It's a bit of a departure from the original game and the flagship CoD2. In those games the point they try to make is that WW2 was won by millions of nameless heroes who all sacrificed themselves for the greater good. There are many fellow soldiers who fight alongside you, but they are just random NPCs, so you can hardly form an emotional attachment to them. Those games also switch between soldiers from the different allied countries, so you don’t even play as the same person throughout. In Big Red One they tried something different – you play as a member of 1st Infantry Division (a.k.a. the Big Red One) throughout the entire campaign. The members of your squad are proper characters and you get to know them over time. This is the main standout feature here and arguably makes the game the most interesting of the CoD titles released on PS2.
Most WW2 games at the time were trying to imitate successful contemporary movies like Saving Private Ryan with varying degrees of success. The technology and the production values weren’t quite up there yet and I’ve seen some pretty pathetic attempts, but this is one of the better ones. They actually hired some of the actors from the Band of Brothers series to voice your squad mates and do the mo-cap as well. It’s not actually Band of Brothers, but it’s a decent effort for what it is. The characters are reasonably well fleshed-out. After not having played the game for over a decade, I still remembered them and the major story events, so the developers must have done something right. If you're into these kind of movies/games, you’ll probably enjoy it.
In terms of gameplay, there’s nothing special here. It’s similar to the original CoD from what I remember. It still uses health packs, rather than regenerating health. The controls are not too far off from a modern shooter. I’d say they overdid it with the mounted turret sections and the friendly AI has a tendency to get in your way, but there’s nothing too offensive. Just an average shooter overall.
What it has going for it is variety, but that’s mostly cosmetic. You have your obligatory D-Day landing, but you also get to fight the Vichy French in Africa and the Italians in Sicily. Each level offers a unique location and you get to use some French and Italian weapons which are not common in WW2 games. Said weapons do not change much gameplay-wise. On normal, enemies seem take two shots to the torso to go down no matter what you use (snipers being the only exception). Still, it’s a nice touch and the guns in general do look and sound good.
The PS2 version plays OK when it runs OK, but it can feel very heavy when there’s slowdown and there’s a lot of slowdown in some of the later levels. It looks decent enough, but it’s not up to the level of a first-party game. It has a 16:9 mode that actually gives you a wider field of view which is rare. The collector’s edition version has some extra featurettes and concept art to check out, but it’s the same otherwise.
Most WW2 games at the time were trying to imitate successful contemporary movies like Saving Private Ryan with varying degrees of success. The technology and the production values weren’t quite up there yet and I’ve seen some pretty pathetic attempts, but this is one of the better ones. They actually hired some of the actors from the Band of Brothers series to voice your squad mates and do the mo-cap as well. It’s not actually Band of Brothers, but it’s a decent effort for what it is. The characters are reasonably well fleshed-out. After not having played the game for over a decade, I still remembered them and the major story events, so the developers must have done something right. If you're into these kind of movies/games, you’ll probably enjoy it.
In terms of gameplay, there’s nothing special here. It’s similar to the original CoD from what I remember. It still uses health packs, rather than regenerating health. The controls are not too far off from a modern shooter. I’d say they overdid it with the mounted turret sections and the friendly AI has a tendency to get in your way, but there’s nothing too offensive. Just an average shooter overall.
What it has going for it is variety, but that’s mostly cosmetic. You have your obligatory D-Day landing, but you also get to fight the Vichy French in Africa and the Italians in Sicily. Each level offers a unique location and you get to use some French and Italian weapons which are not common in WW2 games. Said weapons do not change much gameplay-wise. On normal, enemies seem take two shots to the torso to go down no matter what you use (snipers being the only exception). Still, it’s a nice touch and the guns in general do look and sound good.
The PS2 version plays OK when it runs OK, but it can feel very heavy when there’s slowdown and there’s a lot of slowdown in some of the later levels. It looks decent enough, but it’s not up to the level of a first-party game. It has a 16:9 mode that actually gives you a wider field of view which is rare. The collector’s edition version has some extra featurettes and concept art to check out, but it’s the same otherwise.