You’ve always got to worry when a game hits its third iteration. Questions like, “Is it that good of a series?” or “Are they just trying to get more money out of the franchise,” are usually the first thoughts popping into gamer’s heads, as opposed to the unyielding excitement of a new installment in a favored series. Activision with its latest game in the Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty 3, falls somewhere in the middle. On the one hand you’ve got a competent, well-crafted WWII FPS, and on the other hand you have another game in a very old, and now very over used experience. Question is, is the game worth sixty bucks?
Not much has changed at the core Call of Duty experience. It’s still all about fighting the Germans across the European front in attempt to win the war. The intense battles, unyielding A.I., and workable control scheme are all back in flying colors, and for the most part; there really can’t be a complaint about that. Why fix something that isn’t broken? Surprisingly, though, Treyarch took some interesting design decisions, which at first didn’t seem to pay off, but the more I played the game, the more I could tell that this was a superior experience to Call of Duty 2 in everyway…and without a doubt the best iteration of the franchise yet.
The biggest gripe people have had with the Call of Duty franchise is how there is no connection between one series of missions to the next. In previous games, the missions would jump all over the place in terms of location, goal, and people. It was very hard to become attached to the A.I. comrades, and there was a very feeling of being more like a spectator during the war as opposed to someone making a difference. How many times can we clear a town, take a hill, or storm a compound before it ultimately loses its entire “wow factor.” Pretty quick. Treyarch saw this, thankfully, and decided to center all of Call of Duty 3’s missions on a central goal. No matter if you are America, British, Canadian, or Polish (yeah the Russians took a backseat in this one), the missions being completed are all part of a much larger goal (no, not winning the war, and no, I won‘t spoil what it is). Hopefully, all Call of Duty games follow in this way of thinking.
Speaking of the missions, the design and layout of all these has taken a turn in a much better direction. Like the story in COD 2, the mission design and layout was also compact and stand-alone. All the locations visited felt deserted, and the entire experience was just one of shooting at enemies from multiple distances. Sure it worked at the time, but after spending some time with COD3’s much more varied mission design, the shortcomings of COD2 are very easily seen. Treyarch has done an excellent job of creating missions that are not only interesting to play, but also varied enough in the objectives that they don’t becoming as boring as some of the missions in COD2. One moment a gamer might be clearing buildings, then the next rowing across a river while avoiding gun fire, and then to finish it off manning an MG42 as the commander defuses bombs on a bridge. The great level design also helps make these experiences even cooler. Towns actually look like they are inhabited, and thanks to the much more realistic (and destroyable) environments, the process of fighting through them holds a lot more weight.
The graphics in COD3 are a hard thing to judge. Ever since Gears of War hit center stage, it seems as if no matter what the game and what the system, the graphics are going to seem sub par. Such is the case with COD3. The graphics are impressive, and the improvements from COD2 are numerous, there just isn’t that amazing “wow” factor with the lighting and finely honed details. The trees and grass move and look amazing, environments are incredibly designed, and gone is the gray color pallet from COD2 -- in favor of a much more colorful and easy on the eyes COD3. Character models are just as detailed, and because of the more story driven campaign, a lot of the models are very specific. As a whole, the graphics work for what COD3 is, but they aren’t even close to what Gears has managed to pull off.
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