So, you think wars are won by superheros, one-man armies that save the world (standing proud in the toughest situations)? Get real!!! This is war and not some Hollywood hero flick. Think of Saving Private Ryan and you get an idea what Call of Duty may be like in the game world.
The story line(s)
You might have guessed it, as most war games Call of Duty is located in WW2 and you end up fighting the Germans. (Irony has it that I am actually German.) Aside the predetermined outcome of the story, one has a chance to fight for freedom as an American, British or Russian with major differences in technology and strategy (driven by available resources).
Starting out as an American soldier, one gets dropped in the Normandy to impart the German defense and prepare for the landing in the Normandy. Group tactics are the most important feature of this section.
Once the American section is complete, one gets to slip into the 'boots' of a British soldier and with different weapons and scenery, one has mostly to perform stealth operations to sabotage German machinery.
The third section brings you all the way to the Russian frontier starting with Stalingrad (St. Petersburg). This is a stark contrast to the previous missions since one actually starts out as cannon fodder and without an actual weapon to survive. Run for your life may be the best way to describe it. However, one will get promoted upon successful missions and have a chance to make a difference as a sniper or even in the end as a tank commander.
Key Features
Call of Duty feel like the WW2 personification of Ghost Recon to me. Though it's not directly comparable, it has similar elements. No I don't mean strategy and full control over the whole team as a leader. What I was thinking is the fact that you engage into battle as a group and only survive as one.
However, that's how far the similarity goes. (And I am sure you easily can come up with closer matches regarding the WW2 theme.) In Call of Duty you're not the commander in his shiny armor but rather a team member of an assault group to carry out tasks assigned by a virtual leader.
The game seems to be about realism more than anything else. Authentic weapons of 4 different nations are one thing, locations another. But what may be Call of Duty's strongest asset is the actual feeling of being right in the action with your squad.
A nice touch is the wealth of quotes (by famous people) that are displayed between missions. For instance, Joseph Stalin's: "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."
How does it play:
Manual: Though not graphically interesting, the users manual contains all important information and gives a valuable overview of the available weapons and their properties.
Graphics: Realism is the greatest feature of Call of Duty. Especially night missions look and feel 'real'. Lighting effects are great and fire as well as explosions look simply awesome. (and frightening)
Controls: Mostly standard PC controls (keyboard and mouse) allow for a very short training period (spent in a training camp) to get a hang of it. While it does not teach how to survive, it allows to quickly access the needed feature.
Sound: Amazing! Especially the gun fire sounds real and when you're getting into cross fire conditions, the same feeling comes up as Saving Private Ryan had on the big screen. Sheer mind numbing threat of flying bullets and death around every corner. Voice acting is great and even the German troops' comments are correct (grammar, accent etc.).
Animation: Soldiers are somewhat funny when running (as if they're stomping), but most of the time, character animation is smooth and life-like. Face animation is average, but you won't see most people (especially enemies) from up-close anyway.
Cut scenes: Though distinctively lo-res, cut scenes are well done in order to carry on the story (which is not too deep). They're relatively rare too, which might explain the installed size of 1.5 GByte. Good thing, you can skip them in case you're seeing it for the 5th time (which might happen often in Veteran difficulty). Sounds normal? Hmmm, maybe the developers of
XIII should have heard about it?
Weapons: Since we're talking reality in this game, the number of major weapons to be carried is limited to 2 (pretty much same concept as in Halo). There are a total of 25 different weapons available, depending on which side you're on. You can also pick up and use the enemy's weaponry, which makes between 13 - 15 weapons available in a mission (US: 7, RUS: 5, UK: 5, GER: 8). There is basically 4 different types (hand gun, grenade, machine gun, sniper rifle) with differences within each group only to be country specific. One exception is the Panzerfaust, the only weapon that can take out tanks. Though I have no idea what the actual guns are like, I might venture a guess that the models in the game come relatively close.
Progress: The save function is one of the best I came across so far. Not only does it allow to save at any time, it also does so automatically when reaching a check point. Difficult parts can be mastered by heavy use of the Quicksave / Quickload function. This and the autosave get you ready for the fiercest of battles in history (WW2).
Navigation: The player is provided with instructions on what to do by his virtual commander. A compass allows to easily find your next objective by showing direction and distance. It also shows the relative position of your unit. (Stay close with them if you want to survive!)
Enemy AI: Though depending on the set difficulty, enemies adopt to your actions and pretty much seek cover when throwing grenades (if they have a chance). Your own troops though have a little bit more trouble to stay out of your bullet's way. The game's options allow to disable 'friendly' fire, in which case your cross-hair changes into the name when aiming at a team mate. It also does not allow you to shoot. For more realism, try it without that help. The massive assaults make this very hostile ground for your fragile virtual life. However, your team mates take good care of you and expect the same in return.
Difficulty: First I tried 'Regular' out of the 4 available difficulties: Greenhorn, Regular, Hardened, Veteran. However, what I assumed to mean realistic turned out to be a little bit too easy to not try the gun-wielding approach. Bringing it up to 'Veteran' reduces ability to dodge several bullets significantly and actually feels very close to what I assume to be real. It becomes much harder (!!!) to survive the cross fire, but that may be alright with the excellent save system. (The higher the difficulty the less medication packs can be found despite the more lethal impact of enemy bullets.)
