Rating: 
Summary: No one fights alone
Review: I'm admittedly not a huge PC game fan. And I'm even less of a first person shooter fan. The FPS genre of game seem to be inanely redundant. So naturally I was skeptical about Activision's Call of Duty. Fortunatley this is one game that not only breaks the some of the FPS shooter stigmas, it SHATTERS them. In Call of Duty, you play as three different characters. Private Martin, a US Airborne Ranger, Private Evans with the British Special Air Services, and a Russian conscript named Alexi. Each character has thier own individual weapons according to thier nation of origin. You can also pick up weapons of fallen commrades and German soldiers so there's no shortage of firepower. You can also control such weapons as anti-tank rifles, machine guns, and anti-aircraft flak guns. Aside from the weapons, the thing that makes Call of Duty standout among games that it places you in the middle of some large scale battles. Activision and Infinity Ward have captured the chaos and the gritty realism that soldiers must have endured during the second World War. You'll have A.I. squad mates who will fight along your side and are an integral part of the action. There are various missions that do resemble most of what people would recognise from a standard first person shooter (walking around and arbitrarily blowing away random non-descript bad guys, reloading, picking up the occasional item and flipping a lever here and there). But those missions aren't the main focus. Also the controls are pretty much the same as any first person shooter out there. They can also be customised to fit the player's preferences. The graphics on this game are very good. You really get the feeling that you are in war torn Europe. Bombed out buildings, trees, and burned out cars line dot the landscape. There was some doubt whether or not my computer would run it. But given my specs; 800mhz AMD Athlon processor
256 SDRAM
64mb Nvidia GeForce2/MX400 video card I was able to run the game at pretty much it's default settings of 800x600 screen resolution with minimal slowdown. One thing I would recomend is updating your video card's drivers before installing the game. NVidia has a special setting in it's newest drivers specifically for Call of Duty, though I have not had to make any adjustments. The game is pretty big in size. You'll need 1.4 gigs of disc drive space over two discs and DirectX 9 which is included. So why does Call of Duty get 4 stars and not 5 out of 5? Well it does lose a point for being a first person shooter. Albiet a VERY good first shooter. Call of Duty should serve as a benchmark in the PC gaming world. It's been able to take a genre that has been essentially unchanged for the last few years and has managed to breathe new life into it. This game definitley falls into the "must play" column.
Rating: 
Summary: Most Realistic Shooter Ever (and my Favourite)
Review: Yes. This is the ultimate fps. A lot of people will say Half Life or Half Life 2 is, but I'm standing by this. This one is more realistic. It is a World War II fps, not an alien filled romp that is fun. Anywho, in this game you play through three campaigns: American, British, and finally Russian. You are a soldier in one of those three squads and attempt to successfully complete whatever mission you were assigned. This game focuses on the heroes of the war being a group of "nobodies" not just one big hero.
The graphics may be a little dated, but they still get the job done very nicely. You unfortunately do not get to drive any vehicles, though on two different missions you are in a moving vehicle being chased by enemies and have to take 'em out.
The gameplay is exceptional and by far the best in any FPS I have ever played. I am not joking. This is once very intense game and is by no means a "run and gun" ala Quake or Doom. If you decide to go out guna a blazin' you may get a bullet popped right in the head. You have to be careful, move slow if need be and watch out, depending on what type of gun you have. You may want to lay prone for a while in order to assess the situation. Though there are times when you will have to run out firing.
The online play is even better. I have not played every mode that is offered but there are some exciting ones like Behind Enemy Lines and Headquarters. The old Deathmatch is fun as well. But my personal fav is Team Deathmatch. The gameplay is just as exciting, and even more unpredictable because you are playing against real people. And if you still have a dial up modem like me, do not worry, with the exception of a few times, I run very great at pretty good ping times. It is still very much fun.
Personal Highlights:
1. Holding the bridge as the brits
2. The car battle
3. Going into Stalingrad without a weapon. If you turn and run, the Russian's open fire on their own men.
This is the first game where I really took a lot of screenshots at really cool things that happened or I did. If you like FPS games weather they are run and gun or strategic you should get this. And if you are a WWII buff then you should get this as well. It is well worth your money.
Rating:
Summary: Nice!
Review: If you like first-person shooters set in World War II, then you'll probably like Call of Duty. It has very nice graphics, good squad combat, good level design, and runs well if you have an upper-midrange system like mine. And-oh yes-it's much like Medal of Honor.
