Call of Duty 3

We will probably never get tired of reliving the events of World War II. Some of us may have fathers or grandfathers who fought in this crucial war, but we prefer to use games to understand what they felt or lived. I can tell you that the first and second Call of Duty games had social effects on my neighborhood. Everyone was playing COD at night, when they came back from work and people started connecting, friendships were made, but also enemies. I tagged along and tried COD and I was that cursed sniper that killed you when you least expected it. Time for a new war experience...

Story World War II goes to France. It's not there for the exquisite dishes, nor for the perfumes. You're one of the Allies, you're fighting the Nazis and that's all you need to know. The French are not quite happy that you've come to save the day, but they'll join you, the Maquis resistance and a couple of charming rebels (ladies included). World War II is an amazing story on its own, a real and tragic one so there's no need to go over this again. Paris has fallen and you need to take it back starting from the Nazi-infested suburbs and reaching the Eiffel Tower. The Normandy landing has just occurred and the Allies are preparing to free France and destroy the Axis.

In the ending credits you'll see that the game is dedicated to "the brave men and women that fought to free Europe". That's a pretty nice tribute to those that died to free France or the other occupied countries. You play as a Canadian, Polish, British or American soldier and act according to your implication in the conflict. There will be some animosity between the allies as the French can't stand the British and will swear all the time. The fact that you play different characters and change the team pretty often will make the story rather thin and you won't have the same men to cope with in the many missions.

Concept What would a historic shooter be without a proper tutorial? Everyone will laugh at the rookie, while he shoots helmets to practice his target and throws grenades through the windows of a barn to improve the accuracy. Once you're done with this, you'll get some real action and get hurt while traveling to the battle scene by jeep. The opening mission is the best and you'll get to see dozens of your men climbing a hill, trying to hold the position, while the Germans display some serious firepower. There are also multiple vehicles you can drive throughout the game, jeeps, Sherman tanks or Panzers and each of the driving missions will have different purposes. You may be the driver in one of them, or the shooting man in another. I didn't like the fact that I could only follow predefined paths, although sometimes driving through the forest or jumping from a cliff didn't seem a scripted event.

Call of Duty 3 relies very much on team work, because you surely won't make it on your own. Go ahead and try to be the hero; that will lead you to your grave. Cooperate and succeed! You may try to jump over fences half a meter tall, but that will never happen. All the jumps and crouches that involve messing with the environment are predefined and tend to become a real nuisance. The AI is pretty bad and if you want to experience the real challenge, you should select "hard" when choosing the difficulty of the game. The only thing that's good about the Germans is that there's a lot of them to fill with lead, but their number won't save them. I really liked the whole new grenade charade. You haven't heard? You can now throw back the grenades if the fatal 5 seconds haven't passed yet. Also the grenade throwing system is unlike any other I have ever seen. 5 little semicircles appear around your crosshair and they will disappear gradually, one for each second, till the grenade is detonated.

I was never a fan of the analog control, not on the PSP, not on the PS2 or any other console. However using the analog is a must if you want to succeed in playing this game. Both sticks will be used if you want to get a decent camera angle and good character movement at the same time. The right analog will also be the "tool" for many fun minigames, so to say, like rowing a boat or planting an explosive charge.

Gameplay First things first: we're at war so we have to talk about weapons. The numerous historic shooters got me thinking... I bet that, by now, everyone knows the whole arsenal of both great conflicts. No need for Discovery Channel when Call of Duty 3 offers you the chance to use a Garand or Thompson for the Allies or the STG 44 or MP 40 that you'll pick up from the Nazis. Each weapon has different accuracy, recoil and handling, with their advantages and disadvantages. You'll also have the chance to drive Panzers, Tiger or Sherman tanks, but also jeeps and you'll even use still machine guns of deadly Flaks. If this was not enough to provide a regular gamer with his daily adrenaline shot, try a one on one fight with a Nazi guy. With cutscene-like graphics, this challenge will imply you mashing the R1 and L1 buttons alternatively in an attempt to escape strangulation or getting hit in the head with the riffle.