Platoon: Even though it's one war, one enemy and one goal (Berlin), the game give 3 different perspectives. To free the world from evil you join the American, British and Russian troops. However, you don't get to choose in Single Player which side you want to be on. (It's story driven and decided by the progress.)
Locations: As an American soldier you take part in the D-Day battle ops, and even get a car ride (drive by shooting), besides taking out flak cannons and anti-aircraft guns your last mission is to rescue a POW camp. Then you proceed on to the British where you capture Pegasus Bridge by night and defend it the following day. After that, you get to sabotage Eder Dam, and finally finish up on battle ship Nirmitz for another sabotage mission. As a Russian start in Stalingrad with practically nothing - simply to survive. You work yourself up in your next station Moscow (find a weapon), then onto tasks as a Sniper and in the end as a tank commander.
MultiPlayer: Only in Multiplayer, one can join the enemy (Germans). Otherwise it's the same forces as in the Singleplayer. (American, British or Russian). Which country you're joining depends on the map (server) chosen. Either way, it's always team based. (Up to 32 players per map) I am connecting to the internet via DSL (512k) and could not notice any lag time. Since it's team based, one will not run into the problem where you simply spawn into the game and immediately be taken out by the first encounter. However, battle is less forgiving in Multiplayer and one can make a bad decision with the weapon on choice. For instance, pick a slow loading fire arm and you will find yourself in a hopeless situation against automatic weapons. Great feature is the adjustable 'friendly fire', and one option to tie your health to firing at your team mates. In other words, you die when trying to kill your team mate.
System Requirements
Call of Duty continues a recent trend to require DX9 and T&L hardware. In other words, same restrictions to compatible hardware as in
Enter The Matrix,
Tron2.0,
Midnight Club 2,
Need for Speed: Underground and
Halo apply. If that's too steep for your system, take a look at
XIII.
Minimum requirements may seem a little steep for most readers, but they certainly reflect the average of today's top games. A 700 MHz P3 with 128 MB RAM and an 8X CDROM are listed as the minimum. That's not too scary, but a 32MB video card with T&L hardware is a must and limits compatible hardware to ATI Radeon, nVidia GeForce and Matrox Parphelia. (3d's Wildcat should work too.)
Based on the need for DirectX9.0b (included), the OS is limited to Windows 98/Me/2000 and XP. Hardware requirements for XP and 2000 are slightly higher than their 'older' companions.
My system (2.4GHz P4, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9700 Pro, ATA133, WinXP) runs the game quite smoothly with video options set to 1280x960, 32bit, 4xAA, and all of the game's options put to maximum. However, I ran into compatibility issues during the car ride where my whole system froze. (Otherwise the game proved very stable and playable even with all options maxed out. Something that
Halo could not claim.)
The 2 CDs install fully on the hard drive and take about 1.4 GByte of space. (Plus an additional 400 MB for swap space!) That is surprisingly low and may reflect the short game with less than 15 missions (Singleplayer). Anyway, the first disc is still needed to play this game, mainly for copy protection reasons. While I understand the need to protect IP, it still is somewhat cumbersome.
Load times are refreshing on the low side and mainly due to the reduced cut scenes which can be skipped. Once the level is loaded, respawning goes relatively quick and is a matter of seconds.
Does it call your name?
Sure, there are many WW2 games out there by now and EAGames' Medal of Honor series may be the toughest competition for Call of Duty. However, I tried the demo for most of them and none would actually catch my attention enough to finally purchase the game, as I did with Call of Duty. (That certainly is based on personal preference.)
Anyway, overall I feel that the game does one thing very well that I have not experienced with similar ones of this genre. It does create a virtual world in which war in its merciless cruelty can be experienced without the side effects of the real thing. In fact, this is as close as anyone should get to war - ever. (... unless it's to defend your country on your own soil.)
I think Call of Duty offers enough game for the money (especially when considering the $29.95 I paid for it). It appears somewhat short and I hope to see additional missions sometime soon (preferably free as in Unreal Tournament 2003). To counteract that, set difficulty to Veteran. The absence of any (!) health packs in a mission makes it quite a challenge to pass. (Note: Greenhorn and Regular are too easy and allow steaming thru the levels which essentially denies you long lasting gaming with Call of Duty.
The game's graphics and controls are great, combined with a good story background and excellent gamesave function even the hardest difficulty may be lethal but still enjoyable since one has not to repeat lengthy sections over and over. Not that war should be fun, but Call of Duty manages to give a thrilling mix of atmosphere and game play.
Given that I have not extensively played many other WW2 theme shooters, I still would recommend to take a look at Call of Duty for its missions, graphics, gameplay and controls. Before you buy, check if your system is able to handle that much action. Requirements pretty much exclude everything more than 2.5 years old. (Download one of the two available demos to test your system.)
Game Website Link
http://www.callofduty.com/
Update (18-Dec-2003):
The mentioned stability issue (see system requirements) is based on issues caused by ATI's Catalyst display driver. It has been addressed in revision 3.10.
