TheGamerFix

Call of Duty: World at War Review

Call of Duty: World at War has been the subject of much hype and anticipation since its announcement back in May. Being, essentially, the sequel to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, World at War has had very high expectations set for it. While ultimately the game falls short of its predecessor, it is still an excellent game and it comes very close to matching Call of Duty 4’s high level of quality. People may argue however that it is not entirely fair to compare these two games, which were developed by different developers, they share so many similarities that it is only natural to compare the two.

Developed by Treyarch, the developers of Call of Duty 3, World at War leaves modern warfare behind it and instead returns the series roots, the war torn battlefields of World War 2. Following in the footsteps of Call of Duty 4, World at War’s campaign mode follows the stories of two characters; an American soldier fighting in the lush jungle on the Japanese front and a Russian soldier battling through drab German cities and flat countryside with the Red Army towards Berlin. With largely forgettable characters and a story that could have been improved considering its basis in reality the single-player story mode is perhaps the one great stumbling block of what is otherwise an excellent game. While the changes in setting between missions are refreshing and keep the environments from becoming stale and too familiar you never really feel like you get to know any particular character and some of the main moments in the story have less of an emotional impact as a result, this flaw is highlighted even further when you consider the thrilling story and relatable characters in Modern Warfare campaign.

Apart from the setting differentiating the paths of the two main characters the enemies they face fight you in completely different ways. The Germans fight like any other enemy in a first-person shooter game but the Japanese rely mainly on ambushes, this means that on the higher difficulty settings you must adapt your playing styles to suit both types of enemies. On the Pacific theatre section of the campaign one minute you could be strolling along a road through a jungle appearantly no danger in sight and then all of a sudden the road could be teaming with Japanese soldiers and you have to find cover immediately or you’ll torn to shreds. The Japanese soldiers aren’t afraid to get up close and personal either and you will frequently see ‘Banzai’ attackers charging at you with their bayonets raised above their heads so your knife will turn from being a handy commodity into a necessity.

Call of Duty: World at War is powered by the ‘Call of Duty 4’ engine so its visual style closely resembles that of Modern Warfare’s. The lighting effects on objects and people have the same look that they did one year previously as well as the characters movement animations. It is definitely noticeable however that the engine has been significantly tweaked to produce better overall visuals, this is especially noticeable in certain areas such as the Japanese jungles or the water in the game.

Since it uses the same engine the game feels almost identical to its predecessor. The movement feels the same, the view-bob, the sprinting, the knife attacks, the shooting... so in other words nearly everything. As I am sure you know Call of Duty 4 played amazingly so to say that World at War plays nearly identically can only be a good thing. However some of the guns in the game don’t feel as powerful as perhaps they should and this was the first thing I noticed when playing the game, I couldn’t exactly put a finger on it, maybe the sound of the gun shot was quieter or maybe the guns had less recoil but having played a lot of Call of Duty 4 the previous night it was definitely something I noticed. But as I progressed in the game I became accustomed to the weapons and this didn’t bother me anymore.

Perhaps the main hallmark of the Call of Duty series has been its incredible multiplayer, and Call of Duty: World at War is no exception to this legacy, it still offers the same addictive multiplayer to be found in Modern Warfare. The game essentially has everything that was in Modern Warfare’s multiplayer added to the game and improved upon. Perks are making a return including some new addition, players can once again create their own classes to suit their playing styles. Prestiging makes a triumphant return and the level you have to hit before you can prestige has been raised from 55 to 65. One of the complaints with prestiging in Modern Warfare was that players got no bonus from prestiging however that has changed in World at War. If a player prestiges they will unlock extra custom class slots, a small incentive I’ll admit but an incentive none the less. Overall I have also found the multiplayer to run a lot smoother than it did in Call of Duty 4.

