Call of Duty 3 (X360) (Gamespy)

- Gamespy -

Pros	Cons
Intense combat and chaotic scenarios in the single-player campaign; exciting and fun Multiplayer experience.	Annoying collision-detection errors; AI buddies can often create traffic jams; enemy AI occasionally goes blind; disappearing, reappearing friendly units

I know there have been a lot of World War II games. 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 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 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 better than the majority of first-person shooters on the market, but it lacks the polish of the previous games and has a few unique flaws that are all its own.


CoD 3 stays true to the Call of Duty formula. 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 sub-machine 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.

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. 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.

This problem also appears in other forms. One part in particular was especially jarring. I was boosted into the window of a house which I had to clear. After clearing it I realized that I was alone and that my squad was no where to be seen. I made my way downstairs and there was my squad, all ready to go. How'd they get in? I have no idea. 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 at least three specific times when I was stuck in the environment and unable to move and ended up getting killed as a result.

Your enemies are as formidable as ever, but they're also dumber than ever at times. 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. Unfortunately, there were a few times when they seemed to shut off their brains. In one level I had to hold a tavern from a German attack. The first wave came from the north, the next came from the south.

The northern wave was tough, but the southern wave made it into the building by droves. However, once they got in they seemed to forget that there was a war on. I was caught with an empty clip in my rifle and had to reload. The Jerries seemed perfectly content to just stand there and watch. Not a single round was fired in my direction and I was only a few feet away. Typically, when you're this close the AI will shoot you or hit you with a melee attack. These guys just stood there. It wasn't until I dropped a few of them that they actually started to fight back, and by then it was too late. I thought this was a one-time glitch, but it happened when I replayed the level as well. Perhaps it was because I was positioned awkwardly on the second floor and shooting down at them, or maybe it was because there was a smoke grenade going off nearby. Whatever the cause, it made me feel like I was playing an unfinished game.

To mix the gameplay up, Treyarch has included a new melee combat mode. This happens occasionally throughout the game. A German soldier will come up to you and grab your weapon, and a fight will ensue. To win 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. Some of these moments are more cinematic, 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 the 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 actually fun to drive and there is a handbrake so you can actually powerslide it to make especially tight turns. Who'd have thought that we'd be powersliding in a Call of Duty game?

I know that so far CoD 3 sounds like it may just be a rental, but I haven't gotten to the multiplayer features yet. Multiplayer is what saves the day here. The 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 aren't as numerous as we'd like right now, but the game just came out so you can bet that more games will be up in the future. Still, I had no problem finding decent matches. The online play ran smoothly and I didn't experience much lag or other issues. 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.

There was one minor glitch that I found while online. If you're priming a grenade and then get killed before throwing it, you'll automatically toss the grenade when a medic revives you. This can meet with disastrous results, especially with friendly fire on. This happened to me twice, and the first time resulted in me tossing the grenade right at my feet, quickly undoing the efforts of the medic who had just revived me.

CoD 3 looks good and sounds good, but that's par for the course in this next-generation era. Don't get me wrong, the level of detail and the style of the game are gritty and detailed -- 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 the smoke grenade effect is both believable and effective. There are plenty of visual highlights that will impress your wandering eyes. In a roomful of next-gen titles, CoD 3 stands a little taller than the rest, but it won't beat out the likes of Gears of War in a beauty pageant.

If you've been paying attention this whole time, you've probably come to the conclusion that Call of Duty 3 is a solid game, and you'd be right. It promises intense WWII single and multiplayer action and delivers on both counts. The multiplayer experience is definitely the highlight here, but the single-player campaign is worth a play through. Yes, there is a collection of minor issues that keeps this game from being four or more stars, but it doesn't skimp on fun, and that's what counts the most.