dogsounds reviews: Call Of Duty 3
Originally written shortly after game launch.
M1 Garand. Mention this weapon to any afficionado of WWII shooters, and in the eyes of most you will see a misty longing.
For me, it is my favourite video-game weapon of all time, and in Call of Duty 3, I found the best recreation of it. Ever. End of. The sound, the 8-round clip, the fact that it totally pwns the bolt-action Kar98k in close-quarters combat. There is no more to say. And this is just one of the many things that Call of Duty 3 does just right.
There are so many WWII games out there that it would be reasonable to assume that it has all been done, and there is nothing left to see here, move on. And that would be understandable. When Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was released, it was hailed as the most intense, realistic recreation of WWII combat that you could ever get. And in many ways, since those early days when players gasped in awe and sweated like nervous boyfriends in a lingerie department, nothing has come close to that effect. The Omaha beach landing sequence in that game was so unlike anything we had played before, it almost seemed wrong to use the word "game" or "played", as we were following in the footseps of real soldiers who gave their lives on those shores (see my blog "Why do you play" for more on this). And that game set a very high benchmark. If future games wanted to create the realism or grit, tension and terror of combat, they would have to work pretty damn hard. And, really, despite gameplay innovations and graphical enhancements since those days, nothing really ever has. Sure, there have been really great WWII shooters - Wolfenstein, Frontline, and more - and really poor ones. The closest we ever got was perhjaps Brothers in Arms - but even then, the emphasis was so heavy on the tactical side of battle that the emotion was never really present. But without waving a pointy finger in any particular direction, none has ever come close to imbuing the feeling of shock and respect that that beach landing sequence did.
And, this may surprise you, neither does Call of Duty 3. it get close, but what it does do, very well, is go some way to showing the chaos of battle. One-man army is not the order of the day here, and as with the earlier incarnations of the Call of Duty franchise, the emphasis is on numbers - many combatants, all fighting and struggling by your side or against you. You are never really by yourself, although you can wander away from the pack and forge your own path - albeit temporarily. As is the tradition with the fanchise, the single player campaign is split into sections that allow you to play as different nationalities - a wonderful touch. You play as British, American Polish and Candian soldiers. Each different protagonist takes a path toward the same objective - the closing of the Falaise Gap to route entrenched German troops during the Normandy Breakout campaign. Unlike other Call of Duty games, though, the layout of the chapters is somewhat mixed up, so you don't simply play a chapter as a Brit, a chapter as a Pole, and so on. They are nicely interleaved, with some corssover. At one point, you play a Canadian radio man working with Polish tankers defending their ground against a German counter-attack. it all fits together remarkably well, although the jumping around does leave you a little detached from the characters you play. The locales within the campaign vary, although they are all set within the rural French landscape. From farmhouses, open fields, fuel depots and the battered streets of French towns, all the settings are beautifully rendered and really do have a certain realism that screams "next gen". When Halo was first released back in 2001, many reviewers were heard to utter the phrase "Look at the grass. OMG, look. At. The. Grass." Well, the same can be said here. Not only is grass rendered blade-by-blade, and animated, it is interactive. Walk over a patch of long grass, and you see flattened leaves in your wake. This is an incredibly nice touch, and is made even better when you suddenly realise that there is flattened grass just ahead of you, where you haven't been yet. It has been crushed by the German troops hiding just around the corner. This has to be the first time grass has been useful as a tactical aid in a videogame. Overall, graphical presentation can only be described as awesome, and a step ahead of Call of Duty 2 - which was pretty damn impressive in its own right.
Another nice touch, on the gameplay side, is the introduction of what can only be described as "mini-games". Instead of being prompted to press "X" to carry out an action, such as planting a charge on a Flak 88, now you are given a number of button and stick controls .One button plants the charge, then rotation of the thumbstick screws the detonator into the charge. Not terribly complicated, almost unneccessary, but it immerses you just that little extra bit. These do not happen all that often, however.
