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Call of Duty

Call of Duty

List Price: $29.99
Your Price: $22.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Are You High?
Review: Everyone has given this game 5 stars based on the demo, and frankly I don't get it. I'm no curmudgeon, and I enjoy any good video game. But this one just doesn't cut it.

There are two extremes from which to approach the game: ridiculously easy or insanely hard. I started playing on the easy level and, at first, it was fun. Then I realized that I was playing a "realistic" military shooter and, although I was on mission 5, I hadn't died. Not once. I had so many hit points, and some helpful person had scattered so many health packets, that there was zero tension. So I went back and set it to "veteran" and the whole thing fell apart before my eyes. Because once you crank the difficulty level up, which basically cuts your health points to the point where you die after one or two shots, you see all the flaws in the game.

The AI become crack shots at unbelievable distances - I finally quit after being taken out three times by an emplaced MG42 on full auto at 1000 yards, through a hole in a brick wall. The enemy always shoots at you, not strategically at your team. And they cheat horribly - guys who haven't seen you pop out of doors with their guns already pointed at you. The cheating is made obvious by the fact that the particles don't sort correctly, and the enemy will shoot directly at your current position even when you're hiding behind a wall. Your squadmates, who are supposed to help you, cluster up and shiver together like frightened sheep. It is up to you to do _everything_. On easy this isn't so bad (even if it is boring) because of your bottomless health reserves. On veteran it becomes a chore, because one or two shots will kill you and there's _no_ health. So leading every charge means you die about 5 billion times per level. It doesn't help that the game freezes up every single time I die, and I have to wait a full minute hearing the sounds chop and repeat until it senses my F9 keypress to reload.

Why are my squadmates so idiotic? They will go into endless cycles where they stand, crouch, go prone, stand, crouch, go prone, drawing continuous enemy fire and then dying. They leave themselves exposed to doors and windows all the time, even turning their backs on enemies. They will shoot at someone until he ducks, then promptly forget about him, leaving him to pop up and kill you. They have the worst aim I have ever seen. If there is a single sniper on a level he will destroy your entire platoon unless you personally hunt him down and kill him. On one level a squad mate was manning an emplaced machine gun and could not hit a single enemy soldier across an open field.

There is a glut of "you are the hero!" WWII games out there. The team aspect was supposed to make this game different. And once again a game's biggest draw turns out to be all hype. I don't get it. I don't care if someone in the unit is so good they steal some of my kills - at least I could then depend on them to cover my flanks and sweep houses. The guys on your team will run right past houses without sweeping them, leaving enemy soldiers to pop out and cap you in the butt. If team AI is such a problem, why not make the whole game networked co-op? It would be a heck of a lot more fun to have 10 people going up against these scripted events instead of a bunch of Barneys you have to corral and babysit.

I was also annoyed by the fact that the game mechanics are completely visible, much like the overhyped "Medal of Honor", because both are so heavily scripted. If you don't know you're supposed to advance the next event won't trigger and everyone will sit around. Which is funny because you're not the commanding officer! You're a grunt. Why doesn't the commanding officer move to the proper area and call you over? An additional source of pain is being forced to play the training mission every single time you start a new game. Does anyone alive not know how to interact with a first person shooter?

The damage model is also wonky. On mission two you have to take out some emplaced weapons with explosives (a mission which is so much like the one in "Medal of Honor" that DreamWorks could claim copyright infringement - right down to the glowing boxes on the guns). The second tank is behind a wall. Put the explosive on the tank, back up and hide behind the wall, and the explosion pierces the wall (without damaging it!) and kills you. Why? Because they aren't doing proper collision checks on the explosion. This also happens occasionally with grenades. The emplaced machine guns aren't any more powerful than the hand-held ones. And several times I fired a burst from my Thompson into a German soldier's chest at point-blank range only to have him grunt in pain then shoot me dead.

