Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is the second console title/spin-off in the franchise developed by Treyarch for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles and High Voltage Software for the GameCube and published by Activision. The game also featured a Collector's Edition which featured some nice extra's such as bonus DVD's and four multiplayer skins.
Right off the bat, this game plays arguably a lot better than Call of Duty: Finest Hour did. Sure, it didn't have the fanciest or sharpest looking graphics or advanced over-the-top death animations when you killed an enemy but I much rather sacrifice that for a game that is playable, has a consistently playable framerate, more polished and just overall a generally pleasant experience. Treyarch knew what they were doing when it came to this game, damn shame it didn't get released for PC or even the Xbox 360 (though it is backwards compatible with the 360 if you own a Xbox copy of it.). Big Red One follows a similar style of gameplay as Finest Hour did with cinematic story telling following you and your squad as part of the 1st Infantry Division known as the 'Big Red One' as you fight through North Africa, Sicily and later Western Europe. The game itself seemed a bit short but is in between the first two main Call of Duty titles when it comes to the length of the campaign. That being said, there was quite a noticeable amount of reused assets from the first Call of Duty title and its expansion pack from the player animations when you kill or injure an enemy, some of the voice lines and some of the textures such as the medkits being a 1:1 of the ones from the first COD.
Campaign story was alright, it tried to have that sort of Hollywood feel to it by giving you set characters part of your squad and giving them a personally trait to remember them by. For example, Sgt. Hawkins is the tough Sarge who leads your squad and is a no nonsense type of soldier. Brooklyn is known for him being chatty and the fact that he's from the Bronx and Vic is the tough one physically out of the group. They even got the cast from 'Band of Brothers' to do some of the voice lines like Frank Hughes who played Guarnere, James Madio who played Frank Perconte and so on. They even got Mark Hamill narrating in cutscenes over military footage from the Second World War giving the player pre-text before starting a new chapter in the campaign. I even like the fact that you have a range of enemies to fight. Instead of constantly fighting Germans over and over again, I think for the first time you fight different countries such as the Vichy French in Algeria and the Italians in Sicily alongside German troops in Tunisia, Sicily and Western Europe. They even gave them their own vehicles and weapons when they could of been lazy and given every enemy a MP-40 and a Kar98k and called it a day.
Call of Duty 2: Big Red One was a much better improvement over Finest Hour and even foreshadows how the future of Call of Duty rolled out with the next titles: Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare both following the linear story-telling aspect of how the campaigns play out in the game rather than chucking you in a random mission just to complete objectives and call it a day. Not bad, Treyarch, not bad.
Positive points:
- Polished
- Well Optimized
- Fine story telling
Negative Points:
- Mediocre graphics
- Lackluster cutscenes