If you've played Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, then you should have a good idea what Call of Duty is like. I would say that overall, though, Call of Duty is better because it doesn't have those ludicrously difficult sniper levels in Medal of Honor. Call of Duty lets you choose the difficulty level, and the easy setting IS easy as it should be.
I'm impressed with the graphics and level design in Call of Duty. The levels are laid out in such a way as to enhance combat and allow a bit of interesting exploration. Moreover. The levels have a lot of detail, and yet the game runs smoothly even at the highest screen resolution.
Well, it'll run smoothly if your system is at least as good as mine, and my computer is configured with a 3 GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, and a 128 MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card. If your system is not so well endowed, then don't give up. You could easily set the graphics settings at lower levels to get smooth frame rates.
So why not five stars? My only beef with this game is that it's rather derivative of older games. There's not a whole lot here that other shooters haven't offered before. But that's not too bad because Call of Duty takes what came before it and refines it.
To sum it up, Call of Duty is a very good game that deserves a try from any shooter fan. I gave it a try, and I'm glad I did.
Rating:
Summary: Be a Hero!
Review: ...But wait until you can buy this and the new United Offensive Expansion together. To be honest though if you really want to play the next best 1st person shooter to Half-Life 2 then get the expansion pack and this, but they should be out together soon enough.
This game can run on a 32mb graphics card meaning if you have a high-end 64mb module or a 128mb you are going to be in for a good time. I ran it on a 256mb and it was very good with the UO expansion was astonishing. Nearly anyone with a somewhat recent PC can play this 1st person shooter and I am sure it will leave most happy that they did. Was it better than Medal of Honour: Allied Assault, as we have heard? Yeah, it is, but not by much, a margin maybe, but still anything that can live up to MOHAA surely can't be missed and COD lives up to the hype.
The concept is the same as MOHAA except that there is more action, more high-octane moments, a different type of enemy AI. UO has a lot more going on in terms of what you can pilot and drive in the story, although not freely but as part of the story. The Both COD and UO game play certainly have the Cinematic intensity that it claims including various set pieces like the storming of the Reichstag. UO has more thrilling missions but this one has the original Enemy at the Gates opening. UO has an Enemy at the Gates finishing, a train bombing run, a lighthouse demolition, the Soviet offensive, all stunning to boot.
COD or OU iare not however HL2 graphics quality or anything close, but does offer a vast improvement over MOHAA, so in that respect is quite good, just nowhere near cutting edge. However COD:UO does have very convincing camera jitters and spectacular smoky explosions. So does COD but not as good quality. The textures let both games down a small bit but the environments and maps are genuinely war like all the way through and can not be faulted. The enemy AI and your own team AI can vary between very helpful and not so helpful but this depends on if you do your job or not. It is actually quite reliable. More so in UO - when your team take on an enemy the AI allows each to take multiple hits so that they eventually come into close combat and start hitting each other. This AI must be taken as is, even though slightly unrealistic, the game is not a war simulation but a 1st person war adventure and to be honest, does exactly what it says on the tin. So apart from the staged element, which actually ads to the game, it is more of an experience than a game you will turn to time and time again, however it is worth it for the experience of the single player mission alone.
I can not fault it much except to say that it is shorter than UO, a bit easier than UO, and UO is shorter than MOHAA. Weapons realism is not fantastic and the game was a little shorter than UO (this is a 1.5 day game span while UO had 3) but to be honest I am only cribbing. The pandemonium of war is all here in a spectacular fashion because the story is a winner as you play a mini version of BAND OF BROTHERS as part 1 and then a mini version of ENEMY AT GATES in part 2. So WOW! You even feel loss at the end.
However when a new war simulation like OPERATION FLASHPOINT comes out for high-end cards I know we will have the true war winner. Please bring on the real war simulator!
Pros:
- Play the two films mentioned above.
- Best new war game and 2nd best 1st person shooter.
- Awesome war atmosphere.
- Smoky explosions.
- Can run on a 32mb card!
- COD + UO makes for a great experience.
Cons:
- 1.5 day lifespan for COD and a 3 day lifespan for UO.
- Weapons are not so realistic.
- Graphics are not 128mb worthy.
- We really need a new Operation Flashpoint with map editor!
Rating:
Summary: BEST WWII FPS SHOOTER!!!