One of the big things in Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer was ‘kill streaks’ in which a player could call in a recon plane for a kill-streak of 3, an air-streak for a kill-streak of 5 and a helicopter for a kill-streak of seven. This system has returned with World at War but it has been modified to fit in with the era of technology in the game. You can still call in a recon plane once you get a kill-streak of 3 which does the same thing of showing enemy positions on your map as it did previously, when you get a kill-streak of 5 you instead call in an artillery strike which fundamentally works the same way an airstrike did. The big change however lies when you achieve a kill-streak of seven, instead of calling in a helicopter to provide fire support you call in a pack of dogs who charge around the map killing enemies in their way, they are quite vulnerable by themselves but their strength relies on their speed and weight of numbers. The dogs also serve a tactical purpose as well, since they seek out your enemies if you follow one of the dogs they will inevitably lead you to an enemy, this works particularly well if the enemy is hiding and you can be led right to them.

Apart from these tweaks to competitive multiplayer as well as the inclusion of new modes the games main multiplayer strength is the addition of a ‘co-operative’ mode. The co-operative mode offers numerous ways to play through the single-player campaign online or offline. You can play split-screen co-op mode offline or you can play online with up to 3 other people. The game ramps up in difficulty for each extra person in your co-op game, the amount of enemies at particular points will increase dramatically and it can be very tough, even with the extra players, to battle through the increased numbers of enemies. If a player is downed by an enemy you can run over to them and revive them although you cannot fire a weapon will you are reviving someone leaving you vulnerable for a brief period of time. The co-op offered is split into two modes; ‘Competitive Co-Op’ and ‘Campaign Co-Op’. Campaign co-op is basically the main single player campaign just played with more people, more enemies etc. The competitive co-op however gives players points for each kill they get as well as extra points for special kills such as headshots or knife attacks. This adds a competitive element to the mix resulting in some really fun online play. You can also find special items called ‘Death Cards’ that and another layer of depth to the co-op, one can be found hidden on each of the game’s 13 missions and they offer special abilities that either make the game harder or easier e.g. Enemies die only from headshots.

Once you complete the main single player campaign you unlock a special co-op mode called ‘Nazi Zombies.’ This seems quite out of place however I have found it to be immensely enjoyable and it has turned out to be one of my favourite multiplayer modes. The mode places between 2-4 players in a run-down house and the players are simply tasked with staying alive for as long as possible. It is broken down into rounds and the number of zombies, health, AI’s and speed increase with each round. You earn points for each zombie you kill and you can spend these points unlocking new sections of the house or purchasing new weapons. The difficulty starts very low but it quickly ramps up until you’re only just barely surviving by the tenth round. If a team-mate is downed by a zombie you can revive them similar to in the main co-op modes, only one player has to be alive at the end of each round and then the others will respawn although they’ll lose the weapons they have already bought. T seems to me like a mixture of Left 4 Dead and Gears of War 2’s ‘Horde’ mode.

Overall I have found Call of Duty: World at War to be an immensely satisfying game. While it may not be quite as good as its predecessor it still takes the same winning formula and integrates it with very positive results. If you are looking for a brilliant multiplayer experience or indeed a decent single-player game World at War is the game for you....But! the main thing it highlighted for me was how brilliant a game Call of Duty4: Modern Warfare was, as I’m sure you can tell from my cross comparisons, and how much I am looking forward to Infinity Ward’s next instalment in the Call of Duty franchise....

Score: 8/10

By: Rory

*Reviewed on the Playstation 3*

When 2K Games first announced over six months ago that they were porting their highly-acclaimed First Person Shooter Bioshock to the Playstation3 the main question on everyone’s mind was whether 2K would take the time to replicate the same experience that players had on the Xbox360 and PC versions and bring it over to the Playstation3. Let me assure you however that Bioshock on the Playstation3 is every bit as good as its 360 counter-part. The game features the same excellent single-player campaign that was found on the 360 and PC versions as well as adding another difficulty level labelled ‘Survivor’ and a set of bonus ‘Challenge Rooms’ which will be made available for free download over the Playstation Network.

When you first play Bioshock you may think it is nothing more than a graphical show-piece however as you progress into the mysterious and haunting underwater city of Rapture you quickly become entranced with the magnificent story and you can think of nothing else but finding out what happened to the citizens of this mysterious underwater metropolis.

