Call of Duty 2- Fortress Stalingrad

Call of Duty (2005) was developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision

Out of all possible ratings: Terrible, Bad, Average, Good, Great....

My rating, based upon my playthrough experience, is: Good!

Back in the day, before Call of Duty became the juggernaut it is now, CoD was facing stiff competition. In those days, Halo and GTA cast shadows upon every game. CoD was determined to be the best WW2 shooter out there, sort of like an interactive equivalent to Saving Private Ryan. In many ways it succeeded. CoD2 still remains one of the best WW2 shooters out there. I highly suggest you play it if you haven't already.

The gameplay is separated into 3 different campaigns, each dedicated to a particular nation's armed forces: The Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each campaign has a unique feel to it. The Soviet campaign is centered around Stalingrad and winter warfare, giving it a feeling of bleakness and desperation, all while freezing your ass off. The UK's campaign is by far the most varied, stretching from the deserts of North Africa to the rainy cities of northern France. This is my personal favorite. The UK campaign has a bit of humor to it, and Captain Price is a memorable character. The desert sections are great, and you get a few tank levels! The American campaign is exactly what you'd expect: D-Day. Here you have the visceral amphibious landing at Utah beach. The most intense fighting is found in this campaign, particularly Hill 300. It's also the shortest campaign.

Call of Duty wasn't setting the standard for the genre yet, but it's not far off either. Given that, I'll get into my review:

Graphics: CoD has always looked good. Back in 2005 this game looked about as real as it could, and it was an Xbox 360 launch title. It showcased how good the 360 made games look, and it was quite a leap forward. Many people, including myself, were playing on TVs that had native 480i displays. The jump to 720p was massive in terms of visual quality! Now, it still looks good, but it's obviously aged. The best way to play this game would be on PC. I don't own the PC version so if you plan on going that route, check to see it the game plays well, or at all, on modern hardware.

Controls: Benchmark setting, even to this day. The most important aspect of controls, in my opinion, is getting view sensitivity correct, and this game nails it. This is irrelevant on PC. The second important aspect is control layout and button mapping. CoD 2 has a simple control layout, and it works so well it's still being used today.

Gameplay: CoD2 doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. It uses a simple premise and acts upon it, which is making an edge of your seat thrill fest based off of historic battles of WW2. Most of the time you will be shooting (Duh!), and additional objectives will be thrown in to mix up the gameplay. This comes in the form of placing explosives on tanks, defending with an MG42, manning a flak 88 (Awesome!), and clearing bunkers. There are also a few tank levels thrown in during the British campaign. Checkpoints generous, so if you die you won't have to replay half the level again.

Sound: Superb. Each gun has it's own punchy sound, and none of them sound wimpy. The chaos of battle immerses you; gunfire everywhere, Germans shouting expletives, explosions, the cacophony of war. Few games do sound design as well as this. Each sound has a purpose and draws you deeper into the action.

Music: I did not know this, but Graeme Revell does the musical score. That being said I'm not surprised the musical score is so good. This is one of those titles that has tracks that will get stuck in your head, or tracks so unique that when you hear it you'll instantly know what game it's from.

Story: It's a WW2 shooter based off of historic WW2 battles. Don't expect anything other than that, and it shouldn't be anything other than that. What's nice is the pre-level History Channel cut scenes that give brief history lessons before you get into the shooting.

Stability/Bugs: I've been playing this game since 2005 and I've never had any crashes, or any bugs that impacted gameplay in a negative way. That being said, it's very stable.

Opinions: I'd love to see a remake of this game.

Call of Duty 2 is available on Xbox 360 and PC.

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DHG played Call of Duty 2 on Xbox 360.

Part 3