Post by rancidfungus on Apr 20, 2009 16:32:21 GMT -5
Ahh, this is gonna be exciting.
I'm just going to put, first off, that this game is NOT worth the hype, for reasons I'll get to in a second. It's not a groundbreaking entry to the series, it's just another standard WW2 shooter, and has "Treyarch" stamped on its' forehead. Here is why I think this:
First off, graphics. I wasn't blown away by the graphics here. Some of the special effects such as explosions were realistic but just seemed borrowed from Call of Duty 4. Plus the muzzle flashes were near non-existing, I know it's not very important to some people, but if you remember in CoD4 they were stunning. Smoke and light would burst the atmosphere and you would feel as if you were firing a gun. In CoD:WaW, it's literally just a small yellow star at the barrel that flashes whenever a bullet comes out. The backgrounds in the campaign mode were pretty great, such as the first Makin level in the night where it blurred out slightly and it felt as if you were in a cold night on a tropical island, which brings me straight to my next point. Some of the Japanese levels were designed pretty poorly. The levels were so linear that you didn't care about all the foliage and tropical plants because you had a nibbling doubt at the back of your head that just knew it was incredibly fake, and there was probably a glitchy invisible room behind it. Also, the character animations and guns were bland across the board. There were a few glitches in the enemy animations, say if you were aiming at someone and shot, his friends would sometimes get up and run or shoot you, but sometimes would do this stupid glitch where he'd aim at you and erratically switch between aiming at you and someone else. Again, everything down to the running animation was borrowed from CoD4, but they took a huge step back in terms of guns from CoD4. The gun in front of you seemed to look as if it was jammed into your chest because it's so far back, and when you aim using the left trigger the iron sights were jagged and nasty to look at. They don't feel like guns, they just feel like cardboard figures that make noises in front of you. Now, this game was advertised and hyped with the promise of a high gore factor. This promise is kept to some degree. In multiplayer it truly adds to the satisfaction of shotgunning someone when you see a huge chunk of meat and splash of blood fly up into the air, or in single player when you hold back and snipe someone in the face and you can just see smoke and blood and your victims buddies in shock. But, this gore system is pretty inconsistent. Sometimes you would shoot someone in the chest and they would react as such, but their arm would fly off. Sometimes you get someone in the foot and their entire leg would fly off. Sometimes it would work at all and you would just see the guy fall over. I guess you can't have gore all the time, but why so much of it only sometimes? I would of much preferred realistic, consistent gore.
Audio.
The audio in this game is great. Some of the music kicks in at just the right moment and fills you up with enough energy to make a run for it and start spraying, and the explosions in the background truly set the scene, and it's cool to be deafened by a near grenade going off. But, the gun audio is SO BORING. It's just substandard guns! the pistols in the games sounded like spud guns, and all the rifles noises were so quiet and pathetic. It's strange as the other audio in the game was great.
Objectives and level design.
As I mentioned in my graphics section, the Japanese levels were boring as hell. I know that all Call of Duty games to date have been linear shooters, but CoD4 had a great way of working around it with fun, tight shootouts and sometimes multiple ways of handling a situation, such as the level where you have to choose which house you take first, and which angle of approach you pick. But, CoD5's Japanese levels consist of moving into a bunker, clearing it out, and maybe move through a jungle-y area, and clearing it out. There are no multiple path segments, it's literally just follow your teammates and shoot a load of people. But, the Russian levels were actually quite compelling. They're usually a run-through of a desolated bombed-out building filled with Nazi soldiers, or, which is basically Treyarch's response to the AMAZING "Ghillies In The Mist" level in CoD4, a sneaking mission through abandoned houses and streets, which later on ends up being a fight for survival as you're burned out of a building in probably the best segment in the game.
These Russian levels fail to compensate for the boring objectives that flood the game. They're either taking out a mortar crew or blowing up some AA guns. I know that's probably the only thing they did in WW2 and they want to keep it realistic, but ANY game designer who switches fun for realism IS AN IDIOT.
