Call of Duty World at War Review

[andre1028]

Don't blame me for being bored.

What is Call of Duty: WAW?

Well Call of Duty as usual is about two to four playable characters at different parts of the world battling against either the Germans or the Japanese. Each character usually is in one of their own armies at another part of the world. The only thing different about the whole series is that in the first time (in the whole series) there's loads of fucking blood and gore. In addition to that it uses the amazing Call of Duty 4 graphics engine.

In Call of duty World at War there are two main playable characters, Private Miller of the United States Marine Corps who starts off at the Pacific Theater while the other, Private Petrenko of the Red Army starts off at Stalingrad (which at the time is invaded and occupied by General Amsels men). There really isn't a plot (so I'm excluding it's rating) in this game other than invading, invading, killing, assassinating, then invading again.

The Call of Duty series has always been a shoot,kill, move forward type of game. If you miss one of them you'll be either killed yourself, or stuck wasting endless respawning enemies, which is annoying and interesting at the same time (keeping the replay value high).

In this game you get all the basic weaponry from the old school M1 Garand who we all know and love to the newly added flamethrower (in COD Series). It's full list of type of weapons are

Pistols
Assault Rifles
Sniper Rifles
Sub Machine Guns
Early Versions of Shotguns
Heavy Machine Guns
Mounted Machine Guns
misc (flame thrower, knife, bayonet.)
Explosives (Rocket Launches, Grenades)
Special Grenades (Smoke grenades etc)

BASIC INFO

ESBR: Mature (Blood Gore, Violence, Fowl Language etc)
Developer: Treyarch (sadly)
Publisher: Activision
Systems: All (as far as I know lol)
Multiplayer: Yes (for online supported systems)

Released: November 2008
Current Price: Around 50-60 bucks USD now.

CONTROLS

First off I want to talk about the controls. As usual (in the COD series) the controls are nearly perfect for everyone. You get simple buttons and easy to reach for each certain control from sprinting to zooming to crouching. Sometimes your hands hurt when pressing more four of them at the same time (or maybe that's for me) so my rating for the controls is

9.5/10

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay of Call of Duty World at War is pretty fast paced, you're always on the move whether in Multiplayer or in Single Player running away from the bullshit amount of grenades. People die pretty fast in this game so things like flanking, dodging, and refexes are really needed in it. Oh yeah, they're fucking tanks now

9/10

SINGLEPLAYER

The Single Player contains four levels of difficulty.

Recruit which is amazingly easy
Regular which is well balanced and is for everyone
Hardened which is a little bit harder, more running around.
Veteren which is a bullshit level of difficulty where you either worry about getting one shot or having a a quater dozen grenades appear on your screen.

It has a lot of plot twists, and wtf moments. You have to face endless amounts of enemies if you don't advance and your teammates always get replaced which is really cool. It seems to get repetitive though so it get's really boring after a while.

I'd rate it

8/10

MULTIPLAYER

The Multiplayer contains many different modes ranging from Deathmatch to "Zombie Nazis". You can either play it split screened in a private match and online or you can play some Coop which supports split screen too. Coop basically contains a maximum of 4 people online or not trying to either complete the campaign or compete to who can have the highest points.

There's a small reward system like in COD4 where you get a certain amount of kills and a reward for getting them in one single life. The awards are listed in order likewise here.

3 Kills get you a UAV so that the enemies appear on your radar for a short time.
5 Kills get you an artillery strike on anywhere you want blowing any location you pic to hell.
7 Kills get you some badass killer dogs to do all your bidding, which at times are very amusing for you, unless it's against you then it just sucks lol.

The matchmaking system (for consoles) really feels last minute as there are really stupid matchups, for example. One time I got matched up with a 65 while another time I got matched up with all 1's. The multiplayer supports voice and chat, or just voice if you're on a console. If you're on a Console there are host matches, while on PC there are Servers. It contains ranks just like in Call of Duty 4. You must reach a certain rank to unlock something, plus there's the old prestige mode. Things like Perks were added and custom weapons too which is a really cool add on but makes it feel like COD4 again.

Overall I'd rate it

9/10

VISUALS

All the eye candy you got from Call of Duty 4 was put into this game plus improved. If you take a flame thrower and burn something (or someone ^^) you can actually see it slowly deteriorate. There is a lot more blood and gore. I remember one time I threw a grenade right below a guys legs and they blew off (or maybe that was a glitch lol). Things like Smoke and Dust from Explosions were highly details to the heat from the barrel of a fired gun. The player plus enemy models were amazingly done. So were the weapons.

