Call of Duty: World at War

I was playing Call of Duty: World at War last night, screaming at the television for being such an idiot, when I realized I finally have my first review. The amount I rave and complain about this game (simultaneously) is enough to fill the Bible that Biden was sworn in on. For the sake of both of our sanity, I’ll boil my review down to its essence.

Mmmmm. The satisfying pop and sizzle of the axis.

Campaign or, “I finished it! And I owe it all to co-operative play.”

For me, finishing a first-person shooter is almost unheard of. I get about two levels into them, take a grenade to the face, throw down the controller in anger, and pick up a book. But thanks to the new competitive co-op, and the berating voices of my friends whenever I try to quit, illiteracy abounds.

Campaign mode is just fun! While some might say the new gore makes the gaming experience more, “brutal and real by portraying the horrors of WWII”, I just think it makes the game hilarious. Instead of clutching their chests and pantomiming death like they did in Modern Warfare, the enemies in World at War splatter all over the place. There is something deeply satisfying about sniping a Nazi from across a courtyard and seeing his head spring a leak like Ole Faithful. Call me morbid, but I fully condone and delight in all violence committed toward racists and fascists. I’ll even settle for digital violence.

The voice casting in World at War is excellent as well. Keifer Sutherland as the voice of the commanding officer is particularly entertaining. Though I often scoff at the voice of authority, when Jack Bauer tells me to do something, I hop to it. Additionally, Gary Oldman as the voice of the Russian commander makes me wonder if video game voice acting is actually becoming a legitimate profession. How far we’ve come since, “I AM SINISTAR!”

My biggest complaint about competitive co-op isn’t intended by the programmers, but it’s an inevitable result of their point system. I am a conservative player. I like to make sure a room is relatively clear before running in, guns ablaze. Because the competitive co-op mode rewards kills with points, everybody acts like a PCP addict: running into unguarded rooms, shooting at anything that moves, oblivious to their own safety. This makes it incredibly frustrating for us “play it safe” gamers, because if you don’t leave your safe vantage point to revive your downed teammates –who are invariably in a hornet’s nest of Nazis– you have to restart from the last checkpoint.

Multiplayer

To say that World at War online multiplayer is anything more than a retooled Modern Warfare is a dirty lie. Even with the programmers’ clever lexigraphic magic the similarities are still obvious to the keen eye. Changing the name from “air strike” to “artillery barrage” isn’t really creating a new gaming experience when it’s still does exactly the same thing. On the bright side, if you’ve played Call of Duty 4, updating to the newest installment is more like switching to a regional dialect than learning a new language (it’s easy-peasy-lemon-squeasy).

That said, I prefer World at War to Modern Warfare. The changes they did make are key. Firstly, the new multiplayer game modes add direction to the versus experience. Instead of running around like a well armed headless chicken, new modes like Ground Warfare and Capture the Flag give purpose beyond racking up kills. Secondly they got rid of the f-cking helicopter and replaced it with packs of dogs. In Modern Warfare by racking up seven kills in a row without dying you can call in air support in the form of an unstoppable whirly-bird, the only protection against which is to hide in the corner of a bunker, weeping softly until it’s over. Now you have the ability to unleash a pack of bloodthirsty dogs. Dogs which are highly lethal, but with a good shot and a quick knife you can defend against them, which is infinitely more gratifying for both parties.

I was particularly upset to see the return of the perk “martyrdom” in World at War. Martyrdom allows a player who has just been killed to drop a live grenade as they are dying. This perk is borderline cheating, and utterly obnoxious. I judge people’s character and eligibility as a friend on whether they use this perk. I ask you: when in the time period of being stabbed in the back and dying instantly does as person have the time to pull the pin on a grenade? It gives me the rage.

Regardless of all my complaints about this game, one multiplayer mode instantly sold me on the newest Call of Duty — Nazi Zombie Mode. In Nazi Zombie Mode a maximum of four players, confined to a boarded up bunker, are barraged by increasingly difficult waves of the undead. By killing zombies you make points, which in turn can be used to buy a small arsenal of weapons. I really dig the way this mode feels like a zombie movie. In keeping with zombie movie protocol there’s usually even an impatient idiot on your team who does something stupid, ruining your defenses and allowing a flood of undead fascists to kill the rest of the team. I love it! Even if you think that Call of Duty 4 has all you could ever want in a first person shooter, you’re wrong. It definitely doesn’t have anything as rad as Nazi Zombie Mode.