Call of Duty 3 Review

With a number of games having already covered the most decisive and famous battles and theatres of World War II, Treyarch, the developers of Call of Duty 3, have had to ask how they can move the WWII FPS forward. Building on the character progression and storytelling of previous games like Big Red One, their attempted solution is to delve deeper into the squads themselves and make your band of AI brothers into well rounded characters with distinct personalities. This seems like it would be ripe with posibilites given that the series echoes the linear progression of a Half-Life and seeing the successes in that series, but unfortunately the writing and direction here simply isn't up to the task.

Even if the characters, - like the overbearing NCO who the rest of the American team don't really trust, or the Canadian radio-man insisting he's not a coward for trying to protect his radio in battle, - didn't seem like cliches, the way the game so often switches between one of four groups, means it's often difficult to remember who's who; You're simply never allowed enough time to build a sense of attachment to the men you're fighting alongside before the level ends and you're whisked off somewhere else. By switching between the American infantry, a Polish tank team, the British SAS and a Canadian Armoured Division, the idea is that you're seeing the same battle from multiple perspectives and witnessing a memorable and dramatic moment when the storylines finally converge, but it just tends to be confusing.

The levels themselves are often reminiscent of Call of Duty 2, but fall way short at generating the intensity of that game's battles. There's nothing here to rival the sheer panic you felt at defending the captured hill towards the end of COD2 for instance. Similarly epic set-pieces are often confusing and can lead to you hearing the same piece of dialogue uttered by your squad commander over and over until you realise what you're being instructed to do. Instead of feeling like you're genuinely under fire from an advancing army, you're often all too aware of the underlying game mechanics, looking for the glowing icon to go and click, or searching for the invisible series of trigger points that grant advancement through the level.

When the game scales things back and focuses on more close quarters combat, it's then that it's most enjoyable. Coralling you down an enemy trench or asking you to clear out an occupied house enables the solid aiming and blunt lethality of the weapons comes to the fore. The simple act of popping out of cover and firing your gun is fun enough to keep you playing the game. In these intimate environments, where you're able to hear the banter of your team and pick out individual comrades, you feel that the game could have achieved the level of character development it aspires to, if, instead of trying to live up to the intensity and blockbuster action of its predecessor, it focussed on following the same core group of men. This might have carved out its own distinct place in a crowded genre, but as it is, COD3 stands as disjointed and mediocre.