Call of Duty: World at War

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 15th November 2008
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Multiplayer

Then we get to the multiplayer which, depending on who you listen to is either consistently the best bit of the Call of Duty series, or the worst thing since unsliced bread. There is no middle ground.

There are actually (and refreshingly) two faces to the multiplayer in Call of Duty: World at War though and Treyarch has been extra-super-nice to gamers by including a co-op mode as well as a versus game.

The standard multiplayer is basically a revamp of the multiplayer in Call of Duty 4 and we’re saying that up front because it really is the best way to describe it. The only things that have changed are the weapons and a few of the perks.

This similarity isn’t a bad thing though and, unlike the singleplayer, the multiplayer still feels fresh and interesting. The levels are cannily designed with plenty of back-passages and high-up sniper points, while the actual levels themselves vary tremendously with everything from ruined asylums to Cliffside Buddhist temples being sacrilegiously represented.

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

Cheap-skate gamers will also be pleased to know that the multiplayer works in both online and local modes, so if you’ve not got an active subscription to Xbox Live then you can always swap down into split screen mode and go head-to-heat with an enemy. Just make sure you don’t look at their screen.

It has to be said though that there are some weird things about the split screen set-up in Call of Duty: World at War and we don’t just mean the amount of object pop-up in the Xbox 360 version either. What’s strange is that in versus split screen the screen is divided straight through the centre so that there are two long, wide sections. In co-op however the screen is divided vertically and the viewable area is shrunk down so that, even if you’re playing just two player co-op then you’re left with the same amount of screen that you’d have in a four player co-op.

And, actually, that’s the reason for screens being divided differently in the co-op missions – because the game still leaves place for the two unaccounted players instead of resizing the divides to use the remaining half of the screen. To us, that just screams of a lazy approach to co-op no matter how much fun the co-op campaign actually is – and boy, it's fun!

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

There are definitely a few issues, such as there being no option to turn on friendly fire and the confusing fact that by collecting ‘Death Cards’ in the singleplayer segment you can unlock cheats in the co-op campaign but not the singleplayer, but it doesn’t matter too much. The co-op campaign spans across all thirteen of the singleplayer levels and is eminently playable despite a few totally inexplicable framerate drops.

The whole semi-tactical formula of the Call of Duty series is something that lends itself perfectly to a co-op campaign, especially when the players can communicate and work to use smoke grenades and bazookas in tandem. Treyarch hasn’t messed that up at all.

Finally and on top of that, there’s also a final co-op mode that becomes unlockable after the game has been completed. You probably know the one we’re talking about – the one with waves of zombie Nazis.

For us, this final mode raises two important questions about Call of Duty: World at War. The first is ‘why the hell would you play that when Left4Dead is about to get launched and blow this out of the water?' The second question is ‘do you really want to use your money to approve and condone a game which bills itself as an adult and serious take on World War II, but includes continuing waves of zombie Nazis?’

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