Call of Duty 3 (PS3) (gamespot)

- gamespot -

I know there have been a lot of World War II games in the past few years. To some people, all these games may seem to blend together and all the reviews may sound the same. With this in mind, I've decided to approach this review a little differently. I'm not going to lament about the amount of WWII games that are currently in the market. I'm not going to make fun of Nazis, and I'm not going to talk about how we'd like developers to start working on new settings. What you want to know about the PlayStation 3 version of Call of Duty 3 is whether or not it's fun to play, and I'm going to answer that question. To that end, I could just say, "Yes, Call of Duty 3 is a fun game," and be done with it, but we both know that's not going to happen. You came here for a real review, so let's get on with it.

The original Call of Duty for the PC was a fantastic shooter that kept a nearly perfect balance between realism and fun while providing a solid multiplayer experience at the same time. Its sequel, Call of Duty 2, made its way to the Xbox 360 and gave the PC version a run for its money in every department, and some would even argue that the Xbox 360 version was superior. Now, about a year later, Call of Duty 3 is here, and it has decided to skip the PC altogether.

Being MIA for the PC isn't the only big change. The developer of this title is Treyarch, the same guys behind Call of Duty 2: Big Red One and Ultimate Spider-Man. Infinity Ward, who did the original CoD and CoD 2, is tied up in another project. This may be why I found CoD 3 to be the weakest out of all the CoD games. That doesn't mean this is a bad game; it's still a fun first-person shooter, but it lacks the polish of the previous games and has a few unique flaws that are even more pronounced on the PS3.

CoD 3 stays true to the Call of Duty formula and there is very little here to differentiate it from the Xbox 360 version. You get to play as a variety of Allied soldiers from different countries as they fight to bring an end to the Nazi menace during World War II. You start out as an American and will eventually play as a Polish tanker, a Scottish member of the SAS, and a Canadian soldier. The game takes place during the crucial Normandy Breakout Campaign. You'll be tasked with taking villas, rescuing POWs with the French Resistance, attacking German strongholds, and even chasing down a German tank ace.

As before, the game finds a comfortable balance between realism and playability. Authentic WWII weaponry is once again carefully recreated, so you'll get the usual collection of M1 Garands, Thompson submachine guns, BARs and more. Each weapon feels right, looks right and sounds right, no matter what end of it you're at. There is no life bar, as is the style nowadays. Instead, you have a set amount of damage you can take before dropping. When you near this limit a warning will appear onscreen advising you to take cover. Once you find cover, you'll recover and continue the fight. The system is just like the one used in Call of Duty 2. On higher difficulty settings, you'll drop fast, so you'll have to learn the value of cover and know when to expose yourself; on easy, you'll soak up a ridiculous amount of bullets before going down.

Throughout this campaign you'll experience a number of scripted moments. Soldiers will kick down doors to grant you access to new areas, buildings will explode, and virtual lives will be lost. There will be times when the sheer madness of what's going on in the game will bring you closer to being shell-shocked than you'll ever care to be. However, moments of slowdown will sometimes remind you that you're just playing a game. These scripted events are also one of the key weak points in the CoD series, and it's still a problem here.

One moment you'll be in the thick of the fighting, and then you'll find yourself alone with no friendly or enemy units around. Basically, you've fallen out of synch. Eventually you'll find your buddies waiting at a doorway or another area, and the war will start up again once you reach them. Sometimes you'll move too fast, sometimes you'll move too slow, and either one will result in you ending up alone and then magically finding your squad intact elsewhere, waiting for you to join them. It feels very artificial, and while it doesn't ruin the game, it does tarnish how immersive the experience is.

Maybe it's a good thing that your buddies aren't always around. There were more than a few times when my squad mates would bunch up in a stairwell or in a narrow alley. This is only a minor annoyance when you're not under fire, but when Jerry is about, it can easily lead to getting shot while you desperately urge your men to get out of your way. Some annoying collision-detection issues only make matters worse. There will be times when you'll be walking along and a metal plate on the floor that looks only one or two inches thick will prevent you from moving on. Instead, you'll have to walk around or jump over it. Once again, this typically isn't a huge issue until it happens to you while you're desperately making your way towards cover while under enemy fire.

This gets even worse thanks to the real-time physics for debris from explosions. Sometimes you'll be crouched behind cover and able to move freely, and then a building will explode near you. A plank of wood may fall behind you or to your side, and you'll discover that it prevents you from moving around. There was a moment when I was stuck for a good five seconds by a piece of debris before I could move on. I can think of multiple instances when I was stuck in the environment and ended up getting killed as a result, and sometimes the object was as small as a plank of wood lying flat on the ground. There were even times when items would float in midair after an explosion. That kind of glitch is pretty hard to ignore.

