Call of Duty is a first person shooter set in World War 2. We start off as a simple American rookie in boot camp where we are taught the basics of crawling, shooting and reloading. Before you know it you are sent right to the heat of battle and left to fend for yourself as your allies are too busy trying to survive to help the recruit. It was a pretty cool intro that immediately reminds you that you are just a simple soldier not John Rambo. There is no regenerating health but instead you must rely on health kits to restore your health. It forces you to play much more smartly and knowing when to duck and hide while letting your allies take the fatal wounds in your stead. You are very rarely alone and will have allies watching your back throughout most of the battles.
Unfortunately your allies can prove to be just as fatal to your as the enemies. They will occasionally block your path while you are under fire and have a habit of looking into your barrel while you are trying to line up a shot. You are not allowed to shoot them since the gun won’t fire when you aim at them but they somehow find ways to get killed by your bullets. They are not completely awful and will frequently save your life but they can be quite a burden at times. Later on you will also play through the eyes of a British and Russian solider which have completely different feel and take place simultaneously to the American war efforts.
Each nation has their own unique set of weapons but the Germans use different guns so you will run out of ammo and have to rely on scavenged German weapons in all three campaigns. The British campaign is the weak point of the three as you will usually be “infiltrating” some place but it always ends up with you killing tons upon tons of enemies by yourself or with a few allies which feels very out of place from the chaos of the other two campaigns. Chaos is where the Russian campaign excels. It is very brutal and you better pay attention to what people are saying and duck when you hear them say so or you will without a doubt die. Your comrades won’t even equip you with a gun, just a round of ammo and tell you to run up a hill where the Russians are being slaughtered by the dozens. Gods help you if you stop running to collect a gun and some more ammo, they will assume that you are a coward that froze up and gun you down killing all sense of comradery between you and the people at your back.
Gun play is top notch and is very fluid. All the guns feel unique and sound very powerful. It is truly a pleasure to the ears to hear the battle around you and everything comes together to be very immersive. The Germans have far superior aim than your allies and it can be annoying how accurate they are with anything in their hands including mounted machine guns. Your allies are pretty capable when they are rushing toward the enemy but as soon as they are stationary they suddenly have the aim of a drunk Stormtrooper. You are equally as accurate as the enemy with most guns and are capable of leaning sideways without moving which is very useful. Up to two weapons of your choice can be carried along with your pistol and grenades. It does present a problem when there are tanks in the area and you are forced to carry an anti-tank weapon since your allies are always extremely reliant on you even if the anti-tank launcher is right next to them.
Graphics are obviously dated and it does not support modern resolutions out of the box. You will have to tweak the config files a bit for HD. It is surprisingly pretty tame on violence. There is no gore and the only blood is a small burst when shot that quickly evaporates. Music is great, sound effects are incredible and voice acting is pretty good too minus the Russians. Multiplayer is only played by a few dozen people and it’s alright. Nothing special but it is pretty fun though expect a challenge from the veterans that still play this game. You will not be on foot throughout all of the campaign, you control a tank for a brief mission and will have to occasionally shoot out of a moving vehicle. The latter can be a bit frustrating since you do not regain health and have no way to avoid damage other than shooting them before they fire a shot at you.
This is still a great title that holds up well to this day. The only feature that would be odd to modern FPS gamers is the health kits required to survive but other than that you should be able to fit right in. All the things that make a game like graphics, sound effects and gameplay work very well with each other in this title and it makes it a immersive and brutal experience throughout. This is definitely not the Call of Duty to get if you want to play multiplayer though. Outside of the campaign there is nothing else to do and there is no incentive to replay it again so it is the type of game were you play through it once and delete it. It is one hell of a ride though and highly recommended to those seeking a single player World War 2 experience.
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