There’s nothing more satisfying than shooting a Nazi. It’s built into us at a genetic level, and battered home by 60 years’ worth of film and media confirmation that, yes, the Nazis were a very naughty bunch, and yes, it really is okay to hate them.
The Call of Duty series has always purveyed a particularly fine line in bigot-bashing, intertwining battles from the Second World War with the stories of the soldiers who fought it and, more recently, an increasingly realistic depiction of the terrifying and often bewildering experience of frontline combat.
Whilst the last COD title, number four in the series, took a break from tradition and the 1940s to look at modern warfare, this new game brings us right back to the heart of the matter.
Call of Duty: World at War focuses on the Eastern Front, home to some spectacularly brutal bloodletting, and the Pacific theatre, again a hotly-contested combat zone, whilst using an updated COD graphics engine and providing us with plenty of reasons to be once again thankful that, as fun as it is to play soldier, we don’t actually have to partake in any of this sort of thing in reality (largely because someone’s granddad once did).
The dual plotlines follow firstly the US Marine Corps as it attempts to dislodge the Japanese army from its deeply dug nests on the Pacific Ocean islands, whilst over on the Eastern Front, the final Russian push on Berlin is charted in all its street-fighting horror.
Whilst this instalment of COD has been a long time coming, the general feeling is that the wait has been well worth it.
Gathering together some impressive voice talent, including Kiefer Sutherland and Gary Oldman, as well as a rake of new features and a tweaked graphics engine, there’s plenty for fans old and new to sink their teeth into.
“We’ve had time to make mistakes, and we’ve had time to try new things,” says Noah Heller, senior designer at developer Treyarch. “A small example is with the dogs in multiplayer. If you get seven kills in multiplayer you get to bring out the dogs, and a pack of hounds roam the battlefield. The multiplayer team needed a lot of time to get that right, to decide whether it would work, if it would look cool, if it would be frightening, or even too harsh. And they had enough time to iterate and make that happen.”
“Another good example is the voice talent. Kiefer Sutherland and Gary Oldman have very challenging schedules, and we were dead set at getting really quality voice acting into the game. When you’re on a compressed development schedule, you don’t have time to schedule any of that in. I mean, with those two guys we went up to the eleventh hour, and we wouldn’t have been able to do that with a shorter development schedule.”
Graphically, World at War utilises the same Call of Duty engine that drove Modern Warfare, buffered and hot-rodded to cope with the impressive new multiplayer modes. “The co-operative is all new, of course, and it was very challenging to fit a co-op mode in an engine that’s not built for it,” continues Heller. “Basically, we had to re-write how the single player is handled.”
The multiplayer functions are sure to prove a massive success. That the series has not previously included any great multiplayer connectivity has long been a bugbear with fans of the series, and so the choice of modes available here should prove, along with the good ole’ WW2 setting, to be a big winner.
Co-op gameplay, with up to four players online or two on a local split screen, allows for squad fighting at a new level, and makes tactics a more integral part of the fighting. Traditional online multiplayer modes are also included, and it should really not be underestimated just how big a deal this will be for fans of the series and World War II buffs alike.
That the series has moved forward and attempted to address the issues with its gameplay and approach the human side of war with a more realistic approach is important, allowing for the evolution of a new set of goalposts for the WW2 title.
“Call of Duty as a brand used to be about great WWII stories with sweeping scores,” adds Heller. “But it has now grown into a soldier’s story, and a realistic portrayal of the war.”
With the likes of Gears of War 2 and Far Cry 2 also out around the same time as World at War, there’s a lot riding on this latest title, and of course Activision will no doubt be hoping Call of Duty World At War can prove its mettle on the High Street as well as on the front line.
“There’s a lot of competition, but I feel very strongly we have the best shooter this Christmas,” asserts Heller. “We offer an extremely realistic depiction of war and we’re built on a real quality piece of technology. There are a lot of people new to the Call of Duty franchise following Call Of Duty 4, and they won’t be disappointed in this game in the least.”
The Nazis really were complete bastards, making killing them, even in pixellated form, a joy that is unlikely to dim as the years go by, no matter how tasteless to the actual combatants it might be. So long live Call of Duty, and may there be more excuses to take up arms in the biggest conflict the world has seen for many more years to come.
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