Developers Treyarch decided this time around to center things on the Normandy Breakout as the game follows the events of the Americans, British, Canadians and even the Polish through 14 missions that span the 88 days leading up to the liberation of Paris. While Call of Duty veterans may miss the Russian side of things, the inclusion of the Canadian and Polish forces are a welcome decision. The whole thing is tied together using some terribly clichéd cutscenes that we’ve all seen a thousand times before, and you can’t skip them which only servers to make them even more annoying.
Jumping into the game feels reasonably familiar with very little changes to the feel of the game. There’s the addition of some needlessly tacked-on ‘mini games’ where you have to press buttons in order to plant a charge or battle in hand to hand combat with a Nazi, but apart from being able to ‘cook’ grenades things are largely unchanged. Aiming is smooth, even if the guns do seem less accurate. They produce far less recoil so the reason for reduced accuracy is somewhat of a mystery, but lining up a perfect headshot only for the shot to miss happens a little too often. You can’t climb over walls now either which seems like a very strange thing to remove given how well it works in dealing with small walls and crates.
The 14 missions on offer are a real mixed bag. The opening battle feels very much in line with the Call of Duty way of doing things. Starting off in a church graveyard you battle your way up the hill, running from cover to cover until you reach the city. You then proceed to give shooting directions to a tank, clear out numerous houses before finally defending a building from a German onslaught. It’s a formula that the series is known for and when it is at its best there are few games that can touch the intensity of the combat or the sheer level of immersion the chaotic atmosphere provides. Unfortunately, Call of Duty 3 struggles to maintain this quality for a good chunk of the game.
The trusty M1 Garand.
In fact, it could be argued that it’s not until mission 10 that the game lives up to its reputation. Until that point you have a small handful of memorable moments spread thinly within the overly linear and restrictive mission structure. The series has always used a ‘follow the checkpoint on the compass’ setup, but never before has it stopped you from experimenting within the surrounding environments. Too often you’re stuck on a straight path with little more than a wall or a box to use as cover. Take the Chateaux level for example, for almost half the mission you are confined within the narrow walls of a castle with very little to do other than shoot what is in front of you before they shoot you. The same goes for an earlier forest-based level where you literally follow a muddy path from start to finish.
Sometimes the game offers you an option of different routes, but the routes they take are no less restricting than the rest of the level. It’s hard to describe what is wrong with the single player in writing, just from reading the complaints one could easily accuse Call of Duty 2 of the same crimes. But the big difference is that the best moments of the previous game where when things opened up. Think of missions like The Silo, Fortress Stalingrad, D-Day or The Battle for Caen and they all threw up some excellent moments where you were given a large environment, a selection of mission objectives and how you did them was up to you. Call of Duty 3 rarely does this, and when it does it doesn’t do it as well.
Enemy AI is a real mixed bag. During close-combat, even on Veteran, they seem very slow to react and nothing like their ruthless behavior in Call of Duty 2. The situation is reversed, however, when attacking at distance. Suddenly they can nail headshots from 100m away with an MP40. Worst of all they now have the ability to see you through thick clouds of smoke which is incredibly frustrating. Giving how 60 years ago weapon technology was rather basic, there was little else you could use other than smoke grenades so it’s very harsh on the player to reduce the effectiveness of one of very few tools at their disposal. It gave the player a temporary safety net to work in and while smoke is still useful, it’s not as reliable as it was in the previous game.
Your squad AI is equally as frustrating. Call of Duty has never been about squad play, and this one is no different, but never before have they been such a nuisance. In terms of actually killing the enemy they’re useless, but that’s not where the problem lies. Their constant blocking doorways and pushing you around is what frustrates. The previous game had similar problems but not to the extent seen here. Often you find yourself a nice sniping spot or a safe section of cover only for one of your team to decide that they want to stand their too thus causing you to either miss your shot, expose yourself in the open, or even both.
Tanks ahoy!
But it’s not all bad as there’s still, at heart, the same mechanics here that make the Call of Duty games what they are - the final third of the game proves that. Once the Crossroads mission begins it’s like the game has been given an injection of adrenaline as it really springs into life by going back to what it does best – ducking and diving though city streets, clearing houses of Nazi’s and defending your position against enemy attacks. Quite why the game takes so long to get into gear is a mystery, it’s like the latter part of the game was made by a different developer or something. It doesn’t quite do enough to save it from being the worst of the three main Call of Duty games (four if you count United Offensive), but at least it redeems itself enough to not give the series a bad name.
