In many of the missions you'll also be accompanied by a squad of soldiers.
Call of Duty is not a squad-based game though, so don't expect to be barking
orders at these men. You're just a lowly grunt who seems to draw more than
his fair share of the tough assignments. The AI of your squad is superb,
both in their competence as fighting men and in their realistic reactions to
events around them. It is fascinating to just hang back for a minute and
watch them in action as they provide each other covering fire and attempt to
flank enemy positions or as they duck their heads and seek shelter when mortar
rounds start falling around them. You'll still need to do most of the
dirty work yourself, but it's great to have some more than competent help on
hand when needed.
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| Advancing into a French village. |
Call of Duty provides a mix of realism and arcade elements that work together
nicely to provide a great gameplay experience. A well-placed shot or two
will be able to bring you down, but you can actually take a fair amount of
damage and there are health packs scattered about the level or dropped by the
dead that can restore you to full strength. The health packs are a good
thing to find as without them it would be pretty tough to survive most missions
with the amount of gunfire aimed in your direction. The game also adds
some realistic touches for the weapons. You can only carry two larger
weapons at a time, and you won't be able to fire accurately while moving.
While standing, crouching, or lying prone you can raise your weapon to aim along
its sites for greater accuracy. You can also use your weapon as a blunt
object and club enemies with it when things get very up close and personal.
The non-stop action in the game is made even more intense by the game's
excellent use of sound and top-notch graphics. The soldiers in the game
are detailed and their movements are eerily life-like. You'll almost find
yourself ducking for cover when you see them put a hand on their helmets and
dive behind the nearest wall or pile of rubble. The game's textures are
excellent and do a great job of bringing the environments to life, but it's the
weapons effects that will really have you on the edge of your seat - or ducking
under it. The heavier weapons have spit fire as they deal out death and
destruction, explosions shake the ground and send up clouds of smoke, and fires
cast haunting glows against buildings and the sky. Call of Duty more than
any other game really makes it look like you are in the middle of a deadly
battlefield. And not only that, it takes things a step further with some
of the best sound ever in a shooter. The boom of a cannon, the mechanical
pounding of a machine gun, and even the whiz of individual bullets flying around
you all work together to convey a sense of deadliness to the battles. I
must also mention that Call of Duty captures the ominous sound of an approaching
tank like no other game before it. The first time you hear the distant
clinking of a tank's tread slowly build into a loud rumble, you'll feel your
tension mount as you realize that a tank is approaching and that it is coming
for you.
Call of Duty also supports multiplayer play. In addition to the
standard deathmatch modes, there are three other game types: Behind Enemy Lines,
Retrieval, and Search & Destroy. In Behind Enemy Lines, a small group of
players are Allies surrounded by Germans. Allied players gain points by
killing Germans, and when a German player kills an Ally he or she is switched to
the Ally team and given a chance to score points until killed. Retrieval
charges one team with the protection of documents and the other with capturing
the documents and returning them to a safe zone. The last game is Search &
Destroy, in which one team must defend a set of objectives while the other tries
to destroy them within a set time limit. The multiplayer action in Call of
Duty is a lot of fun, with well-designed levels and balanced sides. A
particularly innovative feature is the Kill Cam, which gives you the opportunity
to watch the last few seconds before your death from your killer's viewpoint.
It's a great way to learn from your mistakes and to pick up some new techniques
for taking out the enemy.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
98%. All first-person shooter fans should own this game. No game
puts you closer to being on a field of battle in World War II than Call of Duty.
System Requirements: Pentium III 600; 128 MB RAM; 32 MB
Video RAM; 8x CD-ROM; 1.4 GB Hard Drive
Space; Mouse.
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