Story.
I know what you're thinking. "Who cares about story in a WW2 shooter?!" I know, but there are still events that occur and characters that you apparently have to care about. There was only two characters that I had the slightest interest about, and that was the (soon to be) Sergeant from the American battles, voiced by Kiefer Sutherland, and the AMAZINGLY voiced Sergeant Reznov, by Gary Oleman. He does possibly the best fake accent ever put into a game, it's amazing. He not only nails the accent, but executes his lines very well, making me even more interested in him. But every other character isn't interesting, they give nothing to the overall events that occur, and they're usually killed off anyway, leading me to my next point. This game takes itself a bit too seriously, such as the first sergeant being killed and Kiefer Sutherland's character being promoted, and then his character being killed right at the end. I really didn't care at all about them or about their deaths, as they didn't give anything to the overall experience, and their deaths seemed so artificial. "Oh my God, a Japanese man has burst through the door and has stabbed a man who was coincidently the most important in the room, but luckily I have enough time to pull out my gun to defend myself!!" It's times like these you wish you were playing Half Life 2 or something. Also, all the battles in the game aren't very intense, they're all just huge firefights between two big teams of soldiers, there are no interesting fights throughout the game.
Now, this is by no means a bad game, but it's not good either. Is this wasn't part of the Call of Duty franchise and didn't have it's trademark multiplayer then it would just be another Hour of Victory "Who?" (Exactly.) It's just a shame to see such a compelling and simply amazing game such as CoD4, to get so many things right, but then instead of an improvement of it, Treyarch just wants to add another CoD3 clone into the mix. The game didn't really feel unfinished, just that the product that was finished didn't have enough effort put into it. Still, it has the core addicting gameplay of its' previous installments, and the gore system although inconsistent does give the game a tad more flavor, but that's about all this game has going for it.
Overall score: 6/10, for having some interesting moments, and, quite frankly, being a Call of Duty game.
I'm just going to put, first off, that this game is NOT worth the hype, for reasons I'll get to in a second. It's not a groundbreaking entry to the series, it's just another standard WW2 shooter, and has "Treyarch" stamped on its' forehead. Here is why I think this:
First off, graphics. I wasn't blown away by the graphics here. Some of the special effects such as explosions were realistic but just seemed borrowed from Call of Duty 4. Plus the muzzle flashes were near non-existing, I know it's not very important to some people, but if you remember in CoD4 they were stunning. Smoke and light would burst the atmosphere and you would feel as if you were firing a gun. In CoD:WaW, it's literally just a small yellow star at the barrel that flashes whenever a bullet comes out. The backgrounds in the campaign mode were pretty great, such as the first Makin level in the night where it blurred out slightly and it felt as if you were in a cold night on a tropical island, which brings me straight to my next point. Some of the Japanese levels were designed pretty poorly. The levels were so linear that you didn't care about all the foliage and tropical plants because you had a nibbling doubt at the back of your head that just knew it was incredibly fake, and there was probably a glitchy invisible room behind it. Also, the character animations and guns were bland across the board. There were a few glitches in the enemy animations, say if you were aiming at someone and shot, his friends would sometimes get up and run or shoot you, but sometimes would do this stupid glitch where he'd aim at you and erratically switch between aiming at you and someone else. Again, everything down to the running animation was borrowed from CoD4, but they took a huge step back in terms of guns from CoD4. The gun in front of you seemed to look as if it was jammed into your chest because it's so far back, and when you aim using the left trigger the iron sights were jagged and nasty to look at. They don't feel like guns, they just feel like cardboard figures that make noises in front of you. Now, this game was advertised and hyped with the promise of a high gore factor. This promise is kept to some degree. In multiplayer it truly adds to the satisfaction of shotgunning someone when you see a huge chunk of meat and splash of blood fly up into the air, or in single player when you hold back and snipe someone in the face and you can just see smoke and blood and your victims buddies in shock. But, this gore system is pretty inconsistent. Sometimes you would shoot someone in the chest and they would react as such, but their arm would fly off. Sometimes you get someone in the foot and their entire leg would fly off. Sometimes it would work at all and you would just see the guy fall over. I guess you can't have gore all the time, but why so much of it only sometimes? I would of much preferred realistic, consistent gore.