For those who have read this far and have also seen the reasonably high score at the bottom of the page must be wondering how on earth it warrants it. Well the answer to that is simple – multiplayer. Call of Duty 3’s multiplayer is quite simply superb. First of all praise has to go to the time that has been put into creating decent netcode for this game. The promise of 24 players sent alarm bells ringing for many people given the fact that on a standard internet connection you’re lucky if you can even host half the number of players promised here. But somehow it works, and it works very well indeed. You create a game and before long it fills up to over 20 players and you’re left wondering how on earth it’s even still running, let alone how it’s running so incredibly smooth. Whatever technology they have used here simply must be used in every online game from now on.
Of course a smooth 24 player server wouldn’t be much of a deal if the game wasn’t up to much, but it’s more than worthy. The size of the maps has obviously increased from the usual size found the previous games. What we have here is something more akin to Battlefield, but with the added bonus of the smooth control and excellent feel of Call of Duty’s weaponry. Many felt the sniper rifle was overpowered in the previous game and given the increased size of the multiplayer maps this time around, games turning into sniper battles was a worry. But fear not, the ease in which the sniper could be used has been reduced. Aiming is much harder when standing so taking a prone position for stability is needed more of then that not, plus one hit isn’t often enough to kill anymore unless it’s a headshot.
Vehicles play a big part in the multiplayer. There are bikes and jeeps for getting around quickly and tanks for causing destruction. On the whole they are all reasonably balanced, certainly more so than they were the last time they featured in a Call of Duty game in the add-on pack for the PC original. The tanks are highly powerful, but can only take a single rocket in the right place to destroy. In addition, any solider on foot who is carrying a grenade can climb on top and throw a grenade in the hatch by pressing the X button providing they can get close enough. The modes on offer are standard for a modern FPS. You’ve got Battle and Team Battle for those who just enjoy the killing side of things, while Capture the Flag and Search and Destroy offer something for those who prefer objective based battles. The one new addition, War, is a mixture of both. With 5 flag points on a map you must take control of them in sequence to win the game.
Mmm, 3d grass....
To succeed in any of the modes it’s important to use a mixture of classes. Each of the classes brings certain benefits for the team. A medic can obviously heal the injured, while a support gunner is able to hand out ammo. Scouts offer cover with sniper rifles and artillery strikes, Anti-Armor soldiers carry rockets to counter vehicles and Light/Heavy Gunners can plant mines, which can be invaluable for defending flags. In addition, for every 10 points you achieve you will go up a class giving you extra equipment for your class like grenades, mines or even extra ammo crates. The maps are all very different from one another, not only in terms of the environment they’re set in, but also in size - yet they retain a high standard throughout. Often in a multiplayer FPS’s you find there are a handful of maps that you’ll groan at when the server loads them up, but that really isn’t the case here. If there is one complaint that could be made is that you can’t use the British weapons (which mean no Bren, Sten or Lee Enfield) but the multiplayer really is a great package and makes this game worth owning more than anything else currently on Xbox Live.
Visually there is plenty to praise too. The sheer amount of action going on at once in some of the levels is simply astounding at times. The first level for example is a feast for the eyes and if eyes could be sick I think they actually would be given the amount of enemy machine gun bullets, ferocious explosions and general chaos that plays out in front of you. Destructible environments are always great to see, and although things aren’t fully destructible it’s nice to see crates getting shot apart with bullets and wooden stair banisters blown to pieces by grenades. The character models are beautifully detailed, as are the environments. Towns and villages are well textured and look genuinely ravaged by war. Woodland looks dense and packed full of vegetation, the grass especially looks wonderful.
A nice touch to the game is the depth of field blur effect when players use the left trigger to aim down the sight of their gun. Here the game will subtly blur the surrounding environment depending on what you’re focused on. The framerate is high and reasonably steady with only a few minor drops here and there so really there’s very little to complain about on a technical level. There are a few animation problems due to the use of ragdoll physics. At times it works superbly as there’s a great satisfaction of seeing an enemy thrown 10 feet by a grenade, but when the same thing happens from a simple headshot with a rifle it looks very strange and kills the atmosphere. The sound is certainly a step back from the standards Call of Duty 2 set. The weapons and explosions sound flat and lack depth and volume by comparison and can often leave things sounded messy. The soundtrack comes up short to falling just below what you’d expect from the series.
In regards to the single player it’s not a bad game by any means, it’s just not up to the same standards as Call of Duty 2 and because of that it’s hard to recommend. It’s the sort of game you’ll enjoy it more if you wait a while a pick it up cheaper. Call of Duty 3 is something that really should only be bought now for its multiplayer content, whether it’s for online, split-screen, or a combination of both (yes, you can do 4 player split-screen online) so if that is what you’re looking for then Call of Duty 3 is well worth your time and money during this typically busy November.
As you know I'm a big CoD fan, so just for comparison in terms of SINGLE PLAYER I would rate the series like this...
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