Review: Call of Duty: World at War - Once more unto the breach

Mike Bantick
Saturday, 13 December 2008 08:47

Opinion and Analysis

Not fair Treyarch, I still haven't found my socks after they were knocked off by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare late last year, and already a new Call of Duty is there to be played.  Surely returning to WWII is a mistake with a shooter franchise that has already said goodbye to that era?

It was an interesting decision by Treyarch and collaborators Infinite Ward to return to the theatre of World War II with the latest instalment for Call of Duty.

Call of Duty: World at War
	Developer	Treyarch
	Publisher	Activision
	Rating	MA 15+
PS3, PS2, Wii, NDS, PC, Reviewed on Xbox 360

After making the jump to a current battleground with the acclaimed Modern Warfare many thought Call of Duty had left its well trodden WWII roots, but with World At War it makes an intense and triumphant return.

Running on the same software engine as Modern Warfare, CoD:WAW is distinctly a Call of Duty franchise game. Straddling reality and action movie in a well balanced way.

Firstly the reality part of the game:  CoD: WAW plays out in two concurrent theatres, as U.S. attempt to island hop through the South Pacific against the Japanese, whilst the Russian campaign ultimately takes us to the doors of the Reichstag in Berlin.
 
Each chapter of the single player game is introduced with archiving footage that brings home the horror of the war years.  It is one thing to play a shooter game, it is another to watch a documentary and learn lessons from those times, it is yet another situation to combine the two into an interactive entertainment and learning experience.

The South Pacific campaign is a tense trudge through high grass and jungle for the most part, with every tree can hide a sniper and every grassy knoll about to unleash a crazed Banzai charge. 

A wide variety of WWII era weapons are used during the game, and this is most present in the South Pacific campaign with the introduction of the flame thrower.  This evil invention makes short work of the hiding spots for potential chargers, and cleans out the occasional bunker or trench with equal efficiency.  Watching a man die (albeit a digital game foe) from a flamethrower blast, is again a learning experience about the brutality of this conflict.

The Russian campaign has more of a mop up feel to it, beginning very much like the film Enemy at the Gates in Stalingrad, the campaign rapidly shifts to the Eastern front steppes and then on into a final confrontation in Berlin.

Whilst more linear than its South Pacific comrade, the Russian campaign is less frustrating and more story driven.

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