Call of Duty World at War

In this installment of the Call of Duty franchise the player fights as a Russian soldier on the front lines in Russia and ultimately in Germany (spoiler, the Germans lose), and as an American soldier in the Pacific theater. This game added more realism to the franchise, and as I will later discuss is not always a good thing.

Call of Duty has now also done three more games (or maybe one is just about to be released?) beyond World War II, so this is the latest in the series for that war. I've barely played the modern version ones, and the campaigns seem like quite a bit of fun, but a bit is lost in the multiplayer gameplay. Or maybe it is just that I almost punched a 13-year-old over the ethics of using a heartbeat sensor. I mean really, a heartbeat sensor? Why don't we just stand ten feet from each other and just pull the trigger of whatever is in our hand?

But I digress, this game is pretty fun, although I didn't really like the Pacific campaign so much. If you have read any of my blog you know how much I enjoy shooting Nazis because they barely count as human beings. The horrible things the Japanese did to the Chinese during this time period is not nearly as big a part of our culture as the Nazis are, so I have to keep reminding myself what they did to make it all okay. But then I remember what we did to Japanese Americans during the war and then it because less fun. I know, silly mean bringing ethics into a war game, right? But speaking of which, no one warned me about the dogs in the game. The first time I played this game was during my Freshman year and I was just innocently trying to kill some people when a dog jumped on me. The screen said push the joystick in, so I did. I snapped the dog's neck. I then justifiably freaked out for a while yelling expletives because it was really graphic and I had not been prepared for that.

But minus the whole ethics and overly realistic violence, this is a fun game. I do, however, miss the African fighting from Call of Duty 2, the only other game in the series that I have ever owned. Honestly update Call of Duty 2 and I will buy that game. Fighting in France and Africa is my ideal WWII game. Perhaps this game was the real wake up call for the game designers. The series was getting stale and they needed to do something. But I do hope that they return to their roots in the future once there is something to completely overhaul the way the game is played to make another WWII game worth playing.

There are some great moments in this game, but there is enough working against it to earn 3 out of 5 stars.