Review: I played Medal of Honor Allied Assault (MOHAA) and the expansion Spearhead. MOHAA made me love FPS war games. Call of Duty (COD) has a lot of things that I wished MOHAA had when I was playing it. COD allows you pick up any type of weapon in the game including the enemy's. It handles the supply of ammunition much better by letting you take the German weapons and take their ammunition as you kill them. MOHAA would give you Thompson rounds for picking up MP40 rounds and similar for the rifles. The stance feature is setup better. You can change from standing to crouch with a single button you don't have to hold it down as in MOHAA and you can drop to a laying down position, which MOHAA did not have. COD also has an improved aiming feature where you can look down the weapon site on all weapons not just sniper rifles. The only playability feature that COD did not have was stealth mode. In MOHAA you could sneak right up behind the enemy if the opportunity presented itself. Since a lot of the missions involved team movement you wouldn't be able to use this feature often; however, there were several times that it would have been nice to have.
I also like the game engine that COD uses. MOHAA also has some missions where you work with other guys on your side; however, the teammate AI was generally awful. In COD, your teammates actually act like soldiers. They use cover effectively and can engage the enemy without getting themselves killed (at least some of them can - the Russian troops just act like cannon fodder). They are useful they don't just get in the way as in MOHAA. However, they aren't always careful with their grenades (watch the shrapnel). The enemy AI has even improved over MOHAA. In MOHAA, the enemy would always react the same way (always). The Germans in COD sometimes take different routes (they do still spawn from pre-determined locations). They also use team-attacking tactics. This is very evident in one of the Russian missions where you are holding the building waiting for reinforcements. Holding the building against 100+ Germans for 4 minutes is hard on veteran difficulty (no health packs, more accurate enemy, more damage if hit) when all your teammates are wiped out. The AI attacks in groups using guys to draw your fire while they get better firing positions. And boy they are just waiting for you to run out of ammo and have to reload. Needless to say that took a couple of loaded saves.
One other thing I really liked is the historic battles. I use to play Close Combat (1 thru 5) and I recognized a lot of the locations in the airborne drops by the Americans and British. Other than the D-Day landings MOHAA story line seemed kinda generic.
The only reason I don't give COD 5 stars is the single player is way to short. I played on the highest difficulty and finished in less than 24 hours, MOHAA lasted a lot longer. I haven't played online yet, but I can't imagine it being much different than MOHAA. However, as I remember multiplayer is pretty addictive.
Rating:
Summary: great game but not enough single player missions
Review: The gameplay in Call of Duty is excellent. The single-user missions are well-put together, with the minor quibble that they are disjoint: You alternate missions by the handful between British, American, and Russian forces. You even drive a tank in a couple of missions. The level of realism was excellent; the game hits home hard and makes you cringe in spots.
The missions are challenging enough to keep you engrossed, but not too challenging that they're impossible. The biggest problem I have with Call of Duty is that the missions are far too short. It took me about ten hours to complete all of the missions.
Once I finished the missions, I tried out multiplayer. So far I've found it to be less than compelling. Most servers (there are a lot of them!) are set up as team death-match, which means it's a pointless bloodbath to rack up the most kills.
From a performance standpoint, I had almost no problems with the game once I updated my video drivers. I noted a couple of odd polygon problems but nothing that detracted much from gameplay.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This just might be the FPS world's crown Jewel.Gameplay is immaculate, and the graphics and sound are supurb. My ONLY gripe is how quickly I beat it. In a year when this game and Far Cry have graced my PC, my computer feels well taken care of.
Thanks, Activision. Thanks, Infinity Ward. You have made a masterpiece.
On to the expansion..
Rating:
Summary: SWEEEEEEEEET!
Review: This game had me ducking and weaving and wincing as bullets flew past. It is very realistic, and some of the missions are gory. There is a mission right out of Enemy at the Gates, as someone mentioned previously. As I started playing it, I was yelling "I want the gun! Give me the gun! Awww, crap, I got the bullets!" which led my wife to come running in. For a moment, she thought I was playing a game based on the movie.
I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who likes FPS and WWII games. This combines both spectacularly!
The only downside is how short the game is. I got it for Christmas and I've already completed Easy mode and that was only spending a couple hours a day on it.
I'll be buying United Offensive next, and probably Medal of Honor, based on the recommendations from others who own both. Do yourself a favor and BUY THIS GAME.
|
