Woah, are they actually ****ing shooting that commarade who just jumped over board?
Was I wrong!
Call of Duty has proven to be the only game in 2003 that I finished in one sitting (about 10 hours) and then played again, and again, and again. Bar none, CoD is the single, most beautiful FPS experience of this year, and its single player campaign surpasses even Half-Life!
Graphics: 9/10
It's the Quake 3 engine, though it would take a real graphics obsessed maniac to notice.
The textures are clear and very detailed. The same goes for the character models. Explosions are ok, but they could have definitely been better. I experienced no slowdown even when there was serious action on screen, which really helped with the game’s immersion.
Non the less, this is the Q3 engine. It's no UT. But for an engine this old, Infinity Ward has done wonders.
Sound: 10/10
The sound is just plain perfect.
Every gun shot, grenade, and roaring plane sounds fantastic. Put this on a 5.1 Surround sound set-up and you'll be dodging planes behind your monitor.
Gameplay: 10/10
Just simply beautiful. The gameplay is a perfect combination of realism and action.
At no time during any of the 3 campaigns was I bored or felt that it wasn't real. The campaigns are just plain beautiful. From a full on assault on a small European Village to a driving scene of such quality that you’ll find yourself shouting: ''WoooooHoooo'' in the middle of a level, to covert sniper operations that showcase the beauty of it all... it's all here.
However, all of this doesn't even start getting good until the Russian campaign. Assaulting Stalingrad with 5 bullets and hundreds of other soldiers, being mowed down by machine guns, both those of your enemies as well as your allies, is awe inspiring. Nothing in Half-Life or any other game, comes close to it. And the fun doesn’t even stop there; you get to also drive a tank (where the modified engine’s Geo-Mod is shown) and also a flak gun. It's an awesome experience that just makes you beg for more and more.
The levels are very well designed and are varied enough so that you don't get bored. The length of the levels has some huge differences but it all helps conveying the hectic nature of war. The Stalingrad mission, for example, has you getting up the hill and taking orders from a superior officer, that's all. Some of the British mission, on the other hand, have you doing as many as 7-8 objectives! Luckily it never gets old or boring and it’s always tasteful.
The game’s difficulty increases with the change of campaigns and in some cases it can get down right frustrating due to the computers ungodly accuracy. This is CoD's only dent in it's other wise shining armor, the difficulty. In one of the missions, I had to replay a scene over 200 times (yes, true) on the 2nd difficulty level. CoD can be brutally hard, but it all pays off in the end.
And what a final it is, the last mission will make you stand up, put your arm on your chest, and sing your country's national anthem, it's really that good.
The weapons are also plentiful and vary enough so that you don't get bored using them. The only low about this is the fact that you'll be using German weapons about 50% of the time, however, it's not really a bother since you have to switch the weapons often enough due to ammunition shortages. The variety in levels during the storyline will have you doing all sorts of missions, from machine-gunning down Nazis to blowing up Panzers it's all nice and varied so you don't get bored.
Your team's AI is decent, they react very well to dangers but the game has a nice way of bringing you out as the hero, not the team. It's very pleasing, it makes you fell like your part of the story, but it also doesn't make you Duke Nukem. It's just extremely well structured.
The realism part of the game is also handled very well. You can’t jump endlessly, crouch, or go prone. A very harsh (yet real) damaging system is in place. Headshots will be fatal and a grenade thrown close to you could kill you even if your face is barely out from behind your cover. Due to this, the game’s difficulty is extremely high (as I’ve mentioned before). I haven't played on easy difficulty, but on the 2nd and last difficulties, it's complete murder.
This is, even though it may not seem so, very good. It helps bring out the horrors some of these soldiers had to face. It also shows that no soldier could just go and empty a whole factory of about 200+ German soldiers (yes, I'm looking at you MoH).
Your enemies use all of the weapons that they are given and are (believe it or not) varied enough so you don't get bored killing them. In another interesting touch, they all do speak German and their other native languages (except for the parts were your taking orders from your Russian commander).
Overall, variety, impressive story telling and beautiful scripting is the order of the day in CoD and the results are amazing.
Multiplay: 8/10
Meh, it's not BF1942. Multiplayer resembles MoH with a little bit of BF thrown in. It's definitely good, but it's far from being the cherry on the top of the cake.
Overall: 9/10
There's no doubt about it, CoD is the best FPS since Half-Life.
The amazing campaign and the feeling that everything is hopeless as you run to Stalingrad cannot be surpassed even by Half-Life itself. It looses some points for having a run-at-the-mill multiplayer but it gains them all back up due to it's campaign. CoD is truly a masterpiece, and you should be ashamed if you don't own a copy!