The campaign is nicely varied, with missions ranging from simpl assault or defence to assisting the French Resistance rescue of comrades held captive by the Germans. There is nothing terribly innovative about the mission structures, but they fill the role admirably, and you will have a blast playing through the campaign. Added to this better vehicle control than in previous incarnations - in one instance, you man the guns in an SAS Willy's jeep - you have got some cracking fun to be had. In another, you control the Jeep itself, and though it is no Warthog ride, the unique control scheme is simple and straightforward. There is even an achievement to be had for "catching air" (taking a big jump in a vehicle). When playing as the Polish tanker, the ubiquitous tank driving sections make a return, with (thankfully) a slightly more logical and simplifed control scheme than before, although they are still as unwelcome and tiresome.
If you have played Call of Duty 3, you will not really find anything truly innovative or new in the game, but this is not neceesarily a bad point. Call of Duty 2 offered a fantastic campaign, and its sequel simply betters the formula with a few nice touches and much improved visuals. A little more of what you like don't do no harm.
As always, the sound in Call of Duty 3 is incredible. The sounds of carnage and war, the shouts of the combatants and the the environmental sounds of distant fighting all combine to make an incredibly stirring, compelling and loud aural backdrop. In surround, it is unbelieveable. Voice acting is excellent throughout, although the Axis voice actors seem to be the same as those on Call of Duty 2 (and one chap is even clearly recogniseable as one of the voice artists from Medal of Honor: Frontline!) , and their combat dialog is a little limited. You will hear the same phrases repeating throughout the campaign. A little more depth here would have added a little extra sparkle. There is a fair amount of context-sensitive speech - it is cool to hear a German soldier shout "Amerikanischer Scharfschütze!" when you take one of his comrades out with a headshot from a scoped Springfield, or "Achtung! Maschinengewehr!" as you spray entrenched enemies with a support weapon. But they lose their edge after a while, and more often than not they are lost in the cacophony. But that is a minor point. There are a few niggles to the gameplay. The touted feature before launch was the hand to hand combat feature - we saw the protagonist rounding a corner and being forced into close up combat with a German, both holding onto the German's Kar98 riflle lengthways and fighting for control - a classic "war film" moment. The player is propmpted to press the triggers as fast as possible to simulate pushing the Germnan away before dispatching him with a a swift flick of the rifle butt. The first time you see this, it is awesome, and those players who have never seen or heard about it will be thrilled and amazed. You can tell how the struggle is going simply by the German's face - his facial expressions are more panicked if you start to win, whereas if you are losing, he gets close to your face with a snarling sneer. The sequence itself is a heart-stopping moment, and incredible. Unfortunately, this only happens about five times in the whole campaign, and although you never actually expect it when it happens on first playthrough, the process itself dulls from the second time. It would have been nice so see a little more varied close up fighting - knife combat, for example, or unarmed combat akin to the fighting in Condemned: Criminal origins or Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Such features would not be out of place in a close-quarters setting, and would bring an extra dimesnion to the genre - face to face struggle, seeing the eyes of your victim. Sounds gruesome, but war is a horrible thing, and as with Medal of Honor, doing it in the right way can educate and excite at the same time. AI is generally good, although your comrades can sometimes get annoyingly stuck in a doorway that you need to go through. Animations are smooth, but, you know, since seeing the bonus footage animation reels on Medal of Honor: Frontline, I have never forgotten the solder skidding to a halt behind a corner, taking cover and popping a few shots off. I have always looked for those touches in games since then, and you very rarely get it. There are a few in Call of Duty 3, but much of the time the Axis troops will stay in place and shoot, or maybe run around a little bit, apart from in some setpiece charges.
Where the campaign is good, the multiplayer is excellent. Although there are known issues around the way the multiplayer works - lengthy waits for ranked matches, games dropping out or freezing, and other technical quirks, I won't focus on those. The gamplay is compelling and will keep you interested for a long time.
There are a number of game modes, from Battle and Team Beattle (standard deathmatch) to variations on CTF and more. The multiplayer matches are class-oriented - you must select your role from the options available: Rifleman, Light Asault, Heavy Assault, Medic, Scout, Support and Anti-Armor. Each has different characteristics (defined by their weapons sets) and is able to perform a key role within a match - and the roles do crossover, allowing greater team flexibility.
