This game is good.
Bad: some bugs; bad sound; new feature seems undone.
The COD 3 is now for PS2, irrespect the aged console, it works pretty well, and it's the same game on X360.
The game is already good w its shooting. You got Iron sight pressing L1, and you can carry 2 guns at a time. You got frag and smoke by pressing R2 and L2, which is pretty handy in clearing enemies and covering your action in battle. You can also melee someone at close quarter combat w the R3 button. You got 3 stances and it's useful for finding cover waiting for your health to gain back.
In this COD, the game uses a health system that would recover whenever you stay out of trouble. But more than a few hits, and you die. This makes the gameplay feel intense as it needs. You can rush in to the enemy and risk take a few hits, and don't have to worry bout finding some medkit on the way. But the enemy does a good job of keeping you "in red". They will fire at you, lob some frags and run from cover to cover. But worry not, in this COD you can pick up frags and throw it back at any time.
In this COD they have you do some funny things beside shooting. Setting a bomb is no longer simple, as you have to press the right button appear on the screen and rotate the analog stick the right direction. The game also have you fight some specific enemy in close quarter combat, pressing L1 and R1 rapidly to fight and press the opponent back. This might sounds briliant, but doing so only work on console w motion sensor. Instead, you have to do a lot of thing in the middle of a gunfight, and those action are very scripted.
The graphic on PS2 is not as fantastic as X360, actually, it's a lot washed out and blurry. But it works somehow. The character model is better than COD2, the battlefields also keep the size of the X360 game. So the graphic maybe pretty much forgiving. But the sound is terrible. In the most intense moment and suddenly you can't hear the explotion go off right next to you, and seeing the gun reloading in silence will somehow reduce what you called "engaging combat" in gameplay.
Asides from those sound problem, the game also suffers from some serious bugs like enemies can shoot thru walls and pop up images. Also some of the lines os hard to follow. Sometimes 2 guys just likely pick up a fight for some reason, and they expect player to pay attention to their names and why they go against each other in such situation, bullets fly a around and enemy just rains hell at you? The tank mission may be a lil better, as the tank control option lets you move freely, but sometimes it seems awkward.
Overall, it's a good game for the PS2, and easily the best COD game on the PS2 up to now. Anyone should give it a try.