Call of Duty 2

Overview

Call of Duty 2 is the second game in Infinity Ward's series, published by Activison. You play the role of several soldiers, each a member of either the British, Russian or United States army, and fight the Nazis in locations all across Europe, North Africa and Russia. Each of the game's locations are based on actual WWII battles.
 
Players are presented with a radar HUD in the bottom left of the screen which contains information such as objective points, enemy positions and direction of travel. Most of the objectives consist of things like placing a bomb on a pesky panzer tank, destroying a mortar, clearing buildings of Axis soldiers or simply reaching the next checkpoint. There are several instances where one can choose in what order  to complete the mission objectives. 

The player may carry two weapons at any time and up to 4 frag and 4 smoke grenades. At the beginning of each mission the player is often armed with a machine gun for close combat and a rifle for fighting at a distance. Either of the weapons can be swapped for weapons found strewn across the battlefield, some of the better equipment is often scavenged from the corpses of the Nazis. The player can also make use of a melee attack when in close quarters.

Call of Duty offers some degree of tactics which often combine a use of grenades with advancing to cover and using one of the three degrees of elevation (standard upright, crouching or crawling). The player character is also able to jump which is useful for negotiating debris.

Much of the gameplay in COD2 revolves around reaching the next checkpoint. There are frequent examples of infinitely spawning enemies which can only be overcome by advancing to a certain position so that the friendly AI units take up a new position. The inclusion of infinitely spawning enemies shapes the way the player will take on many of the challenges in COD2, running and gunning into the fray is often the only option available. Although this provides fast paced, action packed gameplay it can sometimes spoil the sense of realism the title strives to achieve. 

Campaign Locations

 Call of Duty 2 has three separate campaigns each of which is split into battles which each have their own component chapters:

Russian Missions

1: THE WINTER WAR. Private Vasili Koslov. Near Moscow - 1941

• Red Army training
• Demolition

2: NOT ONE STEP BACKWARDS. Private Vasili Koslov. Stalingrad - 1942

• Repairing the wire
• Railroad station No.1

3: FORTRESS STALINGRAD. Private Vasili Koslov. Stalingrad - 1943

• Downtown assault
• Stalingrad city hall
• Comrade sniper

British Missions

1: THE BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN. Sergeant John Davis. North Egypt - 1942

• The diversionary raid
• Holding the line
• Operation supercharge
• The end of the beginning

2: THE TANK SQUADRANS. Commander David Welsh "Fox Three" Northeast Libya - 1943

• Crusader Charge
• 88 Ridge

3: ROMMELS LAST STAND. Sergeant John Davis. Central Tunisia - 1943

• Armoured car escape
• Retaking Toujoure
• Assault on Matmata

4: THE BATTLE FOR CAEN. Sergeant John Davis. Normany, France - 1944
Prisoners of war
The crossroads
The tiger
The brigade box

US Missions

1: D-DAY. Corporal Bill Taylor. Normany, France - 1944

• The battle of Pointe Du Hoc
• Defending the Pointe
• The silo

2: HILL 400. Corporal Bill Taylor. Hurtgen Forest, Germany - 1944

• Bergstien
• Rangers lead the way
• The Battle for Hill 400

3: CROSSING THE RHINE. Corporal John Davis. Wallender, Germany - 1945

• The crossing point

Weapons

Weapons are faction specific but a player may pick up a dropped weapon at any time.

US
Grease Gun
M1A1 Carbine
M1 Garand
Springfield Sniper Rifle
Thompson SMG
Browning Automatic Rifle
Colt 1911 pistol

Russian
PPSh-41
Tokaerov Soviet Type 40
Mosin Nagant
PPSh-40
Trench Gun
Tokaerov TT30

 
 

British
Sten SMG
M1 Garand
Lee Enfield
Scoped Lee Enfield
Thompson SMG
Bren LMG
Webley Revolver

 
 

German
MP40 SMG
Gweher 43
MP-44
Kar98K
Scoped Kar98K
Luger pistol

 
These weapons are only available in multiplayer

Multiplayer
Grease Gun (US only)
Trench Gun (All)

Multiplayer

Call of Duty 2 provides the player with access to Class Based Multiplayer. The player has access to unique weapons such as the Grease Gun, that are not available in the single player game. The game includes, CTF, TDM, Search and Destroy and Headquarters for modes.

The game also includes multiple maps, based on locations from the campaign. Many Player made maps have been created using the free to download Mod tools provided by Infinity Ward. The Map decides what factions fight each other, and what weapons are available to players. Two additional maps (Rostov and Wallendar)  were added as part of a free update. Players on Call of Duty PC servers often refrain from using smoke grenades because using them can sometimes cause a server crash. On the Console versions, 
  Certain maps are marked as 'Unbalanced", these maps are referred to as such because they are designed in such a way that one team is put at a disadvantage, consistently, regardless of whos playing. 
* Players could play in a match and on the PC version up to 64 may play at one time.

Maps

• Carentan, France- French Village, Americans, Germans
• Rostov, Russia- Russian Port, disliked by the majority of COD players, because it tends to be unbalanced towards the German Side. Russians, Germans
• Stalingrad, Russia- Railyard, Russians, Germans
• Moscow, Russia- Bombed out city with a large mound in the center, creating a king of the hill type game Russians, Germans
• Toujane, Tunisia- Middle Eastern city with rooftops that the player can climb on. British, Germans
• St. Mere Eglise, France- Bombed out village with church at the center Americans, Germans
• Leningrad, Russia- Small map with many buildings Russians, Germans
• Wallendar, Germany- Unbalanced map heavily weighted against the Americans, based on the last mission in the campaign. Americans, Germans

PC System Requirements

As displayed on the back cover of the box (Please note that only the minimun requirements are given)

• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 2000 / XP
  
• Processor: Pentium 4 1.4GHz or AMD Athlon 1.4GHz.
• Memory: 256MB (512MB Recommended).
• Graphics: 3D Hardware accelerator card required. 100% Direct X 9.0c compatible 64MB. Hardware accelerator video card and the latest drivers.

• Hard Drive: 4.0GB of uncompressed free hard disk space (plus 600MB for Windows 2000 / XP swap file).

• Sound: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card (16-bit sound card latest drivers).

Xbox 360 Game Installation

Call of Duty 2 requires 6.0GB of space to install on an Xbox 360 HDD.