Call of Duty: World at War doesn't have big boots to fill. No, it has giant, size-46 novelty boots to fill, the kind you'd find Goofy wearing at Disneyland. It might not have the balls to come right out and say that it's Call of Duty 5, but if it's going to use the esteemed C.O.D. initials at the front, it's going to be judged by gamers as the fifth entry in the series. Therefore, the expectation is that this game has to be better than the last Call of Duty (CoD). This wouldn't be such a high expectation if it weren't for the fact that CoD 4 will be remembered as one of the finest shooters of all time. There's also the small fact that the new CoD is developed by an entirely different studio %26ndash; Treyarch - than its predecessor.
Reliving World War II yet again. Still, there are flamethrowers now, so that's a plus.
Right from the word go, CoD: World at War (CoD: WaW) had an uphill battle, thanks to its (some might say stubborn) decision to finish off World War II. While the rest of the gaming industry has decided that WWII should be left in the archives of gaming history, Treyarch felt that a rather large portion of the war had been overlooked %26ndash; the war in the pacific between Japan and the US. Other, lesser franchises had briefly attempted to portray the humid, mosquito-ridden jungles of Leyte and Singapore, but they turned out to be buggy AI-technology demos rather than fun gaming experiences. Yes Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, we're looking squarely at you. Not that you'd notice, as you repeatedly stumble into the nearest bunch of trees instead of bothering to shoot back at us.
COD: WaW revisits this Pacific scenery, but instead of trying to work sandbox magic into the FPS genre, sticks to CoD's well trodden garden path of linearity. As we've come to expect from the series, this is a rollercoaster of a ride where the path ahead has been meticulously planned. Over the course of around eight hours of single player, we saw the path branch a grand total of once %26ndash; this is obviously not a Far Cry 2 Choose-Your-Own-Adventure kind of shooter. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. Rollercoasters are popular for a reason%26ndash; the creators can force you to endure loops and corkscrews that sane people would otherwise happily avoid. CoD 4 was chock full of these loop de loops, from helicopter assaults to missile launches to manning the guns of an AC-130 spectre. Just when you got sick of walking through another cleverly disguised corridor, a Cobra gunship would crash on your head or a nuke would detonate on your chest. CoD 4 rejoiced in its linearity by ensuring that at the end of each garden path was a treasure that made the trek worthwhile.
It's some kind of wonderful flying machine.
Sadly, in CoD: WaW, when you get to the end of the path, there's usually just another path to get started on. It doesn't have anywhere near as many %26quot;oh my god I can't believe that just happened%26quot; scripted moments as its predecessor. They do exist, but they're a rare breed buried between far too many linear shooting galleries. It soon starts to play out very much like CoD 3 %26ndash; a methodical version of high velocity Whac-A-Mole, where infinitely respawning troops pop up like robotic monkeys until you advance to the next invisible trigger point. The fact that it uses the gorgeous CoD 4 engine means that it's a very pretty game of Whac-A-Mole, but it's still just Whac-A-Mole. Every now and then you'll be rewarded with a tank bursting through a wall or a B-17 crashing overhead, but these moments still aren't the jackpot experiences they should be.
The move to the Pacific theatre doesn't change up the gameplay as much as it should, either. There's the occasional %26quot;Banzai!!!%26quot; moment, where enemy troops pop up out of the grass at close range for a bayonet strike, but that's about it. The flamethrower is satisfying for a few short minutes, but is actually quite a simplistic representation of a weapon that could have been a great physics tech piece, affected by wind and gravity. Instead it's just point and burn.
By the time we were half way through the singleplayer campaign, fatigue had set in, and the single player component of the game was looking like a high seventies score. Considering how gorgeous the visuals are and how polished it's all presented, that's a scathing indictment of the repetitiveness of the main campaign mode.
And then we played co-op.
At this point, CoD: WaW became CoD: WOW! It is a TOTALLY different experience when played with friends. What was just another boring shooting gallery full of Nazi robots in single player became a group goal requiring flanking, covering fire and tactics when played with friends. When playing solo, an infuriating, artificial mechanic of infinite respawns became a high-powered puzzle of firepower and flanking in co-op. Because of the infinite respawns in many areas, we soon realised that a winning tactic was for the group of us to clear the area as much as possible. One guy would set up a heavy machine gun at the back, picking off the trickle of respawners as the other two started to move forwards. Eventually we'd hit the invisible trigger point that would lead to the next section of the map, and we could all pause for a breather.
The pacing in co-op totally changed %26ndash; single player is a relentless slog along the linear path, whereas co-op gave us a change to have a quick sip on our beers, getting our breaths back and laughing about how close we'd come to getting axed, before taking a deep breath and pushing on into the next shooting gallery. Even a very generic tank level became a total blast, as each player was granted control of their own Soviet tank.