Your enemies are as formidable as ever. For the majority of the game, the enemy AI will act like the well-trained army they're supposed to be. They'll use cover, fall back to better firing positions, use grenades smartly and toss back grenades you send their way. While there were a few quirky moments in the Xbox 360 version, I didn't notice any here.

To mix the gameplay up, Treyarch has included a new melee combat mode that pops up occasionally throughout the game. A German soldier will come up to you and grab your weapon, and a fight will ensue. In the 360 version, to win the scuffle you have to alternately press your trigger buttons as fast as you can and then follow an onscreen cue for what button to hit to end the fight and dispatch your adversary. It's very similar to some of the interactive cinematic moments in Resident Evil 4 and Shenmue. In this version, you'll shake the Sixaxis controller from side to side instead of hitting the trigger buttons as fast as you can, but the fight still ends with a button press once you've "overpowered" your enemy. Some of these moments are compelling, while the rest are just quick distractions. I have to admire the developers for trying something new, but this feature was something that I neither loved nor hated. It was just... there.

Other modes that deviate from standard FPS action include driving a tank, riding as a gunner in an SAS jeep, and driving the same jeep around a town while looking for POWs. In that last one you'll be given a lot of freedom, which can end up getting you lost. Luckily your squad mates will tell you which direction to turn, but sometimes they're silent for a bit too long. Even so, you'll still have a map icon to tell you where your objective is. The jeep is fun to drive, and there is a handbrake so you can actually powerslide it to make especially tight turns.

You have the option to use the Sixaxis motion-sensing here as well by holding the controller upright and steering it as wheel. This made the driving sections much harder for me due to twitchy controls, and I fared much better driving with the analog stick. However, if you opt for the easier analog control, a text reminder telling you that the motion-sensing works best if you hold the controller upright is almost constantly on the screen, dead-center. This is very distracting and can cause you to hit obstacles or take the wrong turn because it blocks so much of your view. Other applications of the Sixaxis controller include using it as an oar to row a boat and twisting it to mimic installing a fuse on a bomb. It's a novel approach, but once again, it didn't make the game any better or worse.

Multiplayer is what saved the day for the Xbox 360 version of CoD 3 and it's pretty much the same here. Past CoD games have always had great multiplayer support, and this edition holds up to that tradition. The Headquarters mode from CoD 2 is back, and along with it are capture the flag, single-flag CTF, War (where you vie for control of key points on a map), Battle (basically deathmatch), and Team Battle. There are about nine MP maps included and each varies greatly in layout and look. There are European countrysides, factories, a dam and blown-out cities. Many maps include drivable vehicles such as motorcycles, jeeps and tanks.

Online matches are scarce right now, obviously because of the small number of PS3 owners out there. Hopefully more games will be up in the future. I had a hard time finding decent matches, and none of the servers up were maxed out. The frame rate during online play on the PS3 is noticeably slower than the Xbox 360.

There are different classes for you to play as, such as medic, anti-tank or support. Diversification within a team is essential to success, and this was proven during our online matches. The weapon balancing felt plenty fair to me, with each one filling its own particular niche. Thompsons and shotguns rule in close quarters, but the M1 Garand is a great weapon for wide-open outdoor areas. Sadly, you can only play as the US or Germans in the multiplayer modes, so you can't run around online as a Canadian or any of the other nationalities depicted in the single-player game. Also, there is no voice support, so communication during online matches is much more difficult than on the Xbox 360.

While we're making comparisons between the two systems, I should point out that CoD 3 on the PS3 doesn't look as good or run as well as it does on the Xbox 360. There are more noticeable frame-rate hits more often, and the shadows are jaggier, as are the edges in general. I also noticed some shimmering textures and other imperfections that just weren't present in the Xbox 360 game. There are also some minor details left out of the PS3 version. For example, in one level on the Xbox 360 release, one of my buddies had a smoke grenade slipped onto his webbing; in the PS3 version, this grenade was missing. Why? I have no idea. It's a miniscule detail, and doesn't really affect the gameplay, but I feel like I should point it out. Some of the game's spiffier effects have made it through intact. Individual blades of grass add realism and act as visual cover, aiming at a close object with your iron sights will cause distant objects to blur, and some of the lighting effects are well-done, but in a roomful of next-gen titles, CoD 3 for the PS3 doesn't really stand out. Resistance is much cleaner and runs better.

If you're trying to decide which system to get Call of Duty 3 on, I strongly urge you to pick up the Xbox 360 version. It's more polished, better-looking, runs better, and offers a superior online experience thanks to voice support and more servers and players. The PS3 version is still fun, but the experience is dulled by noticeable slowdown and muddier graphics. The same bugs from the Xbox 360 version are present, as is the same overall lack of polish. Yes, the game still has some intense moments, and yes, it does "feel" like a Call of Duty game. It's just not the best version of this title that's available.