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A lot of critics have been giving Call of Duty very high marks. While I won't argue that it's not a good game in its own right, I just can't agree with a lot of opinions that claim it's the best damn thing since fruit loops and Saturday morning cartoons. I decided to see what all the hoopla was about and went down to my local Electronic Boutique and picked up a copy. Being a little short on cash, I took in some of my Xbox games that I was finished playing, and got thoroughly bent over by EB and their trade in policy. I did manage to walk out of the store with the game, however - half a dozen Xbox titles lighter.

In Call of Duty you’ll take the role of American, British or Russian soldiers during various World War II campaigns. Reminiscent of Medal of Honor, Call of Duty is surprisingly similar in game mechanics; likely due to the fact that the core group of developers who did Medal of Honor jumped ship to make Call of Duty! I’d dare say it’s more like Medal of Honor 2. The game play is standard for a first person shooter. Movement utilizes the keyboard and mouse in familiar “WSAD” fashion. Game play was smooth and the framerates were acceptable. All of the controls are re-configurable to your liking. For FPS veterans, Call of Duty will be an easy game to pickup and play without needing to relearn a whole new style of game play.

I immediately jumped into the single player campaign, which led off with the Americans around D-Day. I played through various scenarios and campaigns during WWII, culminating with the Russian saga at Stalingrad. You play as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division, doing missions behind enemy lines. During mission loads, you can even read your characters letters that he writes to his beloved back home. Nice touch. The British campaign was more along the lines of covert operations; Rescues and strategic demolition missions or holding a key bridge with limited troops until reinforcements arrived. Each campaign has it’s own unique feel to it, including the Russian campaign which mainly consists of getting slaughtered at Stalingrad. The game definitely has a cinematic feel to it. Cut scenes are done in-game and move you right into the action.

The biggest thing that sets Call of Duty apart from other WWII shooters is that when you play through the single player campaign, you are rarely alone. You often have AI soldiers to accompany you during the mission… sometimes a LOT of them! The entire campaign is scripted to the T and has you working with the AI counterpart, sometimes numbering in the dozens. Each one has his name and life percentage visible above his head. Because of this, the single player campaign in Call of Duty does offer a different game play experience than other WWII shooters. Like Medal of Honor and Battlefield1942, Call of Duty incorporates vehicles into the game, although not nearly as well as Battlefield1942 does. They are slow and cumbersome – probably like they were in real life back in WWII! But come on folks, if I wanted realism in my shooters, I’d play Rainbow Six 3.

It took maybe 6 or 7 hours to finish the game on the normal difficulty setting. I was sorely disappointed with the length of the game. Fortunately it has great built in multiplayer support to extend its longevity a bit. I was able to hop online and find a good low ping server full of other players to game with. With the game being so new, it was refreshing to legitimately own other players and not have to worry about playing on a server full of cheaters like you might encounter in Battlefield1942. Give them time, and they’ll attempt to ruin Call of Duty just like they do every other online shooter, I’m sure. There isn’t any built in cheat protection that I could find.

The graphics are good. The game doesn’t crash with anti-aliasing turned up, like so many other games seem to now a days. I did think the running animations were a little hokey-pokey. It almost looked like your character was high stepping when he ran. I thought I was playing the allies here, not the Nazi’s! Otherwise the graphics were good. Likewise for the sound; authentic, booming and sharp, helping to bring you into the game that much more.

This was a hard review for me to write. Call of Duty has a couple qualities that sets it apart from the competition, but I was expecting… more. I was expecting to be WOWED like I was the first time I played Battlefield 1942 and I wasn’t. I fell victim to the hype machine. There just weren’t enough new ideas or mechanics in this game for me to consider it as one of the best. I’ve seen it all before, really. If you’re a fan of WWII shooters, you’d probably enjoy the game. But if you’re like me and you’ve had enough of the WWII First Person Shooter invasion, you might want to wait for something a bit more fresh and revolutionary.