Call of Duty: World at War

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 15th November 2008
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Gameplay

Detaching ourselves from the argument about what is and what isn’t acceptable in a game like this (and while this is probably acceptable, it isn’t very appropriate or particularly well done), the gameplay in Call of Duty 5: World at War is exactly what you’d expect from a COD game.

Depending on your outlook that’s either going to be a good or a bad thing, obviously.

You move forwards with your unit, sniping and grenading and pushing forwards slowly to advance the line and so on. The interface, from the compass to the grenade indicator, is as accessible as always and the combat is just as fluid. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the action itself, especially since it is grounded in World War II, feels very much well-trod and done before. It isn’t bad, but it is getting a bit familiar and that modern gloss that worked so well for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare would have done wonders here too.

Call of Duty: World at War Call of Duty: World at War - Singleplayer

There have been a few alterations admittedly, such as the ability to actually blow limbs off enemies with a well placed trench gun shot. The major update though is the addition of a flame thrower which, although used in the war for clearing bunkers only (according to World War II buff Harry Butler), can be carried most anywhere.

Unfortunately though, the flame thrower is a bit of a let down. We’d have thought that the main question any developer would ask when putting a flame thrower in the game would have been ‘Can we make the fire look good?’, but that doesn’t seem to have occurred to Treyarch as COD5's flame sprayer falls well below the bar set by Far Cry 2.

Graphics aside, the flame thrower is still fraught with issues. Not only is it hugely overpowered and prone to insta-killing enemies before they can actually catch fire, but it actually has infinite ammo. You can probably hear our dry, tired eyes rolling in their sockets.

On a grander scale Call of Duty performs as solidly as ever though. The level design, while not particularly inspired, is a fun enough affair and we actually jumped a few times when cunningly scripted Japanese ambushes came into play. There’s one early level set in a swamp which is rather heavy-handed with the number of sudden surprise attacks, but it never stops being fun.

Call of Duty: World at War Call of Duty: World at War - Singleplayer

Other levels, especially the Russian ones, don’t fair as well though. The first levels in Stalingrad are... well, to put it bluntly, they are a direct rip-off of Enemy at the Gates. We don’t mean they are similar to inspired by them either – they are a direct rip-off, with your character hiding in a fountain piled high with corpses and the foetid reek of decay and then emerging to time his sniper shots with passing bombers.

...and yet, it’s still fun. It may be uninspired and a little long in the tooth, but it works. The structure of the game and that feeling of reclaiming a battlefield inch by bloody inch is faithfully maintained and though the game is still totally, utterly linear it doesn’t feel that way. Instead, the areas feel massive, open and engaging.

A lot of the time you’ll think you’re trying some crazy tactic and separating from your squad, only to see in a later re-run that the route you took was actually heavily scripted and funnelled so that you always had to go that way. The Call of Duty series may have been doing this for years, but that part of the game still doesn’t feel old yet.

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