Australian Gamer Review :: Call of Duty 3

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Call of Duty 3

Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Available on: Playstation 2, Wii, Xbox 360, Xbox

The best WWII shooter yet blending stunning visuals and sound to create the best game atmosphere bar none.

Players: 1 - 4 Playser (24 online)
Genre:
Release: 2006-11-15

Developer: Treyarch
Distributor: Activision

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I used to hate history at school. I never saw the point. We learn about stuff that�s happened in the past. School allegedly equips us for the future. Right. I guess there was no real reason to hate it, I even got pretty good marks. It was one of those subjects that always had me repeatedly looking at my watch, counting down the minutes until the bell would signal the end of another torturous 45 minutes.

Well actually I didn�t really look at my watch. History class was really usually spent perfecting paper aeroplane design or examining the flight path and trajectory of other people�s writing instruments after they�d been hit by a ceiling fan at high speed.

Kids, don�t try that at school. Bigger kids, don�t try that in the office. Seriously. You could get in trouble and somebody could get hurt. I do not endorse these actions. Or anything I say. Or even myself for that matter.

To be honest I think my teacher was at least partly to blame. She was definitely passionate about her history alright. Ah yes, very passionate. While she was passionate, being passionate does not necessarily make you a good teacher.

How many times can I use the word passionate? Good question but I�d say don�t test me; I�m passionate about pushing points that should never be passionately pushed.

So to get back to the point I�m fruitlessly trying to make, knowledge is one thing, but the ability to convey that knowledge to another person who really doesn�t give a flying mud banana about it is a talent. A gift. My history teacher did not have that gift.

The point is; the writers at Treyarch are a heck of a lot better at relating history to someone who prefers The Matrix to the Mausoleum than my old teacher. Sure, games are a far more interesting medium than the classroom, but my point still stands.

How awesome and effective would that be? History could be taught in schools solely by historic games. Man that would be sweet. Join me, and we�ll form a lobby group to persuade the government to do so. Actually no, on second thought scratch that, because I�ll be far too busy playing Call Of Duty 3.

COD3 is based around the Normandy Breakout, and you play as soldiers in various armies. Of course, you start as an American, but you also get to play as the British, Canadians and Polish. The story sticks reasonably close to actual events in the war, unfortunately, you don�t get to play D-Day. The story starts somewhere after the allies have already pushed into France. The storytelling is a little different this time around compared to past games bearing the COD moniker. Previously you took up the position of a soldier and the story was told with a mixture of text and a little bit of in-game dialogue. This time around, all text is gone. The story is told in the same fashion as Half Life. Your player never utters a word and the perspective never leaves your viewpoint as conversations are held in front of you. Also, rather than play through each campaign exclusively, the 4 stories are interwoven with each other and you find yourself chopping and changing nationalities more often than Jelena Dokic.

The pace of the story and the game is spot on. Just when you think one section is about to get a little tiring, it changes to something else. The personal touch that has been added to the characters and perspective push the story along with compelling warmth even though war is generally doom and gloom. COD3 is far from a cakewalk though and you�ll find that you often have to replay sections to work out how best to approach the enemy and terrain.

One of the first things you will notice about Call Of Duty 3, after the superb visuals, is just how much stuff happens on screen. Sure Call Of Duty 1 and 2 created an excellent atmosphere, but compared to COD3, they felt cold and lifeless. This is the first shooter I have ever played where I felt like a soldier in an army, rather than a pivotal character in another FPS. The environments are usually crawling with your own men, plenty of Germans and then you add in the tracer rounds, mortar blasts, artillery fire, the resulting explosions, dust clouds and occasionally you�ll get a pair of fighters fly overhead. It conveys a true sense that there�s a hell of a lot more happening in this war than just your little squad.

In terms of gameplay, Treyarch has taken the safe road and stuck very closely to the tried and true Call Of Duty formula that Infinity Ward perfected in the earlier games. I�ve personally been a big fan of the two previous COD games, so I�m extremely happy to report that even though the developer may have changed this time around, the game is still very much the same. Don�t take that to mean this is a Call Of Duty 2 clone, it�s far beyond that, but it is nice that the DNA of the series remains intact.

After they made sure the gameplay remained as rock-solid as before, Treyarch added some of their own little embellishments to put their own stamp on the game. Vehicles have been added and while they�re not particularly difficult missions, it is a laugh to go racing around laneways in the French countryside outrunning German bullets. It�s a nice break in the pace to the constant first person shooting. No war game with vehicles would be complete without tanks and Call Of Duty 3 delivers. The twin analogue tank control system is challenging and I never really managed to get a good handle on how to drive the things. Vehicles are something I usually pick up quickly in a game, not so in this case. I know it is possible to master them, though, as some people I played against on XBOX Live certainly had it down to a fine art; something I discovered while being blasted 10 feet into the air by a German Tiger tank.

The other gameplay addition of note is the close combat system. At set points throughout the game, a German soldier will jump you in close quarters and a struggle ensues. This struggle consists of alternating the left and right triggers as quickly as possible to overpower your adversary. It�s a neat touch, but more than anything, it feels like it�s been designed for the Wii�s motion sensing controller and the XBOX 360 controls have just been improvised in after that. Picking a platform to buy this game on may become a tad clouded. Let�s be honest though, the Wii may be a clever unit, but it hasn�t got a snowball�s chance in hell of reproducing the gorgeous visuals of the XBOX 360 version and it�s really not worth trading in those visuals for a natty little mini-game.

The biggest triumph in Call Of Duty 3 is the atmosphere. I�ve never played a game that is quite so cinematic in its approach or superb in its presentation. The mix of realistic graphics and a truly amazing sound stage make this one of the most immersive games I�ve ever played. I do need to give extra special mention to the sound, it is superb and when a mortar lands right next to where you�re standing, you�ll know exactly what I mean. My windowsills know exactly what I mean. The atmosphere created is such that it pulls you in and you feel attached to the task and the goal. When you hold out the Germans on Hill 262, the men around you start yelling hopefully and triumphantly that they see green flares on the horizon signalling the Canadians arrival, the orchestra strikes up, the view incredible, columns of green rising up in the distance, I challenge you to restrain yourself from jumping off the couch, punching the air triumphantly. I sure as hell couldn�t.

Call Of Duty 3 is the best WWII shooter yet. Easily, Undoubtedly. For a franchise to stay at the top of its genre like this when there are so many other WWII games around is no small achievement. We should be giving Activision and Treyarch 200 achievement points each for pulling it off. I think 200 is about right. It�s better than one of those 10 pointers that you get pretty much every time you sit down and play and it�s not one of those WTF advertising numbers like Fight Night Round 3.

The second-best thing about COD3 is that even though the old DNA is there, this is a new and unique game. The best part is; I managed to learn some stuff about one of the most important passages of World War II that I didn�t know before. Now that�s something my old history teacher could never manage.

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Final Verdict

The best WWII shooter yet blending stunning visuals and sound to create the best game atmosphere bar none. Mix that with the tried and true Call Of Duty game play that we all know and love with a mildly buggy yet superb multiplayer mode make this an outright winner.

Pros
Absolutely stunning graphics and sound, the atmosphere this game creates really is second to none, successful addition of vehicles into Call Of Duty mix, multiplayer is excellent fun.
Cons
Forced re-watching the last cutscene after loading the game, no matter how far you�ve progressed past it. The game does seem to be a little buggy, with single player mode exhibiting the occasional clipping error and multiplayer mode has a couple of minor bugs that don�t really detract from the experience but do niggle.