 Review By: Jared Black |
Developer: | Treyarch |
| Publisher: | Activision | |
| Genre: | FPS | |
| ESRB: | Teen | |
| # Of Players: | 1-2 (16 online) | |
| Online Play: | Yes | |
| Accessories: | Memory Card, Network Adaptor (broadband only), Logitech/PS2 USB Headsets | |
| Buy Now: |   |
At this point, you’d probably only read a review like this because you’re bored, or you’re simply still stuck in the “last gen” of console gaming. Don’t feel too bad if that’s the case however, because the PS2 in particular is still home to some great games with a few more on the way. And while Call of Duty 3 for PlayStation 2 isn’t quite the same experience that it is on next-gen consoles, it’s still a respectable port that does a good job of capturing that “next gen” feel.
This time around, Call of Duty 3 takes a more narrow approach as it looks at part of the overall Normandy Breakout Campaign (which basically began with D-Day), specifically the closing of the Falaise Pocket. Although the game takes place in the countryside surrounding Paris, the game still presents the war from the viewpoint of four different sides: the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Poland.
With this multi-sided approach, the development team attempted to show how the Allies’ actions intertwined with each other, and largely they succeeded. Although you don’t really ever team up with soldiers from other countries (except one or two isolated instances, such as when the Canadians send their radio operator to assist the Polish troops), the game does do a good job of showing how the actions of each unit work together with the others in the larger war.
There’s also a greater focus on the personalities in the war, with a colorful cast of characters on each side. We’re not talking RPG-like character development here, but a few of the main characters do evolve throughout the game. Unfortunately the developers pushed this a little too hard in one respect, with inescapable cutscenes that play every time you load a saved game regardless of where you last left off. So you may be an hour farther into the game than you were when you first saw it, yet you’re still made to watch it in full all over again. The voice-overs are also a little over the top, and in general a little too stereotypical for my liking (scruffy sergeants, broken English from the Polish, etc.).
The other primary addition to the franchise is found in the new mini-games, which also make the war feel even more personal than before. At a few pre-scripted points in the game you’ll literally come face to face with the enemy, where you have to press the left and right shoulder buttons in rapid succession (followed by a swift counterattack with a face button) to survive. While these are easy, they do add some tension and variety to the game. You’ll also plant charges with a series of button presses and perform other minor tasks, but these aren’t implemented as smoothly as the war seems to stop around you while you perform the action.
One of the biggest selling points of Call of Duty 2 was the excellent smoke effects that served as effective cover for perhaps the first time in a game, and naturally that returns here as well. However, while they are functional on PS2, they don’t look good at all. As smoke hangs in the air, you can clearly see the breaks between sections, and it doesn’t blend in as well as it does on next-gen platforms. Still, it’s somewhat impressive to see the effect at all on Sony’s aging platform. This game also emphasizes using smoke for cover to a lesser extent than the last one, with only a few instances where smoke cover is truly needed.
Posted: 2007-03-08 11:40:19 PST