The most intense WWII game I've ever played, and possibly one of the greatest ever made!
User Rating: 9 | Call of Duty 2 X360
So on Christmas day, I rushed to open my presents. I found an Xbox 360 and this game. I quickly set up the system, inserted the game, and got ready. What I got, though, I wasn't expecting... Now, as many of you know, Call of Duty 2 is one of the bajillion WWII games made in the past, what, 6 years? Even so, this stands out... in a good way! Aside from other games of its ilk, which usually only focus on the U.S.'s campaign, CoD2 spans across three, yes, 3, different campaigns. The first leaves you playing as a Russian soldier, along with his division, helping protect Stalingrad and Moscow from the German onslaught. The second places you in North Africa as a British soldier, fighting back Rommel's famed Afrika Corp. The last, but nowhere near least, throws you in the middle of D-Day as, yes, an American soldier (but there's a twist... I won't spoil it, just play the game). The controls are spot on, and respond with each prees of the button, meaning you're not going to be fighting Nazis and the 360 controller at the same time. The only complaints I had with the controls is that my character won't raise his gun fast enough, and the tank controls were confusing... but that's generally minor. The games A.I. (for both sides, not just the enemy) is very well made, and act realistically to whatever's going on (of course, ally A.I. can be stupid at times, but they'll usually do what they have to). The enemies, in particular, are brutal, and will do ANYTHING to kill you. If you're close, they will charge at you, wildly swinging their weapon to bash your unseen head in! If you're at cover, they'll keep you in it anyway they can, or will throw a grenade to flush you out, and believe me, they throw A LOT of grenades! Thankfully, instead of a health system (find a health pack when you're low and stuff like that), you live by not getting hit... ok, that was vague, but let me explain: when you get shot a certain amount of times, the borders of the screen will be laced with what looks like blood, and you will be forced to take cover or not get hit. Take a few more hits and you die, but if you avoid further damage, the screen will turn back to normal, and you can continue the fight. This saved me so many times, especially when I was in a situation where looking for health would've been suicide. Now the graphics... oh, the graphics... this game can make a persons agonizing death... suprisingly beautiful (wow, that sounded messed up). Anyway, the environment are well designed and detailed, the guns look magnificent... and shiny, very shiny, and the N.P.C.s don't look like the exact same generic model, repeatedly showing up and dieing. The explosions are great looking, so much so that I stood close to a grenade, just to see the explosion... and my profuse bleeding. Pretty much everything about the game just looks great, end of story! The game sounds just as good. The sound of each gun is different, and punds in your ears. The N.P.C.s will be yelling on both sides of the field, and are very well voice-acted (I mean, who want to hear a German yell commands in a bored or unconvincing tone), and ally screams may actually give you a tip (they can tell you where certain enemies are or warn of a machine gun nest). Explosions sound like, well, explosions, and blood-curdling screams sound like, well, blood-curdling screams... the sound is just great, ok? The replay value is something good to look into. After finishing the game on a simpler difficulty, you can replay the game for achievements, so you can brag about beating the game on Veteran (which under it says "you won't survive")... which I can't brag about, because I gave up on it for now... yes, its that hard. Anyway, you can also replay it because in some missions, you have multiple objectives, so you can tackle them in a different order, and find different advantages from doing each, and the enemy is so sophisticated, almost every fight is guaranteed to be different. At the end of the day, Call of Duty 2 blew me away on almost every level. Even after a year, it's still an awesome game! I recommend this game to anybody who wants to enjoy a realistic war experience without actually enlisting! If you were actually able to tolerate reading up to this point, thank you for bearing with me, soldiers. NOW MOVE OUT!!!!!!!! 
