So after recieving a code for the beta and putting a few hours into the game i figured i'd write up a small summary of how i feel about it based on the four or five hours i've spent playing it. And i have to say my initial impressions of the game based on this beta are pretty low, i'm not feeling the love at all for COD:WaW if i'm being perfectly honest with you all. I know that its a beta and having taken part in a large number of them i know the quality of a game in its beta stage is never really that great. But a beta is essentially a demo of sorts and as the saying goes, first impressions are everything.

WaW is pretty similar to COD4 in terms of its performance on my PC and its visuals which are really good. Thats always a big plus in my book, a game which runs well and looks good when settings are turned up on an older and somewhat aged PC like mine is. The WW2 setting is also pretty cool aswell, i didn't think i would enjoy it that much as i tend to fall into the anti-WW2 games camp most of the time.

However thats really all i did like about the beta for WaW. The gunplay, kill streak awards, perks and general gameplay is far too similar to COD4, infact i think the best way to summarise WaW is that its COD4 with a paint job. A lot of the perks are similar or exact copies of COD4's, the challenges aswell, the way in which players can call in recon planes, artillery strikes or dogs, yes dogs...but having been killed by them a few times i can only assume they are hounds from the pits of hell itself. All very reminiscent of COD4.

The artillery strikes i can deal with, they can be useful and provide some "lol" moments if you are killed by them, especially if a leg or arm gets blown off. But the recon plane seems weird in a WW2 setting and calling in dogs to essentially hunt down and kill the other teams players is frankly just fucking absurd. Surprisingly the dogs can be killed rather easily and didn't pose that much of a threat like the helicopter in COD4, but the constant barking they make and the fact there are killer dogs in WaW just put me off. Honestly who thought dogs would be an awesome kill streak reward?....fucking dogs?...why not just have Cerberus or Werewolves?

Then of course there is the gunplay and oh boy was this annoying for not only me but  a large number of people on the server i was playing on tonight. Generally aiming, recoil and the "feel" of the guns is all very strange. The gunplay in WaW's beta seems for lack of a better word, inconsistant. When a thompson SMG going "full auto" at long range can be more accurate than a rifle you have to question the ballistics physics in the game or the general hitbox issues it might have. Then of course there is the fact that rifles become 1-shot-kills instantly when a scope is attatched to them but require multiple shots when no scope is attatched. Strange to say the least.

Generally i just felt the gunplay in WaW was not that great, the weapons are not that exciting and aiming seems easier if you close your eyes completely. It pays more to just spray n pray and hope you hit something infront of you, and the chances are the bullet will go through 2 wooden doors, a sheet of metal and still grab you a headshot. Thats also another issue i found with WaW, the same issue i have with COD4, bullets going through the enviroment. It just seems too hit or miss and often left me thinking that nothing was safe to take cover behind which is annoying as FPS games need reliable cover. I refuse to reload my gun in the open and get killed by that god damn Xanos233 guy again!

But i will give WaW one big piece of praise over COD4 and thats the low amount of grenade spam i witnessed. In COD4 its almost guaranteed most of your deaths will be caused by grenades, not players actively shooting you with guns. In the case of WaW though i found pretty much all of my deaths were caused by bullets and not someone chucking grenades about like crazy. However i think WaW needs a new perk, the "Tent" perk, because god damn is it full of campers. So much so that i was too scared to leave my secret spot for fear of having 10 campers all pepper me with bullets. So in the end i just camped myself and waited for someone to walk past my explosives, but everyone else was too busy pitching tents and camping.

Overall i really feel from this beta that WaW is too similar to COD4 in a number of ways but yet isn't as good as COD4 in a number of ways so to put it in a more simple manner WaW for me was like a poor mans COD4. Its like pepsi to coca cola, we all know they look and taste the same but cola is clearly and obviously the better choice out of the two. I know its only a beta and things will likely improve but as i said at the start, first impressions are everything.

Hamz

And COD2 is Vanilla Coke.

"And COD2 is Vanilla Coke."

"DualReaver said:

"And COD2 is Vanilla Coke."

Couldn't agree more really. If you want a solid WW2 FPS game then yeah COD2 is a good choice. WaW is just a little better looking but lacking the substance to back those good looks up. Kind of like Paris Hilton i guess?"

When the dog call goes out you have to take action immediately, move into a safest area possible and hide lying in wait. Finding those safe places within the map to hide in is the problem though, especially on a Beta.  It's not easy at all when they are vacant already. It's almost like musical chairs only you end up getting shot in the face instead of failing off a chair. You could hide from the Helicopter easily in the last game, but with these dogs it's so much harder. I have even tried running through water so they lose my scent, seriously I actually fucking tried that through sheer desperation lol.

My criticisms aren't based on this being made by Treyarch. I find the maps to be poorly designed, the spawn points to be whack and for all the weapons to lack any sort of character. Everything in the game feels like a cheap shitty version of everything in CoD4 and I'm not even a fan of CoD4, I preferred CoD2.

"My criticisms aren't based on this being made by Treyarch. I find the maps to be poorly designed, the spawn points to be whack and for all the weapons to lack any sort of character. Everything in the game feels like a cheap shitty version of everything in CoD4 and I'm not even a fan of CoD4, I preferred CoD2."

Yeah pretty much agree with what Jayge said. I think anyone that just calls this "cod4 in WWII" or "cod4 with a paint job" as you stated, is giving it a huge compliment it doesn't quite deserve.

I agree the spawn points are dodgy, you only have to spawn and get shot in the face to know something is wrong,  but that is the point of a Beta, to discover such issues. Any spawn issues can be rectified with good code changes, initiated by observation of the problems and why they are caused within Beta's. When I play a Beta and something is fucked up I will never be too critical, I will simply expect or demand that within the final game they are sorted out.

It's all too easy to say the game is fucked up, I think the gaming public needs to understand better that Beta's are a vital testing ground to build upon a foundation already created. I think many of us including I are guilty of being far too critical of games because of them. Sometimes they can taint opinion, it's my belief that the opinion was tainted beforehand in respect to many things in this new game.

Protip: It's more or less a demo.

it 'is' a demo, 100%. The whole "well I know its a beta " thing that people always say really isn't valid at all.

No it's a Beta, software that has distributed to selected users for the sole reason of testing before sale. A demo does not do that.

"No it's a Beta, software that has distributed to selected users for the sole reason of testing before sale. A demo does not do that."

I wasn't even able to connect to any servers while playing the PC beta. >.<

eh i'm one of the few people that think cod3 is actually a quality MP. the classes (not like the shitty cod4 ones) work really well in it. i am sad that they are making it more like 4

I wasn't really expecting anything else. I hope Infinity Ward gets the rights to develop CoD games exclusively.

"I wasn't really expecting anything else. I hope Infinity Ward gets the rights to develop CoD games exclusively."

"brukaoru said:

"I wasn't really expecting anything else. I hope Infinity Ward gets the rights to develop CoD games exclusively."

IW Call of Duty games wouldn't come any faster so what'd be the point? And what?"

As long as they don't number them like the regular Call of Duty series game  I don't see a problem with it.

I don't think there's a problem with it as much as, at this point Treyarchs cod WWII games could be called something else, because I'm assuming IW is gonna keep going from modern to something new.

I wasn't expecting much from WaW to be honest. When I first saw the trailer I immedietly though "meh". Looks like they're just remaking CoD2 with grittier graphics, sticking in some jungle and then saying: "look! you can burn shit!"... greeeeat. Not interested in the slightest.