Bioshock is set in 1960 and takes place in a mysterious underwater city called ‘Rapture’. The game starts off with your character on a plane flight over the mid-Atlantic when suddenly after the plane mysteriously crashes you are stranded in the sea and looming in front of you is mysterious black tower sitting on an isolated rocky outcrop. At this point the first thing that strikes you is the sheer beauty and realism of the games visuals, you notice the way the water rolls around you, the tongues of fire that engulf the plane’s mangled shell and the moonlight glinting off the surface of the water and you have to remind yourself that you are playing a game and not watching a movie. As you climb out of the murky waters and walk into the tower you discover a small submarine, called a bathysphere, waiting to take you underwater. In this submarine you are introduced to the man who created Rapture, a mysterious business man named Andrew Ryan, and to the city itself.

Would You Kindly...Enter...Rapture

When the bathysphere docks you begin to understand that all is not well in Rapture and something terrible has happened to its citizens. Even before you step into the city you witness one of the genetic mutants known as ‘splicers’ attacking one of the few remaining un-mutated citizens, these splicers have effectively taken over Rapture. You also begin to notice that everything appears run-down and broken. The source of all the problems in Rapture is due to a substance known as ADAM which allows peoples genetic codes to be altered with ease. After acquiring the first weapon in the game, the wrench, and battling your way through a few splicers you come across the first ‘plasmid’ in the game, which gives your character the ability to shoot lightning from his fingertips.

This is essentially where Bioshock slightly deviates from its core First Person Shooter gameplay and becomes more like a Role Playing Game. Throughout the game you collect special types of ADAM known as plasmids these give your character special powers such as the ability to shoot lightening from his hand, or fire, or bees, or ice, or you can make a replica of yourself so enemies will attack that instead of you, the list goes on.

Enjoy some Electro Bolt!!

Electro Bolt, one of the plasmids in Bioshock.

However the catch is you have to unlock extra slots for the plasmids, at the start you only have two slots but as you progress through the game you can acquire more slots. You can only have a maximum of six plasmid slots though meaning that you have to choose which plasmids your character has at all times. You can change the plasmids you have assigned to slots at designated locations throughout the game for free. Certain plasmids also interact with the environment in unique and interesting ways. For example if there are a group of splicers standing in a pool of water,(which will happen quite a lot because Rapture, due to its lack of maintenance, is constantly leaking and water is everywhere) you can zap them with a bolt of lightning and the electricity will spread through the water killing all of the splicers standing in it. Also if there is a splicer unwittingly standing in a pool of spilled oil if you light them on fire the oil will also catch fire causing them to lose health much more rapidly. In Bioshock you are also presented with puzzles and problems which you have to solve or fix with your plasmids, some doors control panels might have short-circuited and by sending a bolt of electricity at the control panel the door will open for you, or if a door is frozen shut by a chunk of ice, sending a beam of hot flames from your fingertips melts the ice and opens the door. To use a plasmid you have to have a certain amount of EVE, this is basically the substance that gives you the ability to use plasmids and if your EVE meter empties your dude has to inject himself with a syringe to replenish his EVE. Some plasmids use more EVE than others depending on what they do.

As well as plasmids there are also things called tonics which you use to power up your character. Tonics are broken up into three categories; Combat, Physical and Engineering they operate under the same ‘slot’ system that the plasmids use whereby you can only have six tonics influencing your character per category. Tonics have a more passive effect than plasmids. They don’t give you new attacks or anything like that but for instance you might have a combat tonic that increases your wrenches damage, or a physical tonic that gives you more health from first-aid kits or food. Engineering tonics give your character more benefits when hacking shops or security bots etc. There are over 50 tonics to customize your dude with meaning that you can shape your characters abilities in any way you like.