Audio.
The audio in this game is great. Some of the music kicks in at just the right moment and fills you up with enough energy to make a run for it and start spraying, and the explosions in the background truly set the scene, and it's cool to be deafened by a near grenade going off. But, the gun audio is SO BORING. It's just substandard guns! the pistols in the games sounded like spud guns, and all the rifles noises were so quiet and pathetic. It's strange as the other audio in the game was great.
Objectives and level design.
As I mentioned in my graphics section, the Japanese levels were boring as hell. I know that all Call of Duty games to date have been linear shooters, but CoD4 had a great way of working around it with fun, tight shootouts and sometimes multiple ways of handling a situation, such as the level where you have to choose which house you take first, and which angle of approach you pick. But, CoD5's Japanese levels consist of moving into a bunker, clearing it out, and maybe move through a jungle-y area, and clearing it out. There are no multiple path segments, it's literally just follow your teammates and shoot a load of people. But, the Russian levels were actually quite compelling. They're usually a run-through of a desolated bombed-out building filled with Nazi soldiers, or, which is basically Treyarch's response to the AMAZING "Ghillies In The Mist" level in CoD4, a sneaking mission through abandoned houses and streets, which later on ends up being a fight for survival as you're burned out of a building in probably the best segment in the game.
These Russian levels fail to compensate for the boring objectives that flood the game. They're either taking out a mortar crew or blowing up some AA guns. I know that's probably the only thing they did in WW2 and they want to keep it realistic, but ANY game designer who switches fun for realism IS AN IDIOT.
Story.
I know what you're thinking. "Who cares about story in a WW2 shooter?!" I know, but there are still events that occur and characters that you apparently have to care about. There was only two characters that I had the slightest interest about, and that was the (soon to be) Sergeant from the American battles, voiced by Kiefer Sutherland, and the AMAZINGLY voiced Sergeant Reznov, by Gary Oleman. He does possibly the best fake accent ever put into a game, it's amazing. He not only nails the accent, but executes his lines very well, making me even more interested in him. But every other character isn't interesting, they give nothing to the overall events that occur, and they're usually killed off anyway, leading me to my next point. This game takes itself a bit too seriously, such as the first sergeant being killed and Kiefer Sutherland's character being promoted, and then his character being killed right at the end. I really didn't care at all about them or about their deaths, as they didn't give anything to the overall experience, and their deaths seemed so artificial. "Oh my God, a Japanese man has burst through the door and has stabbed a man who was coincidently the most important in the room, but luckily I have enough time to pull out my gun to defend myself!!" It's times like these you wish you were playing Half Life 2 or something. Also, all the battles in the game aren't very intense, they're all just huge firefights between two big teams of soldiers, there are no interesting fights throughout the game.
Now, this is by no means a bad game, but it's not good either. Is this wasn't part of the Call of Duty franchise and didn't have it's trademark multiplayer then it would just be another Hour of Victory "Who?" (Exactly.) It's just a shame to see such a compelling and simply amazing game such as CoD4, to get so many things right, but then instead of an improvement of it, Treyarch just wants to add another CoD3 clone into the mix. The game didn't really feel unfinished, just that the product that was finished didn't have enough effort put into it. Still, it has the core addicting gameplay of its' previous installments, and the gore system although inconsistent does give the game a tad more flavor, but that's about all this game has going for it.
Overall score: 6/10, for having some interesting moments, and, quite frankly, being a Call of Duty game.