For example, if you need to take an enemy tank out, the Anti-Armor player is equipped with a Panzershreck or Bazooka (dependent on whether they are playing as Allies or Axis) and can do the job easily. However, Scouts and any classes equipped with hand grenades can also take out a tank - by mantling the back of it, which lets you plop a grenade right inside the cupola. Kaboom! Also, Heavy Assault classes are equipped with sticky grenades, which will adhere to vehcles (or personnel) and do the same job.
Games are not played for kills alone - points are earned too, and it is not always the team with the highest kills that win a match. Each class has a special ability - Medics can revive fallen comrades, Scouts can call airstrikes, Support troops can drop ammunition for team members - and each time you use the abilty you earn points.
Vehicles also play a big part in many of the maps. You can choose to man a Panzer or Sherman, an armed Horch or GM truck , or a motorbike and sidecar. All these vehicles can carry passengers - the tank, an extra gunner, the trucks, gunner and passenger, and the bike, a sidecar occupant. These often prove very useful and as in the campaign, control is intuitive and easy. Once gripe is that the truck gunner can easily kill his driver whilst shooting to the front of the vehicle, if team damage is on. This is a bit of a pain, since most drivers will drive you towards the enemy, and usually punish you for teamkilling. The maps themselves are as good looking as the campaign settings, and include woodland, a mountain prisoner of war camp, a fuel plant, a dam and a small French village. Each map lends itself to different tactics and gametypes, and are all designed to comfotably allow the maximum number of players - 24.
The multiplayer is pretty similar to Call of Duty 2. Some maps allow more strategic, less fragfest play, and thankfully, unlike other games such as Halo 2 and Gears of War, annoying kiddies seem to be absent (for now). So, how did Treyarch do? All in all, very, very well. They stayed true to the formula, but added stunning visuals, great sound, and both a strong campaign and multiplayer element. There are niggles, as there are with any game, and perhaps some of the pre-release hype was not quite lived up to. These things aside though, Call of Duty 3 offers solid gameplay and a good level of replay value - especially if you ramp up the diffculty settings. And you will play online for a long time. All in all, an excellent game, and definitely a must-have for FPS or WWII game addicts.
M1 Garand. Mention this weapon to any afficionado of WWII shooters, and in the eyes of most you will see a misty longing.
For me, it is my favourite video-game weapon of all time, and in Call of Duty 3, I found the best recreation of it. Ever. End of. The sound, the 8-round clip, the fact that it totally pwns the bolt-action Kar98k in close-quarters combat. There is no more to say. And this is just one of the many things that Call of Duty 3 does just right.
There are so many WWII games out there that it would be reasonable to assume that it has all been done, and there is nothing left to see here, move on. And that would be understandable. When Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was released, it was hailed as the most intense, realistic recreation of WWII combat that you could ever get. And in many ways, since those early days when players gasped in awe and sweated like nervous boyfriends in a lingerie department, nothing has come close to that effect. The Omaha beach landing sequence in that game was so unlike anything we had played before, it almost seemed wrong to use the word "game" or "played", as we were following in the footseps of real soldiers who gave their lives on those shores (see my blog "Why do you play" for more on this). And that game set a very high benchmark. If future games wanted to create the realism or grit, tension and terror of combat, they would have to work pretty damn hard. And, really, despite gameplay innovations and graphical enhancements since those days, nothing really ever has. Sure, there have been really great WWII shooters - Wolfenstein, Frontline, and more - and really poor ones. The closest we ever got was perhjaps Brothers in Arms - but even then, the emphasis was so heavy on the tactical side of battle that the emotion was never really present. But without waving a pointy finger in any particular direction, none has ever come close to imbuing the feeling of shock and respect that that beach landing sequence did.