I will say that when I first started playing it, and the enemy suddenly opened fire on my platoon with MG42's and artillery, it was pretty cool. But one cool moment does not make a great game. The graphics are nice, the sound is exactly like "Medal of Honor" so it's good. But the rest is extremely lame, frustrating, and tiresome. I recommend you get it and play it on easy if you like pretty but uninspired first-person shooters. If not, this one is a miss.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Blown away...
Review: Call of Duty might just be the most authentic and engaging WW2 game you've ever played. Featuring 24 mission, split into 3 campaigns, players take on the roles of a GI paratrooper, a British commando and a russian conscript, taking the first-person fight to the Germans with a variety of weapons. So far, so Medal of Honor. Where this title raises the bar is in its full realisation of squad based combat, hinted at in other games but never before explored to this degree. Players fight alongside computer controlled squad mates, usually between 6-8 in number.
The AI that governs your fellow soldiers is one of the most practical, robust and flexible I've ever seen in a first-person shooter. Your buddies will lay down supressing fire that actually WORKS (a very pleasant change), cover each other's movements, use grenades without blowing up the whole unit, and generally behave as realistically as you could hope for computer players.

Thankfully the AI for the baddies is just as convincing. No longer do enemy soldiers bluster towards your rifles, hurling grenades with pin-point accuracy. In Call of Duty, they will advance in sqauds from cover, laying down their own supressing fire, lay traps and ambushes and even fall back to cover when overwhelmed. If a machine gunner gets hit, his buddy might choose to take over, or make a run for it. It gives a very rounded impression that you are flanked by real people, and facing an adaptive and versatile enemy.

The real beauty of the title is that you are part of the team, without being the star of the show. Sure, there's times when its up to you to take the initiative, and maybe even save the day, but if your squad fails, you fail. When playing, I actually felt like covering my squad rather than dashing on ahead, protecting them rather than trying to ignore them. Likewise, I felt confident in their abilities to watch my back, without cringing in case a friendly grenade lands at my feet.

Graphically, Call Of Duty is gritty, realistic and smooth, even at high resolutions. Explosions look great, with tanks going up in flames, while grenades produce a convincing burst of dust and fragmentation. Tracers wizz overhead, puffs of dust ricochet off walls, and wood splinters apart under machine gun fire. The scenery isn't fully deformable, but their is enough scripted demolition to keep things realistic. There's also some great additional touches that really round and polish the experience, such as the blurry 'shell-shock' that warps the screen when a explosion goers off right by your head, or the restrained mixture of blood and dust that marks bullet hits on your target.

I found there was some loss of framerate when my squad found themselves in very close combat with lots of enemy soldiers, but the haze and confusion of the situation was such that I didn't really mind.

The real star of the effects show is the sound, where the game really drags you kicking and screaming into its world. The weapon effects are sufficiently hefty and the bass from an MG42 will definately stop you in your tracks before its bullets do. Best of all, dialogue between soldiers is both contextual and practical - shouted warnings to seek cover really do make a difference, your officer's military jargon is clear enough to give you a good idea how to act in the middle of a firefight..."Shift base of fire right, FIRE!" barks my captain as a platoon of German Paratroopers bursts from cover, and I find myself hurling myself prone and rattling off rounds from my Thompson Carbine.

Call Of Duty brings to the table the intensity of Medal of Honor and the epic scale of Battlefield 1942 with unsurpassed grace and conviction. A must for any WW2 gamer, and a splendid heart-thumper for any action game fan. Highly Recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Call of Duty Can anyone say Awesome
Review: Wow! This game is intense. Just when you got tired of medal of honor a new game pops out, Call of Duty. From the demo that i played the scripting is great. Your team mates help you a lot but don't go guns a blazing to take away from you killing some Nazis. This game is really sweet and I am going to buy this game right away. Get the demo from any PC gamer (November Issue) or download it at www.callofduty.com

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: fantastic
Review: I'm a big fan of MOH so when I heard that a lot of the creators where on this project I
thought I'd check it out. MAN I WAS BLOWN AWAY. I played the demo and I must say
I'm getting it the second its out because its a work of art and authenticity. I was really
tense when playing the demo it was unreal. I think this is a must have if your a MOH fan.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Realism blended seamlessly into PC
Review: While I have only played the demo (put out by PC Gamer in the Dec 03 Edition) of this game I can already say that this game is by far the most intense and visually stunning FPS on the market. The fact that you can only carry a limited amount of weapons adds ever so much to the realism of the game and that's not even including the visual effects and invigorating sound that is packaged with the game.

