Call of Duty: World at War

I'm torn about reviewing Call of Duty: World at War, Treyarch’s latest game in the Activision published series. On the one hand, it does a lot of things very well. The action is fast and the environment is engrossing. Checkpoints are well placed, co op is well implemented, the mission intros are well directed and deliver quite an experience. The game has Nazi zombies. On the other hand, this game could very well be just a Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare mod. The two stories told are disconnected. The portrayal of the Japanese is stereotypical and annoying. Some portions of the levels are brutal even on Easy difficulty. It's short. The Nazi zombie mode doesn't hold a candle to the awesomeness of Left 4 Dead. It's really a schizophrenic effort. And I am probably going for a split personality as well, as there were portions of the game that I loved; I enjoyed the between missions mash ups, while still seeing a lot of flaws in the overall execution. 
 

Story 

There are two narrative threads in World at War. The first you get to play is that of one Private Miller, saved from imminent death by katana by a daring raid of his fellow Marines. Then, we get to follow him as he fights on Peleliu and on Okinawa under the supervision of Sergeant Roebuck (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland) alongside Private Polonsky and a bunch of other named but expendable comrades. The American island hoping campaign is accompanied by a Russian one, which begins in Stalingrad and features Dimitri Petrenko, a hero of the Soviet Union, the brutal Sergeant Reznov and Private Chernov, as they battle their way to Berlin and, ultimately, the Reichstag. Unfortunately, the two parallel stories are unconnected and in no way do you have the emotional bonds that linked the player to the characters of Call of Duty 4, where it made sense to change the point of view. This creates an odd disconnection between the player and the two characters. 
 

Reichstag burning	War is always hell

Treyarch has tried to create something interesting. Basically, both stories are more about the Sergeants than about the people you play and the developers have tried to characterize more through significant gameplay episodes. Reznov is the personification of the brutality of war combined with the need for vengeance that the Soviet Union developed after the blitzkrieg of 1941, while Roebuck is the leader that understands war is Hell and tries as much as possible to look after his comrades and protect them from the horrors of combat. The problem is that the 15 missions of the game, the combined total for both campaigns, do not offer sufficient time for any clear thesis on war to emerge. The inevitable comparison will again lead to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, where the campaign was not much longer but it stated quite clearly that war in itself was painful, desolate and profoundly changed anyone who experienced it.

There are sections where you are emotionally invested, like the choice of the way to kill some Germans, who were basically surrendering, and the death of Chernov, the Russian soldier who couldn't be brutal enough to be a Soviet hero; sadly, they are few and far between. 
 

Concept 
 

The nagging issue of grenades raining down and causing instant death just when you hunker down behind cover to survey the battlefield is still apparent in the game and there's a new killer, the Japanese banzai charge, which can only be defeated by a quick tap of the melee attack key. Apart from these annoyances, the basic mechanics are still solid. You need to find cover, pick your shots and move cautiously, especially in the wide open spaces of the Japanese campaign, where enemies pop out from spider holes. Be careful about the weapons you wield. Machine guns tend to be the better choice, while some of the bolt action rifles are tedious to use. Always drop the pistol you carry and pick up something with a better punch. I cannot stress the need to avoid dogs and banzai attackers.

Call of Duty: World at War is very much a corridor shooter with a very heavy script driving the action. To best enjoy the game, you need to hang back with your buddies. Playing Rambo is never a good idea, as most of the script triggered enemies will target you and you will die very quickly. While playing the game, I thought that Treyarch should have added a limited squad control menu, as sometimes it's not clear what your teammates are doing, and having no control over them is annoying.

The objectives always feel very generic. Destroy mortar positions, take out the 88, and assault those bunkers. The only moment when you feel the importance of history is during the last mission, which takes place inside the Reichstag. The battle in the big hall there really feels smooth and big at the same time. But it's still not enough to make World at War more than a glorified supermod for Modern Warfare. 
 

Visuals and audio 

The game looks and sounds very good. I cannot understate the organic style of the videos between the missions, which combine graphics, live footage and narration to offer the player a taste of how war must have felt for those who were fighting. The outdoor levels are beautiful and offer a lot of perspective. The indoor levels are always detailed and the faces of the soldiers, especially the Russian ones, look scared by what they've seen and experienced.

The audio is on par with the graphics. A nice orchestral score, very good briefing sounds and two interesting actors playing Reznov and Roebuck add to the game. But let's not kid ourselves, we're not playing a Call of Duty game to hear the music in the background. 

War in the Pacific	Island hopping is never fun

 

Multiplayer 

Co op is the king. It's better to play the game with a buddy, mainly because you can tackle the objectives better when cooperating. If you plan to fight the Nazi zombie in the mode that unlocks when you complete the game, you need to get a few friends together to stand a reasonable chance of surviving more than a few rounds. But if killing zombies is your thing, you need to look no further than Left 4 Dead, the Valve made zombie apocalypse shooter delivering incredible four player co op that World at War can in no way match.

The big levels on the PC which can house 48 players, 24 on each side, are very interesting, with what feels to be a real battle raging all over the map. The big problem is that the different perks, like calling gods or artillery, make an appearance so often that the game can be quite hard to handle. There's nothing like fighting three or four waves of dogs to make you hate a multiplayer match. 
 

Conclusion 

If you love World War II and really want to play what might just be the last best game set in the conflict, then take this release, install it and play through the campaign on the hardest difficulty level. If you get a friend to join you, the whole experience will be better. Then, take the disk and frame it, while swearing you'll never touch a shooter set before the 1950's (unless a totally cool World War I Stormtrooper FPS comes up).

If Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was really your cup of tea, you can skip World at War and wait for Infinity Ward to deliver the next installment in the series, which will be modern and attractive, maybe set in Iraq, Afgahistan, Pakistan or some fictional Middle Eastern country. Or anywhere that is not France, Germany, Russia, Japan or Italy.

Note to the developers: I never want to do a beach landing/assault again.