Call of Duty 3

It's a gut move. You've got them in your crosshairs, they're moving… towards a tank. They're gonna try and get into the tank. Forward your aim to the rear of the tank, as expected there they are. Fire off a single shot, and they drop. All of a sudden, your screen becomes red and you hear your own heavy breathing.

Crouch. Wait a couple seconds, regenerate, crawl over the grass to the right a bit behind these gravestones, and pop back up. The shot that hit you was fired from the upper right hand corner – now the upper corner – and so there you aim. And there you catch someone behind a brush who just took another shot. And down you fall.

Ten second wait ‘till respawn.

It's moments like these that define Call of Duty 3. You could apply them to many shooters, but CoD3 brings with it its own air… an atmosphere. A large, French town of Poisson which has been deserted, and conflict with the Axis soldiers who camp there. A maximum of 24 players is allowable in these circumstances.

For better or for worse, the multiplayer is the defining aspect of CoD3. It hosts the regular gameplay modes of Battle, Team Battle and Capture the Flag, but also includes three other game modes. Battle and Team Battle are deathmatch-based games wherein whichever team has the highest kill count is victor. Capture the Flag, along with its sister game mode Single CTF is a game wherein you attempt to grab a flag and take it to a designated location. Regular CTF has you bringing your enemy's flag to your base, whereas Single CTF has you bringing one flag spawned in the middle of the map over to your enemy's base.

The other two game modes are Headquarters and War. Headquarters has you fighting for a single area of the map and holding it for longer than the enemy. War is somewhat similar, where the goal is to capture specific points on a map. There are either three or five of these points depending on the map, and all must be captured by the same alliance in order for the game to end (besides the running out of time.) War was a unique game mode as far as first person shooters go at the time of release go and is perhaps the greatest of CoD3's.

None of this would matter if you didn't have solid maps to play on, and in this game you do. Unfortunately there is somewhat of a lack of variety in the maps – the furthest you get from French countryside is a Fuel Plant map – but the maps themselves, though housing many similar textures are very unique and very well built. Maps frequently hold numerous paths to get to a variety of areas, as well as include houses/buildings to go into and camp in, peering out of windows as a sniper, or walkways to crouch on above the battlefield to take out soldiers en masse.

Interacting with these maps is of course the most important aspect, and CoD3 has a great engine to get the job done. The game plays under a class system where you choose a certain class to play with when you spawn and respawn after getting killed. Classes essentially are just weapon types; do you want to use a rifle, or a machine gun? The real trick to these classes are their individual “abilities”. For example, every rifleman has the ability to use a rifle grenade. Every sniper can call in air strikes after a certain amount of time. Every medic can heal a downed ally who hasn't yet respawned. It is these traits which truly define which class you pick as you can pick up any weapon you find on the battlefield in exchange for your pistol (which every class possesses from the get-go.)

The actual gameplay is very fluid and is easily accessible. You start off with somewhat slow aim movement, but this is adjustable in the options. The game follows basic shooter logic; shoot regularly for a quick shot advantage or aim your shots for better damage and more stability (which in turn means more accurate shots.) Certain maps have vehicles which can be used, ranging from tanks to motorbikes to trucks with a support gun on the back. These vehicles are available on either end of a map, making them fair use for both sides. None of them are too powerful, either; motorbikes are weak and are meant for fast travel. They can carry an additional soldier who can shoot enemies while en route. Trucks are great for providing support in a battle through use of the support gun it holds in the back, but it can't turn a whole 360 degrees making it susceptible to flanking (or regular old snipers with good shots from a distance.) Tanks are the most notable because they bring the most damage, and allow an additional ally to sit on top gunning people down. Rocket launchers will take them out, as will grenades of any sort and of course air strikes, so there is a good balance which makes everything work extremely well.

This is where you will enjoy CoD3, and unfortunately it is impossible to convey just how addicting it is as a shooter online through text. The game comes with it another mode, however; the single player. Unfortunately, that mode is quite a different story.

The campaign finds you fighting as different soldiers of different nationalities on French terrain. While the levels are hectic and well crafted, there are two very notable and very frustrating faults. The first is infinite spawning enemies. Many areas you will find have many enemies coming out of some point, and no matter how many you kill they will continue to come out of that point until you progress enough past some specific section of the level to stop the respawn. What that means is in seemingly impossible situations where the best you can do seems to be picking off the enemy, you'll end up stuck because the enemy will keep on coming. It forces you to rush the enemy, progress quickly so as not to waste your time picking off people pointlessly while their clone awaits their turn at the turret.

The other flaw is the cut scenes. Unfortunately, you can't skip them. And they are somewhat lengthy. And you have to watch them every time you continue your saved game. Every single time, whichever the last cut scene was which you viewed will replay itself for you in full. The game also seems to have a broken idea of what checkpoints are. When you hit a checkpoint, if you die, you will respawn at that checkpoint. However, if you choose to “save from the last checkpoint”, and then continue later, you'll find yourself back at the start of the level. Even though you chose to “save from the last checkpoint”.

The single player as a result of these two flaws is very frustrating, and although it possesses its truly crazy war moments where you're right in the action, it won't hold your interest for long and it'll frustrate you far too frequently for you to wish to continue playing. The single player mode is a failure.

Thankfully, you have the multiplayer. Among the greatest of multiplayer games on the Xbox 360, CoD3 holds its own with a neat class system, extremely well designed maps and up to 24 players to create a true war-torn battlefield. From there, you're locking down your enemies. They're in your sights now, you can see them running into the ditch – and now they're gone. A shot falls just beside you, and you aim up, and of course there's your exposed sniper, perhaps a newbie, perhaps a very clever veteran because you realize that that shot must have been a diversion, as you are now looking at a respawn screen after having been killed by the soldier in the ditch, who has since run up to your position and taken it for himself.

These moments will never cease.