The Visuals deserve a

9.5/10

Overall

Overall this game deserves a 9 despite the other ratings I put on the sections of this review. It's pretty well balanced and if you liked COD4 you'll like this, if you didn't it's worth a rent It also feels more "COD4 WW2 edition".

Thanks for reading my poorly paragraph structured review.

*small edit and add in: What Could Use Fixing

- Matchmaking system needs to be fixed, a lot of the matches you get are too low or too high a level for you.

-Small Glitches when it comes to the mounting of weapons.

-Fps is great, but if you're on a console sometimes there are parts of the campaign that give you a sudden drop.

-Many Weapons are overpowered like the flamethrower.

-AI, sometimes enemies run past your teammates just to kill you

-Difficulty balance is horrid, Recruit is extremely easy while Veteran is just fucking hell on consoles.

SHORT FORM SUMMARY

Controls: Excellent
Gameplay: Good
Single Player: Good

Multiplayer: Good
Visuals: Excellent
Overall Rating: 9/10

Level Range ?/5: Bad = 1 | Satisfactory = 2 | Good = 3 | Excellent = 4 | Perfect = 5

CAMPAIGN GAMEPLAY VIDEO

SCREEN SHOTS

[zapper]

thx
pretty good review though ^^

[Wraith]

Nice review

[Lux]

I'll cut to the chase.

Multiplayer

CSS: 9/10

COD: 4/10.

[andre1028]

I'll cut to the chase.

Multiplayer

CSS: 9/10

COD: 4/10.

It's kind of hard to compare two different types of games.

[Lux]

It's kind of hard to compare two different types of games.

How close must games be to be the same?

Its hardly Barbie and GTA.......

CSS online is ...........PWN, the endless opportunities are what make a great game with simple yet amazing gameplay even better. You don't need spot on realism to have a great game, especially in online play. I think single player is really good, but the way in which multiplayer is set up brings it down. Its more of a free for all, spawn killing, grass/building crouching, camping, shoot through environment (realistic, but amazingly annoying) game. To some it up, all things I hate.

[andre1028]

How close must games be to be the same?

Its hardly Barbie and GTA.......

CSS online is ...........PWN, the endless opportunities are what make a great game with simple yet amazing gameplay even better. You don't need spot on realism to have a great game, especially in online play. I think single player is really good, but the way in which multiplayer is set up brings it down. Its more of a free for all, spawn killing, grass/building crouching, camping, shoot through environment (realistic, but amazingly annoying) game. To some it up, all things I hate.

Apparently this game has a ranking system built in +change gameplay and matchmaking

Ranking system contains certain weapons +change gameplay

Vehicles built in +change gameplay

Different types of ranks means not everyone uses the same god damn weapons +change tactics and gameplay

Built in game modes +change multiplayer, it isn't as easy to modify than CSS.

Health Regeneration system +change tactics and gameplay

The only things these two games are the same in are that they are solely based around realism and that they're both shooters.

So if you were to put this into a certain perspective, it is basically Barbie and GTA, those two can't be compared in a fair manner >

[Lux]

Apparently this game has a ranking system built in +change gameplay and matchmaking

Ranking system contains certain weapons +change gameplay

Vehicles built in +change gameplay

Different types of ranks means not everyone uses the same god damn weapons +change tactics and gameplay

Built in game modes +change multiplayer, it isn't as easy to modify than CSS.

Health Regeneration system +change tactics and gameplay

Basically, they are FPS's. It is completely fine to compare them in that way. Which is a better Fps???

I am being a BIT presumptious, because I am yet to play WaW yet, got the game, and played COD4 alot which I am sure is pretty much the same???? If not well I'll find out when I get round to playing it...

To me, the ranking system is not something I like. Its easy to like it when you are the highest level, but if the only reason for getting the top level is to have an unfair advantage over noobs/to have the same stuff as other "good" players, why is it there??? Why not just give everyone the same equipment, or the opportunity to have the same equipment (css) and then let them do the rest......Being a high rank doesn't proof anything, other than how many hours you racked in.

Vechiles built in isn't bad always, but if you mean you can have vechiles in multiplayer, it would have to be on the same level of Battlefield, which I doubt?

Health regeneration system, completely unrealistic and stupid. I know I said things don't have to be realistic, but this just promotes camping, its dire.

[Dracula]

I love this game :D but it has many error's that need to be fixed and the Moderators in there support site are no longer posting. Anyways good reveiw :D

[Frostbyte]

Nice review andre.