Call Of Duty: World at War Review

BY Khalid Mohamed | POSTED: 23 November 2008

Nothing more than COD 4.5.



The theater for next gens war is set. While many might feel like taking a step backward by plunging into the WWII chaos, a franchise far beaten and milked than a dead horse, Treyarch still believe there's some life left in that proverbial carcass. For many (and Infinity Ward themselves), the developers of the latest iteration to the COD family are nothing more than a sack of menacing copy-cats. And it might be true to some extent.

Call of Duty: World at War focuses on the Pacific War that was waged between the US and Japan. While it may accurately portray a WWII gala as you’d have read in your history textbook, it is without denial that its nothing more than COD4 with more brown and gray and some extra perks and flames thrown into the mix. While COD4 started with a bang, World at War merely begins with a yelp. It’s evident that the perk system was the new mantra on the ailing COD franchise. When Infinity Ward first implemented perks, it was the best thing next to baked bread. World at War follows on the same footsteps providing an expanded perk system and to make things better, they have thrown in tanks and extra large maps to give the claustrophobic shooter a better meaning.

Gameplay significantly changes in mutiplayer. Just like COD4, you are awarded with a recon plane for a 3 kill streak and artillery strike for a 5 kill streak, but instead of seeing a pre-historic chopper mow down your enemies post 7 kill streak, World at War makes a subtle change by replacing it with an angry pack of dogs that chase after your enemy. Its often a good idea following these ally dogs as they lead you to your enemies. A new War mode is introduced wich is similar to capturing control points in the Battlefield series. Moreover, World at War follows a persistant ranked system with Level 65 as the final rank, after which you'd be able to unlock the Prestige Mode for further achievements. It all comes down to the fact that we enjoyed playing the multiplayer component of the game much more than its single player campaign.

World at War kicks off with a bloody and brutal cut-scene that puts you in the shoes of a captive having to endure the sight of your comrade being executed with a knife. Sadly though, it fails to impress and unlike the adrenaline rush we felt with the President’s execution by Al-Asaad in COD4, World of War makes a vain attempt at some cheap thrills. On the positive side, it is the goriest ever game in the franchise but, then again, we all know how “Clive Barker: Jericho” turned out to be all gore and nothing more. World at War follows on the same linear gameplay and we earnestly wish Treyarch could’ve spent their potential more on making it “cough” free roam “cough” than throwing in a few more perks. The sceneries though are no doubt gorgeous and only a fool would disagree with its surreal beauty. Ironically, it’s like having an indoor theme park and spending the rest of your life chained to a fence only being able to gaze at the beauty before you. Fact is, you’d be able to see an Eden beyond the canopy and bushes of your tightly scripted pathway, but what’s the use of such scope without the freedom to go there?

Then, there’s the issue with the voice acting, which becomes blatantly clear that one man was hired to do every single voice in the game in a different dialect. The trailers they release with war veterans talking about the brutalities of war in a constipated tone is downright cheesy as sh!t and it’s a far cry from the explosive, dynamic conversations we’re accustomed to in COD4. Character voices are poorly done and while some weapons sound like paintball guns, others sound like ripping Velcro which puts the audio out of proportion. To add insult to injury, you always hear a last minute ‘automated’ battle cry in multiplayer that says, “victory is not out of reach”, even after getting a spanking so hard from the enemy team that’s guaranteed to make you sit and pee for a week. Talk about optimism, eh?

Graphically, the game redeems itself with visuals far superior that COD4 and myriad other post processing effects that adds to the overall immersion. Weapons have a certain polish on them that appears to show signs of use. Battles and levels are recreated accurately, making this the best looking WWII shooter we have played in a long time and hopefully this would be the last of it. Metal and armor have a distinguishable gloss and pattern that’s usually not common among games. The icing on the graphical cake is the ability to create flames thanks to the flamethrower that you can use to torch your enemy to cinders. Explosions and shotguns create a gruesome graffiti of blood and gut never seen before in a Call of Duty game.

It’s tough to argue whether World of War is worth your money or not. Treyarch have loaded the box with a plethora of content sure to make any penny pincher happy. Apart from the single-player campaign, the game offers co-op gameplay and multiplayer to duke it out with online opponents in over a dozen maps. As if that wasn’t enough, you’ll be able to unlock other extras like Nazi Zombie mode by collecting death cards during your campaign. Nazi Zombie is a “la Resident Evil” experience in which you protect yourself from Hitler’s army of undead by continuously barricading and shooting down the incoming horde.

At the end of the day, what Treyarch did is take a perfectly blend recipe, add a little salt and pepper and release it as a full game. Call of Duty: World at War feels like it’s nothing more than a mod to the acclaimed COD4 title. For now, we can’t help but, agree that the flamethrower is the game’s only poster child.