So I got around to playing Call Of Duty: World At War, but for the sake of repetition I will be referring to it as COD5. Anyways while I was playing I couldn’t help but feel a sense that ‘I have played this game before’. I know the game runs off the COD4 engine but the guys at treyarch just copied almost everything about Call Of Duty 4. Let’s get something out of the way, I love COD4, It is my favourite first person shooter. It has a great campaign filled with wow moments and an addictive online. It is still fresh in my mind as for many other gamers out there and in my opinion COD5 came too soon. If it came out in 2009 that would of been great, but I digress. Throughout this article there is a lot of comparisons to Call Of Duty 4 and there has to be, I cannot write this without comparing it to COD4 because the two games are brothers. I can’t look at COD5 and judge it on its own; I have to compare it to its older brother named Modern Warfare. Now on too my COD5 impressions.

The campaign really shines for me when I played as the vengeful Russians. I hated playing as the Americans and fighting in the South Pacific. The Japanese soldiers did nothing more but charge at you with their bayonets. They have guns; we have guns, why not take your chances by shooting at your enemies first instead of running at me like a bunch of chickens with your heads cut off, brandishing your phallic bayonet erect in the air. And when they do hit you with their bayonet there is this QTE that pops up. Maybe it was just me, but I found that it didn’t register when I clicked R3 once. But once you repeatable tap it, it works fine.
If you do happen to miss the QTE it’s a one hit kill, and you die and you will die a lot throughout the campaign. Wheatear it be from grenades or the entire German/Japanese army firing at you as if you’re the only soldier on the field. Going back to the grenades, the grenade indicator is hard to see, its not clear both online and off, I don’t know how the hell Trayarch screwed that up!
As I said before I felt like had already played this game, and it really hits you when play as Russian soldier Demetre for the first time in a copy of the best COD4 level. The two man team Sniper level which was amazing in COD4 is still pretty great here in COD5. It’s just I already experienced this before and because of that feeling it takes so much away from World At War.

What I would of liked to see in the World At War campaign would be after the credits, instead of shooting Nazi Zombies, you are an American soldier on US bomber that dropped the atomic bomb over Heroism. You put the Communist Russian flag on top of the Reich in Berlin, now put the final nail in the coffin of emotion with YOU pulling the trigger to an Atomic Bomb killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. As sick as that sounds, it works with the depressing and brutal tone of the game. That would have been great, but instead we get something completely unrelated to the story.

Okay, go and take a restroom break because now I’m going to talk about the COD5 online. Call Of Duty 4 online is perfect. It can be frustrating, it can be fun but what makes it great is the little things. By little things I mean the eerie music that comes in during a match when you’re just looking around the map trying to find someone to kill. Or when your loosing and in the final minute the depressing trumpet comes over audio and you realize shit, this battle is hopeless. COD5 has no music throughout its online play, it’s just bland. Sure the addictive levelling system is there, but I prefer COD4’s because I enjoy the modern day guns. Another little thing is the voice over in the Online. Every one of nationalities online in COD5 are annoying! I especially cannot stand the Japanese and the Germans. They sound so fucking stereotypical and there more like the voice of a cartoon than a human. I never felt that way about the voices in COD4. These are little things but the little things to me make the difference.
All and all COD5 is no where near a bad game, it is probably the best WWII FPS out there and lets hope to god the last. I wish the game just focused on the Russian Campaign because Treyarch really know how to do some large scale battles. But in the end this game fails at the little things where its older brother: Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare still shines.

Thank You for reading my impressions of COD5, I hope this article is an improvement over my mirrors edge impressions. If you want to read that visit my blog but be warned it is a wall of words, and I believe I have addressed that issue is this post. Thanks D-Toid!
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