And, this may surprise you, neither does Call of Duty 3. it get close, but what it does do, very well, is go some way to showing the chaos of battle. One-man army is not the order of the day here, and as with the earlier incarnations of the Call of Duty franchise, the emphasis is on numbers - many combatants, all fighting and struggling by your side or against you. You are never really by yourself, although you can wander away from the pack and forge your own path - albeit temporarily. As is the tradition with the fanchise, the single player campaign is split into sections that allow you to play as different nationalities - a wonderful touch. You play as British, American Polish and Candian soldiers. Each different protagonist takes a path toward the same objective - the closing of the Falaise Gap to route entrenched German troops during the Normandy Breakout campaign. Unlike other Call of Duty games, though, the layout of the chapters is somewhat mixed up, so you don't simply play a chapter as a Brit, a chapter as a Pole, and so on. They are nicely interleaved, with some corssover. At one point, you play a Canadian radio man working with Polish tankers defending their ground against a German counter-attack. it all fits together remarkably well, although the jumping around does leave you a little detached from the characters you play. The locales within the campaign vary, although they are all set within the rural French landscape. From farmhouses, open fields, fuel depots and the battered streets of French towns, all the settings are beautifully rendered and really do have a certain realism that screams "next gen". When Halo was first released back in 2001, many reviewers were heard to utter the phrase "Look at the grass. OMG, look. At. The. Grass." Well, the same can be said here. Not only is grass rendered blade-by-blade, and animated, it is interactive. Walk over a patch of long grass, and you see flattened leaves in your wake. This is an incredibly nice touch, and is made even better when you suddenly realise that there is flattened grass just ahead of you, where you haven't been yet. It has been crushed by the German troops hiding just around the corner. This has to be the first time grass has been useful as a tactical aid in a videogame. Overall, graphical presentation can only be described as awesome, and a step ahead of Call of Duty 2 - which was pretty damn impressive in its own right.
Another nice touch, on the gameplay side, is the introduction of what can only be described as "mini-games". Instead of being prompted to press "X" to carry out an action, such as planting a charge on a Flak 88, now you are given a number of button and stick controls .One button plants the charge, then rotation of the thumbstick screws the detonator into the charge. Not terribly complicated, almost unneccessary, but it immerses you just that little extra bit. These do not happen all that often, however.
The campaign is nicely varied, with missions ranging from simpl assault or defence to assisting the French Resistance rescue of comrades held captive by the Germans. There is nothing terribly innovative about the mission structures, but they fill the role admirably, and you will have a blast playing through the campaign. Added to this better vehicle control than in previous incarnations - in one instance, you man the guns in an SAS Willy's jeep - you have got some cracking fun to be had. In another, you control the Jeep itself, and though it is no Warthog ride, the unique control scheme is simple and straightforward. There is even an achievement to be had for "catching air" (taking a big jump in a vehicle). When playing as the Polish tanker, the ubiquitous tank driving sections make a return, with (thankfully) a slightly more logical and simplifed control scheme than before, although they are still as unwelcome and tiresome.
If you have played Call of Duty 3, you will not really find anything truly innovative or new in the game, but this is not neceesarily a bad point. Call of Duty 2 offered a fantastic campaign, and its sequel simply betters the formula with a few nice touches and much improved visuals. A little more of what you like don't do no harm.
As always, the sound in Call of Duty 3 is incredible. The sounds of carnage and war, the shouts of the combatants and the the environmental sounds of distant fighting all combine to make an incredibly stirring, compelling and loud aural backdrop. In surround, it is unbelieveable. Voice acting is excellent throughout, although the Axis voice actors seem to be the same as those on Call of Duty 2 (and one chap is even clearly recogniseable as one of the voice artists from Medal of Honor: Frontline!) , and their combat dialog is a little limited. You will hear the same phrases repeating throughout the campaign. A little more depth here would have added a little extra sparkle. There is a fair amount of context-sensitive speech - it is cool to hear a German soldier shout "Amerikanischer Scharfschütze!" when you take one of his comrades out with a headshot from a scoped Springfield, or "Achtung! Maschinengewehr!" as you spray entrenched enemies with a support weapon. But they lose their edge after a while, and more often than not they are lost in the cacophony. But that is a minor point. There are a few niggles to the gameplay. The touted feature before launch was the hand to hand combat feature - we saw the protagonist