Throughout the game there are certain vendors that specialize in things like ammunition, general equipment, plasmids and tonics etc. These vendors can be ‘hacked’, when you choose to hack a vendor you are thrown into this sort of mini-game where you are tasked with completing a line of pipes so that the flow of liquid goes from its output to its input. If you put the pipes in the wrong place or you don’t put a pipe in place before the liquid reaches the gap you fail the hack and you lose a chunk of health. There are also special tiles in the mini-game that will trigger a security alarm if the liquid flows into it. The result of a successful hack is that there are more items available in that vendor for sale and all the items are cheaper. I found this hacking mini-game to become quite tedious and frustrating so I eventually just gave up hacking everything and decided to pay for an items full price.

The hacking minigame, arguably the most tedious part of Bioshock.

There are essentially two forms of currency in the game; Dollars and ADAM. Dollars are the main form of currency in the game and can found on corpses or on enemies you kill, you can also find Dollars in cash registers and safes throughout the environment. Dollars are used to purchase things such as health packs and ammunition. ADAM is the second form of currency, it is the substance that has destroyed Rapture and you use it to power up plasmids, acquire tonics, purchase new slots etc. The main sources of ADAM in the game are Little Sisters, these are seemingly harmless little girls that harvest the ADAM from the dead bodies littered throughout the city. However due to the splicers insatiable demand for ADAM the Little Sisters are protected by the most fearsome enemies in the game Big Daddies.

I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't me...

Arguably the most memorable thing about Metal Gear Solid 4 is its story. The game opens with a cut-scene showing a war-torn Middle-Eastern environment, into which a truck full of militant soldiers arrives, and in the truck is Solid Snake disguised as a militant. However a couple of minutes into the game Snake takes off his hooded disguise to reveal a weathered and horribly aged face. A cut-scene later and we learn that Solid Snake, or Old Snake as he is now known, has an unknown disease which is causing the premature ageing and that he will be dead within a year. In this same cut-scene we are told by a familiar character from a previous Metal Gear Solid game, that Liquid has been sighted in the Middle-East, and so Snake heads off to the Middle-East in the hope of finding Liquid and killing him.

As the game unfolds we discover that Liquid is has devised a cunning plan that will allow him to, essentially, take over the world. Snake’s efforts to put a stop to Liquid’s plan and kill him see Snake travel to different parts of the world such as South America, Budapest and Shadow Moses, the place in Alaska in which the original Metal Gear Solid was set. These locations offer a host of extremely varied gaming environments to which the player must adapt. These drastically contrasting locations prevent the scenery from getting too familiar and dull as it had in previous Metal Gear Solid games.

One of the hallmarks of previous Metal Gear Solid games where the interesting bosses and Metal Gear Solid 4s bosses prove to be no exception. The first four bosses you fight are part of an army unit known as the Beauty and the Beast Unit (B&B unit). Their four names are; Laughing Octopus, Raging Raven, Crying Wolf and Screaming Mantis, they all wear suits that make them more like the animals they’re named after. The story that surrounds them all is that they are all attractive women who have been mentally scarred by war and who have been led to believe that only by killing Solid Snake will their tortured and fragmented minds be healed, so they are seeking to kill him. As fan service they are all recreations of previous Metal Gear Solid bosses, The extendable bionic arms that are attached to Laughing Octopus’ suit are very similar to those on the suit of Solidus in Metal Gear Solid 2 and Screaming Mantis looks like Psycho Mantis from the original Metal Gear Solid and she also has similar powers to control peoples actions. Crying Wolf is very similar to Sniper Wolf from the original Metal Gear Solid.

There are really only three new characters in Metal Gear Solid 4; Drebin a weapons wholesaler who provides you with info as well as weapons and custom parts for your guns throughout the game. Sunny, who is the daughter of Olga Gurlukovich from Metal Gear Solid 2, Otacon takes care of her and she has become an amazing hacker and programmer under his care. Lastly there is Jonny, who has appeared in other Metal Gear Solid games but only as a sort of extra but never as a fleshed out character. However the lack of new characters isn’t necessarily a bad thing as many of the most interesting characters from previous Metal Gear Solid games have important roles in Metal Gear Solid 4, these include (WARNING!! Potential Spoilers); Naomi Hunter and Meryl Silverburgh from the original Metal Gear Solid, Vamp from Dead Cell in Metal Gear Solid 2 as well as Solidus (in corpse form) and Colonel Campbell, Raiden and Rose also from Metal Gear Solid 2. Eva from Metal Gear Solid 3, as well as another two surprise characters from Metal Gear Solid 3.

