TripleChat Review: Call of Duty World at War

Published by: Activision
Developed by: Treyarch
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Number of Players: 1-18
ESRB: Mature
Trophy Support: Yes

The Call of Duty franchise seems to be turning into an annual thing.  For the past four years we have had a new entry into the famed franchise.  To Activision’s credit two different development teams work on the franchise, one handling the odd number games, the other the even number sequels.  If you are a follower of the franchise, fans refer to the games as the Infinity Ward games and the Treyarch games.  Infinity Ward has received more critical acclaim for their efforts, as they seem to take their entries in the franchise to the next level, while Treyarch seems to take whatever formula worked for Infinity and tweak it a bit.  The differences between Call of Duty 2 and 3 were quite noticeable, more particularly that the second seemed to be challenging for all the right reasons, while the third seemed to be challenging for all the wrong reasons.

In 2007 we saw Infinity Ward take the next major leap into the franchise, and perhaps a controversial step forward with the release of the critically acclaimed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.  As the title obviously shows this was the first, and as of right now only, CoD game to step outside the WW2 era and progress to reference today’s current conflicts in the Middle East.  While the game didn’t boast a campaign in Iraq as in reality, it certainly felt like it (though with results we hope we never see in real life).  The game had everything going for it, an excellent (but extremely short) single player campaign, an online multiplayer that topped both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network charts, and some of the most intriguing missions never before experienced in a first person shooter.

Fast forward just a few months after the release of Modern Warfare and Treyarch announced they were working on the next game in the franchise as expected.  There was somewhat of an issue with the fans however, while Infinity Ward stepped outside of WW2, Treyarch announced they were returning to the WW2 era with Call of Duty: World at War.

As stated before IW were the innovators, Treyarch were more of the followers.  World at War is no different in this case.  It was certainly a better effort than Call of Duty 3 (which I still to this day blame for some premature hair loss), but unfortunately I finished without the awe feeling I had from finishing Modern Warfare. The story telling, though creatively put together with the use of archive footage and computer generated outline maps, lacked the scale of depth from the cinematics of CoD4, and the game just overall lacked the intensity of the story.

World at War has a few things going for it.  The battles can be intense at times, and its the first CoD game that has a campaign set in the Pacific Theater.  As with typical CoD games, you play from multiple perspectives (American and Russian).  For the American campaign in Japan you play as Private Miller – someone who has unofficially been bumped up the ladder from an accident early on.  The other campaign sees you in the Russian campaign to overtake Berlin as a well respected comrade named Dimitri.  Your commanding officer in the Russian campaign (Reznov) claims you are the heart of the Russian military, take that as you will.

World at War may not have matched Modern Warfare when it came to storytelling, but it certainly matched its efforts in the length of the single player campaign.  I was able to beat this in about three or four sittings, but those only accumulated up to about six hours of play time.  I understand the gaming community is growing online but keep in mind developers, people still want to buy games for a single player experience.  If BioShock can achieve success on three separate platforms by offering a single player only experience, why can’t Call of Duty match it?  I’m not saying the developers need to make a 20 hour long campaign, but how about something over 10 hours?  It’s becoming too repetitive in this industry where a story picks up its intensity in a game and then abruptly ends.

Thankfully there is some replay value in this game, as there are multiple paths to take through some missions (though they come up sparingly), and for you trophy nuts there are a variety of trophies to earn by replaying missions and doing certain tasks (such as completing an entire mission using just melee attacks).  Also, as soon as you beat the main campaign no matter what difficulty you unlock access to Carnage mode, which places you in an infinite battleground with Nazi Zombies.  It is oddly addicting once you get into it and understand the premise of how to beat each round.  I give credit to when credit is due, at least Treyarch attempted methods to add some more replay value for the solo gamer as compared to Infinity Ward who seemed to spend more time on developing for the multiplayer gamer for the efforts in Modern Warfare.

The story has a few plot twists; there were a few times where I was surprised from the outcome but nothing they would make you go “whoa, that was f***in awesome,” like a particular scene from CoD4.  I think we all know what I am referring to.  There was one tweak to the gameplay that I want to give Treyarch total props to.  They finally took out the annoying, “You cannot kill friendlies,” death sequence.  This was perhaps the most annoying feature in Call of Duty 3, because the friendly AI would constantly run in front of your crosshairs while you were shooting and you would wind up killing them and be forced to redo the checkpoint.  Friendlies can actually die in this game if you shoot them.  I must have killed half my comrades in the Russian campaign because I just openly fired anywhere I saw an enemy at times.

Another perk to the gameplay, which can be found in the American campaign are the enemies you face who camo themselves into the environment and then rush you out of nowhere.  It was a realistic portrayal of how the Japanese fought, but if you had access to a flamethrower you were pretty much unstoppable.  The flamethrower, though fun to use, was an extremely powerful weapon throughout the campaign.  It had infinite ammo but if you used it too much at once it would need to cool down before using it again, which only took a matter of seconds.  I would have much preferred the challenge of having to find gas canisters in base camps to refill my flamethrower instead of being able to use for as long as I want.  You will find yourself using enemy weapons far more often than weapons from your native country (on either campaign), as is the case in most Call of Duty games. Not a big complaint, and technically if you conserve ammo better than I do you can stick to using the same two weapons you are given at the beginning of each level until the end of the level.

World at War by all means is not a terrible game.  It has a satisfying single player campaign, though cut short of preferred length and it does not go beyond the innovation of Modern Warfare.  It simply is just a game with a few minor updates using the same engine and set in a different era.  From a multiplayer perspective, If you played CoD4, it is essentially the same thing in this one as well though with different weapons and perks.  The voice talent of Kiefer Sutherand as Roebuck is a plus, though hearing the voice of Jack Bauer seemed kind of odd, even though its the perfect kind of character to be in this kind of game.

One thing that is noticeable about CoD WaW is that it seems to be more arcade-like as compared to previous CoD games.  I found myself rushing enemies numerous times just to get the satisfying knife kills, which is something you will find your Japanese enemies attempt several times on you.  I wasn’t expecting a realistic portrayal, as we all know in real life if you are shot twelve times in the chest you are pretty much a goner; you can’t simply hide behind cover for ten seconds and regenerate health.  If that were the case, WW2 would probably be still occurring to this day.

If well thought out and intense story telling, along with some realism added is your thing, I would recommend picking up any entry in the Brothers in Arms franchise as opposed with the CoD franchise.  As it is, World at War is a game that pretty much any CoD fan will enjoy, whether it be a purchase or rental.  Just don’t expect the leap of innovation and quality as we saw from CoD3 to CoD4.  This is pretty much CoD4 set in WW2.  It’s a fun game, but Treyarch obviously could have done much more.  It has it’s moments, more so in the Russian campaign than the American campaign, but ultimately it’s just your typical shooter with a popular name attached to it.  The Carnage mode is a welcome addition, but I would have preferred a longer, more in-depth single player campaign mode instead.

My verdict, if you like have a need to get your stab on, or just want some good ol’ Nazi Zombie killing…

Current MSRP: $59.99 || Worth-It Value: $30-35

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