You'll also have the chance to steal the enemy's gun while he threatens you and then a fist fight will commence. Setting charges has become the primary occupation of the average soldier, as is calling planes to do some bombing or blowing up bridges to keep enemy tanks away. The Nazis will be very paranoid and will spot you immediately, so few will be the chances to hit them in the head and sneak around. Eventually you'll reach the violent situation, we all know as sudden death through massive shootout. Taking cover is priority number one, before trying to instantly become Tom Hanks doing his "Saving private Ryan" act. Too bad that there are not so many cover spots as we'd like to. Hiding behind moving tanks must be the worst idea ever, as bullets pour like rain and you'll be dead meat in no time.

Don't worry if you ever feel lost, because there is a radar on the left of the screen showing the missions objectives marked as yellow stars. You can find out more details about those objectives by pressing the Select button at any time.

I wanted to feel the vibe of the game so I played with the vibration on and felt every bump of the road while driving or the impact of the bullets I took. Speaking of which, like in the previous Call of Duty installments, there's no practical damage concept. You'll take some bullets and get a blurred vision, then an on-screen announcement will advise you to take cover before taking more damage, or you'll die. If you'll do that, your health will be replenished, although you don't have a health indicator to show that.

I suggest throwing a couple of smoke grenades, or even frag grenades before proceeding to take over a hill or house. This will usually confuse enemies or even kill them, if you used the German popsicle-like grenade. Another way to cause some mayhem and have fun while playing is shooting barrels, usually filled with inflammable fluids. They have a tendency to roll over and blow up in a spectacular way, leaving a huge cloud of smoke behind. You won't be a super hero all the time and you'll to do some "office work" too, by calling in air strikes and using your binoculars to pinpoint the exact location of the enemy.

Video I had a chance to see the XBOX 360 version before playing Call of Duty 3 and it looks much much better. I don't know what happened, but some of the textures are really awful and shouldn't be there. Also there are plenty of bugs and glitches that will frustrate the gamer, taking away the eye candy he wanted so much. There a few good aspects though, like the blur that appears when you focus the gun to aim better. Effects are pretty good, but they're nothing that you wouldn't find in any historic shooter to date and even older ones. Planes fly by and make a big ruckus while bombing the town, flames and smoke are all over the place and the explosions will shake the camera in a pretty nice way. Cutscenes are very well done and the facial expressions of the characters will add salt and pepper to the ironic and funny dialogs. Graphics might be poor, but the atmosphere is a plus as bullets fly in all directions and there's carnage everywhere, soldiers dying, walls get shattered etc.

Sound Call of Duty surely sounds better than it looks and you will be awarded with a great soundtrack. You'll hear the groovy music from the '40s in the US camp and the annoying French accent of the .... (tough guess) French soldiers. If you're the kind of gamer that skips the cutscenes, don't (don't think you can, actually)! You'll miss dialogs that will make laugh, and unique rude jokes that only soldiers can tell. "We're on a mission to get coffee and donuts. The problem is, that Germans forgot the coffee and donuts." - that sort of thing. You'll surely tell the difference between a Scottish accent and a British one, a French accent or an US one. Weapons speak dialects too and each new gun will sound different compared to another one. I don't even want to start with the war vehicles, because those will really make your day. While Nazis scream when being crushed by your tank, you'll hear planes passing above and explosions in the distance. When you'll take too much damage and your vision becomes blurred, you'll breathe harder and hear that if you listen attentively.

Multiplayer Call of Duty was such a popular game, because of its unique and very entertaining multiplayer modes. 7 multiplayer maps and 6 different match types await you on the console version of the game. Also 16 players can join the war, online and choose a character class to fit in. You can create teams and one guy can be the medic, another one can be the scout and of course someone has to be the boss, the general. You'll drive tanks, jeeps, throw grenades, cause a lot of chaos and eventually get killed in one of the warzones in France. Select friendly fire if you're keen on that option and start running and gunning with your friends. The game will tend to slow down if all 16 players are connected, especially when many of them use tanks or get on-screen at the same time. Let the genocide begin!

Conclusion Each time you die, you'll get the chance to see some of the most famous war-related quotes of important men like Winston Churchill, Napoleon or Sun Tzu. The game seemed difficult at first, especially due to the annoying analog control and the camera angles, but it got easier as I progressed. All that dying in the beginning got my friends thinking that I wanted to get killed in order to see those wise quotes. Call of Duty 3 is not a bad game, but it's not a great historic shooter either. The graphics kill the superb atmosphere and with the new Medal of Honor on its way, I would really start trembling if I were the producer.