Graphics:

Metal Gear Solid 4s graphics are outstanding and they push the Playstation 3s hardware to its limits. There is a terrific amount of detail in even the smallest items in the game. However the most outstanding thing about Metal Gear Solid 4s graphics are the unprecedented levels of detail in characters faces and the superb facial animation. Metal Gear Solid 4 relies heavily on the drama of its story and every emotion is clearly visible on a characters face and you can notice even the subtlest changes in expression this helps you understand the characters personalities better and makes the story even more meaningful and gripping.

Game Play:

It is evident from the very beginning of the game that the game play underwent a massive overhaul and redesign in order to provide the player with a more enjoyable gaming experience. Metal Gear Solid 4 plays differently to previous Metal Gear Solid games and yet it stills feels very familiar, it seems that a lot of thought was spent not just no the storyline and the closure it provides but also on streamlining the game play. You no longer press up to the wall when you run up to it and push against it instead you have to press triangle, it’s a small difference but it really seems to improve the game play.

The shooting mechanics have also been drastically redesigned, a new over the shoulder shooting mechanic has been included which feels quite similar to the shooting mechanics in Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. The player can also choose to play through the entire game in First Person which would be foolish as although the First Person view certainly works it does not provide as enjoyable an experience as the game does when played in Third Person.

A new duck and cover system has been included, this allows player to take cover behind low walls etc. and pop up from behind them and firing before dropping down behind them again or you can blind fire from behind cover. This again feels very similar to the cover mechanics in Uncharted: Drakes Fortune or Gears of War.

Weapons and Drebin’s Shop:

There is a huge and varied selection of guns and weapons in Metal Gear Solid 4. The guns range from your average semi-auto pistol to assault rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers and you even get a huge bad ass rail gun that shoots charged bolts of electricity at an object. The reason you have access to the largest selection of guns in any Metal Gear Solid game is all thanks to one man; Drebin. Drebin is one of the only new characters in Metal Gear Solid 4 and apart from supplying you with information on other characters back stories he also can remove the ID tags from any gun Snake comes across meaning you can use any gun an enemy drops. He of course charges Snake for his services and that’s where Drebin’s Shop and Drebin Points come into play. At Drebin’s Shop which you can access at any time during the game from the pause menu, in Drebin’s Shop you can buy new guns, ammo, grenades etc. as well removing ID tags from guns you’ve found on the battlefield. A new feature in Metal Gear Solid 4 is the ability to customize guns, most guns have a number of slots on them into which you could fit a grenade launcher, a scope, a dot sight, a torch etc. The currency that you use to pay for these items and upgrades are known as Drebin Points and you earn them throughout the game every time you kill an enemy or sell a weapon you pick up that you already own.

Metal Gear Online:

Metal Gear Solid 4 ships with Metal Gear Online. This is basically the multiplayer version of Metal Gear Solid 4 and it allows you to play with up to 16 players online in various multiplayer modes on numerous different maps. Players can customize the appearance of their character in the game. However the game requires you to create a Konami ID on their website and you have to create an in game ID separate to your PSN ID, this is very tedious and somewhat detracts from the experience. The Metal Gear Solid game play mechanics of stealth kills and sneaking around levels don’t translate very well into online multiplayer either. While Metal Gear Online was

certainly a nice bonus the game play isn’t very fun and the different log in Ids are very annoying, it’s really the single-player experience that you should buy this game for.

Conclusion:

Overall Metal Gear Solid 4:Guns of the Patriots offers a fantastic single-payer experience, it combines enjoyable game play with a brilliant story that provides excellent and emotional closure to the Metal Gear Solid storyline. This game is definitely the best reason to own a Playstation 3 so far.