Consoles first Call of Duty, and let me tell you, I do not like this game. What is essentially a spin off, and an attempt to give consoles a taste of the Call of Duty game/expansion on PC, it's a poor transition. Yes, I understand technology was pretty limited and developers were still trying to figure out control schemes and mechanics at the time but it's hard to ignore the lack of polish. Nothing in this game stands out, and I find it hard to recommend.
It follows a similar format to the pc counterpart, where the campaign is split up into 3 sections, Soviet, British, and America. This game takes a different approach with the characters than the first game, where it attempts to flush them out a lot more, give them a bit more life. Instead of you playing as what felt like generic infantryman. Being the best out of the three stories and starting off strong with the Soviet campaign, it has one of the coolest story missions in the series where you get to play as a female sniper, Tanya Pavelovna. Who as soon as she appeared I immediately wanted to marry. Time to rewatch Enemy at the Gates I guess. She also happens to be the ONLY memorable character in this game and she isn't around for very long and when she does leave, that's when the game becomes a sloggy, uninteresting mess. The British campaign is very short, which is sad to see because I'd argue it has the coolest setting, Africa. Having some neat set pieces and fun moments it's easily forgotten. The American story is fairly long, but shares a similar fate with the previous campaign, and that it's just kind of boring and forgettable but still having some neat views.
Gameplay is what you would most likely expect, shoot, move up, shoot. The problem with that is, hit detection is inconsistent, sometimes aiming directly at enemies, shots just don't seem to land no matter what, not only that, guns seem to have a hard detection drop off, with in combination with the terrible aiming acceleration where you will often just overshoot and miss targets constantly, it makes it very hard to actually enjoy. When you aren't boots on the ground you are most likely in a tank, which drag on for way to long. It's a way to break up gameplay but by god are they just boring, at least they give you the option of 3rd person which is cool but it just feels a lot more inaccurate when shooting. Unlike the first game you get a dedicated grenade button which is a nice feature, but at the same time they also took away the ability to sprint which they added in the expansion United Offensive. You do adjust to the slower move speed after awhile though. Call of duty 1 had this thing where you couldn't open doors, in this one it seems they got a bit excited about it all and now you have to open every single door to progress, or you can tell your squad to do it. On that note, Ai is shit, plain and simple. Running in front of you, running into fire or grenades, standing there, even the enemies will act lobotomized, then mow you down with pixel perfect accuracy. Health packs make a return, from PC but with the added bonus of being able to actually carry some on you, which is a nice addition.
Multiplayer I did not get to try.
Heavily unstable framerate, sometimes affecting the entire mission feeling extremely slow, adding to the already sluggish feeling of the gameplay itself. Which just adds to the frustration when you are also dealing with the terrible checkpoint system. If you die, or fail then you will sometimes have to start a 20 minute mission all over again, and it will happen.
Visually the game is actually decently detailed, environments are full, and the effects are okay. Although they went with the terrible muzzle flash that the first game had. The game does promote a bit of exploration but it's usually into empty rooms to find a health pack or gun.
The orchestral soundtrack is dramatic which does fit in well with the games style. Sound design, footsteps, bullets flying about and explosions sound pretty okay, except for when mounted machine guns seemed to have this heavy "crunchy" sound to them when hitting an object like a tank, which honestly gave me a headache every time I was near it.
It follows a similar format to the pc counterpart, where the campaign is split up into 3 sections, Soviet, British, and America. This game takes a different approach with the characters than the first game, where it attempts to flush them out a lot more, give them a bit more life. Instead of you playing as what felt like generic infantryman. Being the best out of the three stories and starting off strong with the Soviet campaign, it has one of the coolest story missions in the series where you get to play as a female sniper, Tanya Pavelovna. Who as soon as she appeared I immediately wanted to marry. Time to rewatch Enemy at the Gates I guess. She also happens to be the ONLY memorable character in this game and she isn't around for very long and when she does leave, that's when the game becomes a sloggy, uninteresting mess. The British campaign is very short, which is sad to see because I'd argue it has the coolest setting, Africa. Having some neat set pieces and fun moments it's easily forgotten. The American story is fairly long, but shares a similar fate with the previous campaign, and that it's just kind of boring and forgettable but still having some neat views.
Gameplay is what you would most likely expect, shoot, move up, shoot. The problem with that is, hit detection is inconsistent, sometimes aiming directly at enemies, shots just don't seem to land no matter what, not only that, guns seem to have a hard detection drop off, with in combination with the terrible aiming acceleration where you will often just overshoot and miss targets constantly, it makes it very hard to actually enjoy. When you aren't boots on the ground you are most likely in a tank, which drag on for way to long. It's a way to break up gameplay but by god are they just boring, at least they give you the option of 3rd person which is cool but it just feels a lot more inaccurate when shooting. Unlike the first game you get a dedicated grenade button which is a nice feature, but at the same time they also took away the ability to sprint which they added in the expansion United Offensive. You do adjust to the slower move speed after awhile though. Call of duty 1 had this thing where you couldn't open doors, in this one it seems they got a bit excited about it all and now you have to open every single door to progress, or you can tell your squad to do it. On that note, Ai is shit, plain and simple. Running in front of you, running into fire or grenades, standing there, even the enemies will act lobotomized, then mow you down with pixel perfect accuracy. Health packs make a return, from PC but with the added bonus of being able to actually carry some on you, which is a nice addition.
Multiplayer I did not get to try.
Heavily unstable framerate, sometimes affecting the entire mission feeling extremely slow, adding to the already sluggish feeling of the gameplay itself. Which just adds to the frustration when you are also dealing with the terrible checkpoint system. If you die, or fail then you will sometimes have to start a 20 minute mission all over again, and it will happen.
Visually the game is actually decently detailed, environments are full, and the effects are okay. Although they went with the terrible muzzle flash that the first game had. The game does promote a bit of exploration but it's usually into empty rooms to find a health pack or gun.
The orchestral soundtrack is dramatic which does fit in well with the games style. Sound design, footsteps, bullets flying about and explosions sound pretty okay, except for when mounted machine guns seemed to have this heavy "crunchy" sound to them when hitting an object like a tank, which honestly gave me a headache every time I was near it.