A Good Effort by Treyarch to make a PC first person shooter worthy of the Call of Duty name
Treyarch tried earnestly to recreate the epic and unforgettable singleplayer campaign offered in COD4, but unfortunately they failed in a few key areas. The story is very limited, once again the Russian campaign opens with a blatant immitation of Enemy at the Gates, with you skulking about as sniper. Treyarch certainly has a strange obsession with this mediocre and inaccurate portrayal of the Battle for Stalingrad. The gameplay is fun, and some of the missions, especially those in the Pacific campaign, are incredibly fun and very, very beautiful. There are times when it feels like the Russian campaign was slapped on as an afterthought, because the Soviet missions just feel like a lousy rehash of the Russian campaigns of the previous console games Treyarch made.
The missions that do take place in the pacific are often spectacular, and suprisingly varied; you will perform night operations where you sneak about, full on invasions of Japanese controled Islands, and everything in between. These missions make the single player campaign worth playing, as they are simply a pleasure to take part in.
Visually, the game looks very similar to COD4, at times better, and at other times worse. The character models are top notch, and the gun play very decent. Once again, the Russian missions fall behind in the Visuals department, most of them are very drab and uninspiring. The sound effects are decent, not mindblowing, but they get the job done.
As with Call of Duty 4, the meat of the game play lies in the Multiplayer, which is for the most part excellent. It takes the superb model of COD4, and expands on it, brining new modes, more levels, and tanks into the mix. Also, there is the co-op campaign mode and Nazi-Zombie mode, both of with are worth your time. The online play is not without its problems though. The spawn points in the competative multiplayer are often disasterous, you will find yourself spawning beside enemies, on the opossite side of the map from your team far to often, spawn killing is a huge problem in this game. Luckily the biggest problem present in Call of Duty 4's multiplayer, grenade spamming, is not nearly as evident as it was, it still exists to some degree, but has left the absurd level it was at in COD4. One feature i don't expect but would be nice would be the option to turn off the number of deaths you have had, i think the fact that the game prominently displays your kill/death ratio makes it more individual, if it dropped this focus and concentrated more on team play, like TF2, i think the MP would be far more fufulling and entertaining.
The bottom line is that COD5 is a fun, solid, and well executed shooter that takes the tried and true formula of the call of duty series and puts it to good use. The singleplayer campaign could have had a better story, but seeing as how there is far more content then in COD4 in the multiplayer department this can easily be overlooked. Call of Duty: World at War should be owned by any fan of competative online first person shooters.