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Call of Duty (CoD) is a true sequel to Medal of Honour: Allied Assault. If you have played MoHAA, you’d know that it is atmospheric and exhilarating. Who can forget the Omaha Beach level? If you think MoHAA is good, wait till you try CoD.

There are 3 campaigns in CoD though you don’t get to choose which to start first. You start as Private Martin (USA) and play through a few levels.. the most exciting for me is to hold a particular bridge from invasion. Later you play as Evans a British SAS. The 3rd campaign, the best I have seen by far, is playing as a Russian soldier.

The Russian campaign is an exact depiction of one part from the movie “Enemy of the Gates”. In the movie, the Russian troops fight to take back Starlingrad. Any Russians who retreated will be killed by their own soldiers. This was depicted exactly in one of the levels in CoD. Lots of soldiers swarming from the boat up the hills with just one gun and one ammo clip – almost like MoHAA’s Omaha but more atmospheric and much more exciting.

Graphics-wise, CoD uses Quake 3 engine. It is a bit dated as compared to the today’s new generation graphics engine but in my opinion, the graphics served it purpose. I owned a Pentium 3 with Geforce 4 card and CoD runs like a dream. It is games like CoD (and recently, Max Payne 2) which convinced me that game content and gameplay are what matters most. Not the graphics! Some games have excellent graphics but lack content. These are the type of games I’d install and uninstall in less than 10 minutes.

The world in CoD is so lifelike it’s scary. The AI is excellent. Your team mates and enemies fight like real soldiers. Bullets flew all over the screen and you can see the traces of them .. or hear them – sometimes I had to “duck” in front of my PC just to avoid them – kinda silly but it shows how into the game I was.

All in all, an excellent game!!! A definite must-get!
Rating: 5 / 5

WWII shooters have taken the PC gaming market by storm. With the huge success of titles such as Medal of Honor, Wolfenstein and Battlefield 1942, one more game saw fit to see its way into the competition – Call of Duty! If you’d like to know how Call of Duty plays, I have a quick question: Did you play Medal of Honor Allied Assault? If so, the same team of developers worked on Call of Duty so you may notice a striking resemblance in gameplay. Multiplayer is very similar with most servers dominated by single death objective matches so if you have a low attention span and don’t like waiting for a game to end after your early death, I’d recommend a game like Wolfenstein instead where respawning is a normal routine in multiplayer. As usual, in order to play on the best maps, you’ll need a high speed connection such as DSL or cable. If you’re only purchasing Call of Duty for the singleplayer campaign, don’t fret because the campaign is loads of fun and truly impressed me with some of the script sequences planned out for my virtual platoon buddies. Unlike Medal of Honor, you arrive via parachute (instead of storming the beaches) and combat centers around your platoon most of the game so there’s always plenty of lieutenants barking orders and fellow privates forgetting to duck. Unfortunately, while the singleplayer campaign is fun, it’s pretty short. It’s not as long as other campaigns in games such as Medal of Honor and Half-Life. If you can’t play online, my advice would be to wait for the price to drop because the singleplayer campaign will be over before you know it leaving you with nothing else to do. Overall, I enjoyed Call of Duty. I’m a WWII buff and a fan of PC first-person shooters, so this game was right up my alley but it probably didn’t entertain me as long as other shooters. It has nothing to do with the game, it’s a terrific product that I would recommend to any gamer, but because I played Medal of Honor and all its many expansions as well as other recent WWII shooters, Call of Duty really didn’t bring anything new to the table.
Rating: 5 / 5

Call of Duty might just be the most authentic and engaging WW2 game you’ve ever played. Featuring 24 mission, split into 3 campaigns, players take on the roles of a GI paratrooper, a British commando and a russian conscript, taking the first-person fight to the Germans with a variety of weapons. So far, so Medal of Honor. Where this title raises the bar is in its full realisation of squad based combat, hinted at in other games but never before explored to this degree. Players fight alongside computer controlled squad mates, usually between 6-8 in number.
The AI that governs your fellow soldiers is one of the most practical, robust and flexible I’ve ever seen in a first-person shooter. Your buddies will lay down supressing fire that actually WORKS (a very pleasant change), cover each other’s movements, use grenades without blowing up the whole unit, and generally behave as realistically as you could hope for computer players.

Thankfully the AI for the baddies is just as convincing. No longer do enemy soldiers bluster towards your rifles, hurling grenades with pin-point accuracy. In Call of Duty, they will advance in sqauds from cover, laying down their own supressing fire, lay traps and ambushes and even fall back to cover when overwhelmed. If a machine gunner gets hit, his buddy might choose to take over, or make a run for it. It gives a very rounded impression that you are flanked by real people, and facing an adaptive and versatile enemy.

The real beauty of the title is that you are part of the team, without being the star of the show. Sure, there’s times when its up to you to take the initiative, and maybe even save the day, but if your squad fails, you fail. When playing, I actually felt like covering my squad rather than dashing on ahead, protecting them rather than trying to ignore them. Likewise, I felt confident in their abilities to watch my back, without cringing in case a friendly grenade lands at my feet.

Graphically, Call Of Duty is gritty, realistic and smooth, even at high resolutions. Explosions look great, with tanks going up in flames, while grenades produce a convincing burst of dust and fragmentation. Tracers wizz overhead, puffs of dust ricochet off walls, and wood splinters apart under machine gun fire. The scenery isn’t fully deformable, but their is enough scripted demolition to keep things realistic. There’s also some great additional touches that really round and polish the experience, such as the blurry ‘shell-shock’ that warps the screen when a explosion goers off right by your head, or the restrained mixture of blood and dust that marks bullet hits on your target.

I found there was some loss of framerate when my squad found themselves in very close combat with lots of enemy soldiers, but the haze and confusion of the situation was such that I didn’t really mind.

The real star of the effects show is the sound, where the game really drags you kicking and screaming into its world. The weapon effects are sufficiently hefty and the bass from an MG42 will definately stop you in your tracks before its bullets do. Best of all, dialogue between soldiers is both contextual and practical – shouted warnings to seek cover really do make a difference, your officer’s military jargon is clear enough to give you a good idea how to act in the middle of a firefight…”Shift base of fire right, FIRE!” barks my captain as a platoon of German Paratroopers bursts from cover, and I find myself hurling myself prone and rattling off rounds from my Thompson Carbine.

Call Of Duty brings to the table the intensity of Medal of Honor and the epic scale of Battlefield 1942 with unsurpassed grace and conviction. A must for any WW2 gamer, and a splendid heart-thumper for any action game fan. Highly Recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5