The graphics, while hardware intensive, will literally draw the player in and recreate a World War II battle with textured walls, lifelike enemies (and allies), and an extreme attention to detail that's hard to find even in todays games. The sound is also jaw-dropping if you have the hardware to handle it. My 5.1 Surround Sound system had a field day with the veritable cornocopia of sounds that were meant to help recreate one of man's most epic struggles.

The only downside is that the game is very hardware intensive and even managed to freeze my system when I set it to the maximum possible specs and my machine is no meagre plaything. I'm packing an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (128 MB DDR), Athlon XP 2800+, 512MB DDR RAM, and a Seagate 120 SATA HDD. All I had to do was drop the setting of one category to "High" instead of "extreme" and it worked beautifully so I don't consider that a problem large enough to warrant a 4 star instead of 5 star rating.

If you want a gritty, realistic, and visually gripping FPS then I highly recommend buying this game when it is released (Nov 4, 2003). One of the few games I'll spend a full $49.99 on without 2nd guessing myself.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: this game is gonna be GREAT!
Review: I can't wait until nov. 4th! I just played the demo, and I can tell this game will blow by MOHAA with ease. the graphics are a lot better, and the gameplay is much higher quality. AI is a lot better, and on veteran, it took me about 8 deaths to finish the level.
I recommend this game to any fan of the MOHAA series.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I played a demo and I know this is the best war game ever!
Review: I only played a demo and I got blown out of my seat!Great graphics, great sound, great A.I., and it's just going to get better with the full game.This is going to make people forget about Halo, Splinter Cell, Medal of Honor, and all those other shooting games. PC Gamer said that Call of Duty had "Movie-quality intensity; thrilling mix of action and scripted sequences." However PC Gamer also said taht COD had "Occasional shooting and clipping glitches; A.I. name bugs; tedious commando missions." However, a few problems don't really hurt this otherwise solid game. This is the best shooter that the PC has ever got. But don't just read this review.I can't put how awesome this game is in this space. Download the demo off the Call of Duty website or December 2003 issue of PC Gamer (which is the latest issue as of this review.) When you play the demo, clean up your drool and pre-order this game that PC Gamer gave a 93%(out of 100 of course) and an editors' choice. You will be doing yourself a BIG favor. You will thank yourself for buying it.The game hasn't came out yet, but it already looks good, and you can trust what I'm saying about this.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is Medal of Honor... on Steroids!
Review: Wow! I've played the demo over and over again. It is really good. Your squad members aren't anywhere near as stupid as they are in Medal of Honor. All I have to say is if this is the demo, how much better is the actual game going to be? I can't wait.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Pants Wetting Fun
Review: After playing the demo for this game it has earned a place on my must buy list of games. The fact that I have a mid level computer system and was able to play in full graphics detail makes this game even better. It seems as if they designed the graphics for us gamers who cant afford a dream system.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the BEST FPS
Review: Okay, so I only played the demo. Still, it was one of the best demos ever! It has the potential to be as good (if not better) than Battlefield 1942, MOH:AA, and Counter-Strike. It is realistic in the sense that storming a German position by yourself will get you killed, and that your squad gives you cover fire. Yet, if a squad member gets killed, another is spawned (killing squad members is also a good way to get ammo and other weapons). However, that is hardly worth scolding the makers for. Otherwise, this is a solid, intense FPS (made by some of the people who made MOH:AA). I will definatly buy this when it comes out, but for the cautious or skeptical, you may want to read an official review or two first.


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