rounding a corner and being forced into close up combat with a German, both holding onto the German's Kar98 riflle lengthways and fighting for control - a classic "war film" moment. The player is propmpted to press the triggers as fast as possible to simulate pushing the Germnan away before dispatching him with a a swift flick of the rifle butt. The first time you see this, it is awesome, and those players who have never seen or heard about it will be thrilled and amazed. You can tell how the struggle is going simply by the German's face - his facial expressions are more panicked if you start to win, whereas if you are losing, he gets close to your face with a snarling sneer. The sequence itself is a heart-stopping moment, and incredible. Unfortunately, this only happens about five times in the whole campaign, and although you never actually expect it when it happens on first playthrough, the process itself dulls from the second time. It would have been nice so see a little more varied close up fighting - knife combat, for example, or unarmed combat akin to the fighting in Condemned: Criminal origins or Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Such features would not be out of place in a close-quarters setting, and would bring an extra dimesnion to the genre - face to face struggle, seeing the eyes of your victim. Sounds gruesome, but war is a horrible thing, and as with Medal of Honor, doing it in the right way can educate and excite at the same time. AI is generally good, although your comrades can sometimes get annoyingly stuck in a doorway that you need to go through. Animations are smooth, but, you know, since seeing the bonus footage animation reels on Medal of Honor: Frontline, I have never forgotten the solder skidding to a halt behind a corner, taking cover and popping a few shots off. I have always looked for those touches in games since then, and you very rarely get it. There are a few in Call of Duty 3, but much of the time the Axis troops will stay in place and shoot, or maybe run around a little bit, apart from in some setpiece charges.
Where the campaign is good, the multiplayer is excellent. Although there are known issues around the way the multiplayer works - lengthy waits for ranked matches, games dropping out or freezing, and other technical quirks, I won't focus on those. The gamplay is compelling and will keep you interested for a long time.
There are a number of game modes, from Battle and Team Beattle (standard deathmatch) to variations on CTF and more. The multiplayer matches are class-oriented - you must select your role from the options available: Rifleman, Light Asault, Heavy Assault, Medic, Scout, Support and Anti-Armor. Each has different characteristics (defined by their weapons sets) and is able to perform a key role within a match - and the roles do crossover, allowing greater team flexibility.
For example, if you need to take an enemy tank out, the Anti-Armor player is equipped with a Panzershreck or Bazooka (dependent on whether they are playing as Allies or Axis) and can do the job easily. However, Scouts and any classes equipped with hand grenades can also take out a tank - by mantling the back of it, which lets you plop a grenade right inside the cupola. Kaboom! Also, Heavy Assault classes are equipped with sticky grenades, which will adhere to vehcles (or personnel) and do the same job.
Games are not played for kills alone - points are earned too, and it is not always the team with the highest kills that win a match. Each class has a special ability - Medics can revive fallen comrades, Scouts can call airstrikes, Support troops can drop ammunition for team members - and each time you use the abilty you earn points.
Vehicles also play a big part in many of the maps. You can choose to man a Panzer or Sherman, an armed Horch or GM truck , or a motorbike and sidecar. All these vehicles can carry passengers - the tank, an extra gunner, the trucks, gunner and passenger, and the bike, a sidecar occupant. These often prove very useful and as in the campaign, control is intuitive and easy. Once gripe is that the truck gunner can easily kill his driver whilst shooting to the front of the vehicle, if team damage is on. This is a bit of a pain, since most drivers will drive you towards the enemy, and usually punish you for teamkilling. The maps themselves are as good looking as the campaign settings, and include woodland, a mountain prisoner of war camp, a fuel plant, a dam and a small French village. Each map lends itself to different tactics and gametypes, and are all designed to comfotably allow the maximum number of players - 24.
The multiplayer is pretty similar to Call of Duty 2. Some maps allow more strategic, less fragfest play, and thankfully, unlike other games such as Halo 2 and Gears of War, annoying kiddies seem to be absent (for now). So, how did Treyarch do? All in all, very, very well. They stayed true to the formula, but added stunning visuals, great sound, and both a strong campaign and multiplayer element. There are niggles, as there are with any game, and perhaps some of the pre-release hype was not quite lived up to. These things aside though, Call of Duty 3 offers solid gameplay and a good level of replay value - especially if you ramp up the diffculty settings. And you will play online for a long time. All in all, an excellent game, and definitely a must-have for FPS or WWII game addicts.
