You might be wondering whether the world needs yet another World War 2 game. And I don't blame you for thinking that - it seems like there are countless titles out there, all proclaiming authenticity and intense action that's straight out of Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers. Honestly, when I first heard that a sequel to Call of Duty was in the works, I had a hard time getting really excited about it. I came into Activision's most recent event that's showing off Call of Duty 2 expecting to be disappointed. But I wasn't in the slightest.
To start, Call of Duty 2 has undergone a major technology change over its predecessor - the new graphics engine is solid yet gorgeous, with many special effects that will be seen both on the PC and Xbox 360 versions. None of these effects look out of place for the setting or gameplay, and most of them truly add something to the immersive qualities that the developers at Infinity Ward have carefully planned out. Not only is the game gorgeous, but the action stays fast and furious with few slowdowns or issues.
One of my favorite parts of Call of Duty was the ability to play from the perspectives of three soldiers, one from each of the three main Allied armies: American, British, and Russian. Infinity Ward realized early on that this was a major strength in the first game, and have brought it over to the sequel. Again, you'll be playing through three campaigns that tell stories of specific parts of World War 2. While you'll be spending most of the game fighting in Europe, you'll also be heading south for a bit to fight off Rommel in North Africa during the British campaign.
I got the chance to sample several levels of the PC version of Call of Duty 2 - most of this time was spent in the British and Russian campaigns. These battles have been covered the least in popular movies and even in American history books. While Call of Duty 2 has a pretty solid backing in realism, we won't see levels that perfectly replicate the real-life areas in the real war. This is fine to me, though, because the developers have made the battlegrounds more interesting than what I've seen in "more accurate" WW2 games.
One major change I've noticed in Call of Duty 2 is that you will no longer be picking up health kits in order to survive. Instead, as you take fire your character becomes wounded (which is not measured by a bar, but is shown to you with visual and audio cues). You'll need to get cover and take a breather for at least a few seconds, and if you do so, you'll be fully healed.
Now, regeneration of health is even less realistic than even the archaic video game stereotype of picking up health throughout the level. But what Call of Duty 2 does is it stops forcing you to spend time searching for health or constant save and load your game. Instead, you'll be focusing more on making sure you don't get pinned down by the enemy, trapped by a flanking maneuver, or caught by a grenade (which of course will kill you instantly if you're too close). For people like me who are chronic "quicksavers", this game's regeneration system allows me to continue without pulling myself out of the immersion to keep pressing that F5 button. But this is all on "Normal" difficulty, though. Much like the first game, CoD2 does include both Hard and "Realistic" modes where one well-placed bullet can mean instant death. And on the other side, the Easy mode also allows players quite a bit of leeway in getting hit before you'll go down.
The missions I got to play in Call of Duty 2 had me attacking mostly through the blasted ruins of villages and cities where there is plenty of cover and many tactical options for you and your squad. What I noticed this time was improved level design that allowed you to perform some flanking moves in order to get the upper hand on the enemy - and the best part is that your squad would follow your lead in many circumstances and would do their best no matter which assault you chose. I even saw some elements seen in this year's Brothers in Arms where suppressive fire had a substantial effect on both enemy troops and my own buddies. There's no visual feedback like big red circles over people's heads, though, so you'll have to pay close attention to enemy behavior to know when to charge or when not to.
There are a couple of new features that actually really impact gameplay in Call of Duty 2, even if they don't seem like such a big deal at first. One is a new grenade indicator, which will put a marker on your screen to show you a grenade that an enemy's thrown at you. Now, you might be thinking that that just makes the game easier, but what it really does is allow the enemies to throw grenades at you more often without frustrating you into quitting. So now it's not just the odd scripted event - enemies use AI in deciding to throw grenades and in picking them up and throwing them back at you.
The other great feature I saw was how both your squad and the enemies will report on each other's movements. It's pretty common for your buddies to tell you where the enemies are ("Germans! To the south, over the broken wall") and to let you know when they see the threats neutralized. This is especially useful because of the way missions allow you multiple paths to attack the enemy. You might be making a move to flank them, while they've quietly climbed over the wall and followed you around to the back to get the upper hand on you. Not only does the enemy's ability to do this make the game much more interesting, but your own squadmates' ability to tell you when they see it happening is immensely useful.
While I didn't get a chance to play a signature Call of Duty tank level this time around, I got to watch one of the developers go through one on the Xbox 360, and it was quite impressive. This level took place in North Africa, and the tank battle is a part of the defeat of Rommel there. It felt a little Rambo-like, since the player's single tank managed to take out well over a dozen enemy tanks, but if it was just one-on-one and the mission's over, that wouldn't be much fun either.
From what I could see of both versions, it seems like the same exact art and assets are used for both the PC and the 360, and I'd be lying if I said the 360 wasn't the better-looking of the two. Then again, the 720p resolution and huge plasma screens probably contributed to that. Both versions still look better than any previous WW2 shooter to date by a long shot - the animations are all meticulously created and very realistic. While the lack of ragdoll physics makes throwing grenades less fun (it's always fun to see three bodies just sail into the air after an explosion), it also creates a more cohesive atmosphere for the game. I could definitely field arguments both for and against the use of ragdoll physics in a game like this.
Multiplayer was also covered at Activision's event, both on the PC via a LAN, and over four-player split screen on the Xbox 360. While the PC version of Call of Duty 2 supports up to 32 players officially (and up to 64 if you really want to stretch it beyond what Activision suggests), we got to play in a Capture the Flag game with about twelve players. The inclusion of a shotgun and sniper rifle in the game, as well one each of a smoke and a frag grenade for every time you spawn, make sure that it's not just a pure submachine gun spray-and-pray affair.
On the 360, we did a four-player deathmatch mode (as well as a four-player "Headquarters" game, where each team of two guys are trying to set up a base and then defend it) and what I found interesting was that unlike split-screen games on previous consoles, I could actually still see what I was doing on the Xbox 360. It makes sense once you do the math (a 40+" TV and 1280x720 video mode), and the frame rate still stayed at a pretty solid 30fps or so the whole time. In fact, in single player, the 360 was delivering frame rates much closer to 60fps, which is much higher than what we've seen in most console FPS titles.
All in all, I am now very excited to get my hands on the full version of Call of Duty 2. Infinity Ward shows great understanding of all of the good things in their first game, and they really have focused on fleshing those things out even further for the sequel. And with other games, we've seen that full-on realism isn't the absolute best way to go in the WW2 genre - CoD2 shows probably the best balance of realism and fun I've seen in this genre. The PC version of the game will be released in late October, while the Xbox 360 version will be in stores during the "launch window" of the console (which basically means either on November 22nd or shortly afterwards). If you want to check it out right now, head over to 3D Downloads and grab a copy of the demo for yourself!
