way through the Normandy Breakout during 1944.
Now to be honest, the game plays pretty much like any other Call game you may have played, but there are some noticeable differences. For starters, and as you’d expect on a next gen console, the graphics are way better. Smoke, explosions, lighting, it’s all beautifully rendered and make for a very atmospheric game. There are even missions where your creeping through the long grass, and every individual piece of grass is modelled and waves in the wind.
Graphically breathtaking, Call also has a few game play surprises. Gun into some rooms in the game and a hidden German will jump out and wrestle you to the ground forcing you to use some button mashing to throw him off. Whilst this can get annoying to have to deal with it does add flavour to the game play. Other nice distractions include planting explosives. You get the press one button to start the process, and then it’s a combination of pushing the right buttons and twirling the thumb stick. Once again it just adds that little bit to the game play. There are no medical bags to pick up this time, instead when you’re taking to many hits, the game gives you visual and audio clues and tells you to take cover. After a brief respite you’ll be fine to get back in the fight. Finally, the graphics engine allows for depth of field when looking directly down the sights at your enemy. The longer you focus before taking the shot, the more out of focus the surrounds get. Move your gun when still focused and you’ll have to wait to re-focus. It might sound weird on paper, but in action it’s a sweet touch.
And that’s what makes Call such an enjoyable game – the little details. Also that the game play is varied. Sure most of the time you’ll be running around, following orders and killing Germans with an assortment of guns. But from time to time you’ll get something a little different, like driving a jeep, or taking control of a tank and go Tiger hunting.
Of course, Call is far from perfect. It suffers from the same ills that it’ predecessors did: Fixed game play. You do this so that you can then go there and do that. There’s not a lot of freedom to choose your route. I say not a lot, as for the first time Call 3 does offer you some choices in some of the missions as to what route to take or what to do first. But it is still limiting. From time to time I’d be running and shooting so fast, killing all the Germans that I’d find I’d gotten ahead of my self, and before I could go forward I had to run back to my squad so that they could trigger the next stage of the mission.
And then there were the parts where if you missed the brief instructions (and easy thing to do) you’d be left trying to figure out what the heck you were supposed to do. One such time was the mortar. I got to a point in the game where I was supposed to use a mortar to destroy an assortment of targets, but I must have missed the very quick and brief instructions in my single focused attempts at destroying the Germans. So I’m left in charge of a mortar that I have no idea of how to aim. I tried everything and nothing seemed to work. I got frustrated and threw the controller across the room. But I persevered and through sheer determination will that thing to move around and fire. I completed the mission, but still have no idea how to use the mortar!
All in all it was great fun to get behind the gun sights in a World War Two First Person Shooter again. The step up in graphics and reflected game play was great. The dynamics of play and visual clues were good, and the good far outweighed the bad.
Rent or Buy?If you’re a hard out gamer you could probably finish this game in one 12-hour session, so renting might be an idea. However if you’re a casual gamer, it’s gonna take you a while longer. If you’re lucky enough to have fast internet and Xbox live then that opens up a whole new world, so purchasing would defiantly be on the cards.
Seth Schiesel from the New York Times logged more than 30 hours with 13 games for the PS3 over the last week. His early verdict? Sony has failed to deliver on their promise and the new video game system "just isn't that great." He criticizes the lack of in-box HD cables, having to connect "wireless" controllers to the console for recognition purposes, and the difficulty playing custom playlists in games. He basically deems the 360 the better machine for now calling it a "powerful but intuitive system" likening the PS3 to a "brawny but somewhat recalcitrant specialized computer."
