The Forgotten Call of Duty
On a whim I decided to play through this game again. An often-overlooked title from the many games that came out for this series. I was pretty hyped for this when it came out. I loved the previous two titles so what I ended up with was a bit of a letdown. Especially for a game I was playing on my new PS3. Now to see if I have a similar reaction to it today or if it has a bit more to it than I remember.
Once again, we return to the trenches of World War II. It follows the English/American/Polish/Canadian forces as they retake key areas to free France from the Nazi regime. This does have a bit of story between the different factions, but it is kind of hard to care about any of the characters since they don’t get much time to develop. All of the dramatic moments fall flat as a result. Still better than the previous games I guess but that isn’t a high bar.
As for the gameplay it does hold up fairly well. This comes from an era where shooting things on PS3 still meant using the L1/R1 buttons. In some ways I prefer playing this way on the older DualShock controllers, but I had to get used to it again. The lock on is pretty generous in this game so it is pretty easy to shoot whatever I was aiming at. Fights are fair even though I think I died more from enemies punching me than anything else. Was really funny to see how messed up the AI got to me charging through their lines sometimes. Seeing them all bunched up made a well placed grenade toss pretty amusing since this is the era of the amazing ragdoll physics.
Over the previous games this one added in smoke grenades and dumb QTE moments. At least on PS3 it uses the Sixaxis to make you wiggle your way out of a brawl with an enemy. It works but every fight is the same other than a unique death for winning. Pretty pointless and the smoke grenades are similarly pointless. They don’t really help in fights since they obscure enemies and the level design is never really made in a way where that helps. Multiple paths are also something new, I think. Doesn’t change things too much but at key points you can go left instead of right. Seeing slightly different fights as a result is a neat gimmick. Guessing this was meant to add some replay value. Doesn’t change things enough to make it worth it though.
I didn’t play the multiplayer since uh well no one is playing anymore I assume. I’m sure it’s fine but nothing really special from this era. This game does have some neat spectacle moments where you feel like you take on an entire army. Doesn’t really hold up in that way anymore but still cool. Presentation overall is good too. Sure, it looks very rough by today's standards but each level mixes things up a bit. Yet none of them really excited me in any way. Even the one about driving through an exploding factory felt rather bland.
As a whole nothing is really wrong with this game. It does what it aimed to do. Make something similar to CoD2 in one year. It does that but that's about it. This made me realize this series has always been about putting on a show. But it doesn’t really have the same impact anymore. I didn’t hate my time with this one. Yet getting to the next set piece moment was kind of boring. Which isn’t a thing you want to say about an FPS. Makes it really hard to recommend anyone go back to check it out now. Unless you're curious about it like me it isn't a game worth playing.
