While Call of Duty 4 was set in present day, Activision decided to go back to the Word War 2 era for its 5th installment.  While the games has some flaws,  I must say I was surprised how much I enjoyed the game. More after the jump.

Just like the other Call of Duty games, World at War lets you control two characters: a US Marine in the Pacific Theatre,  fighting against the suicidal Japanese.  The other character is a Russian, fighting against the invading Germans.  What caught my attention right away was the production of the game.  For a game that was announced about nine months ago, it’s a well polished game.  While the production of the game is great, the story just feels outdated.

Gameplay

Gameplay for World At War plays just like Call of Duty 4.  The control is very easy to learn and feels natural.  Most of the time you’re shooting your way through the bad guys.  While most of it is fun because of the new environments, especially the Pacific, it gets redundant.  After a while, it gets boring shooting at bad guys, especially when they just keep respawning and your objective is to get from point A to point B alive.  The respawning bad guys is the biggest gripe I had with the gameplay.  It  was more luck thank skill surviving the onslaught.  The developers definitely got lazy with some of the game designs and thought they’d make the game longer by making it really hard with the respawns.

Besides the gripe, the other features worked well.   I loved being on the plane and shooting down the Japanese zero’s and battleships.  Using the tanks and mowing the Nazis with it was easier than I thought.  The tanks were easy to control and very responsive.

Fans of Call of Duty 4 might not like the old school weapons that Call of Duty 5 has.  Instead of machine guns, you have guns that reload after every shot or some other guns that aren’t automatic.  Of course later on the game, you get cooler weapons like the BAR and the flame thrower.  You definitely have to work harder to kill your enemies.  Which leads me to my next point: multiplayer.

Multiplayer is set up the same way as COD 4, the higher your rank, the more rewards you get.  This time around the multiplayer feels unbalanced because of the weapons used.  The room will have low ranked players like myself going against way higher ranked players.  The newbies will have the crappy guns that fires one bullet at a time while the experts have all the automatic rifles. In COD 4, you started out with a machine gun and the gameplay became more balanced.

Graphics

I loved the graphics of the game.  The textures on the levels are very detailed and you can see dirt on the soldier’s faces.  The character models looks pretty good, as well as the animation.  When enemies get shot in the head with a sniper rifle, it gets shred into pieces.  Limbs also break and drop to the ground.  There’s barely any slowdowns at all, even when the depth of field is high and you see a wave of soldiers attacking you from half a mile away.  I was impressed.  The graphics definitely improved and it showed that the developers took their time creating a bleak atmosphere.

Music and Sound

There’s more music than Call of Duty 4.  While it’s good, it feels out of place because it feels too modern.  Think music from Clear and Present Danger and a little bit of Last Samurai.

The sound is great in dolby digital.  Bullets whizz by your ears and the dialogue is easy to hear.  The rumbling of the tanks and the .50 calibers also gives the subwoofer a good work out.  I’ve always enjoyed Call of Duty’s audio design and this is no exception.

Conclusion

If I haven’t played Call of Duty 4, I’d definitely buy World At War.  The presentation is top notch, graphics and sound are also impressive.  But the gameplay and level designs still feel like its predecessor: calling for air support, taking down anti aircraft, sniping an official.  Gameplay is still good but it’s an experience that I’ve already been through so many times.  Plus the setting is in World War 2, you pretty much know how it’s going to end. A well made game but not much originality.

Grade: B

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