-----I feel like one of the more important lessons we’re learning as a society right now is to look at things and systems, and analyze how they’ve become so widely known or commonplace. It can certainly be an interesting experiment. Sometimes you could work backwards, and find that your beloved band was once of humble origins. Other times you could find out the horrid origins of things like the police (slave patrols). Either way, I think this process can be categorized as “fun” in a way because it’s a chance for us to learn from the past and shape a better future. Some like to reevaluate societal systems, others like to pine through old media. Personally, I’ve always been a bit curious about the origins of the Call of Duty franchise.
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-----A monolith of the first person shooter genre, Call of Duty took hold of the minds of the mainstream with it’s seminal fourth entry: Modern Warfare. Modern Warfare was a slick, gritty, and enthralling video game that set the stage for video games not only in its own genre, but across the entire spectrum. That influence extends to it’s multiplayer, whose integration of RPG elements, customizability, and matchmaking would lay out the blueprint for any other multiplayer focused game to come in its wake. Call of Duty entries can be equal parts epic, and equal parts dumb, and it all depends on the kind of person you are and what you tolerate. Personally I look back fondly on Call of Duty’s classic period. This in turn fuels my interest for the three games that came before it.
-----
-----Now, Call of Duty 3 I’ve already played, so that just leaves two others to experience. Enter Call of Duty (the first one). Released back in 2003, Call of Duty entered a quickly saturating market of military shooters. Simulations of the two world wars, especially World War II for it’s simplistic us vs. them narrative, were incredibly popular due to the already extensive and geeky field of World War aficionados. One of the top game franchises of this movement was the Medal of Honor series, a series I’m not familiar with at all. What I do know is how Call of Duty was partially developed as a counterpoint to that very franchise. In fact, many developers of Call of Duty were also key staff involved in making Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. No doubt this experience helped the newly formed Infinity Ward create this new franchise which had a focus on AI, improved animation, and of course a multi-perspective narrative.
-----
-----Though, calling what Call of Duty has a “Narrative” would be pushing things a bit. In the game, you play as soldiers of the Allies during WWII. The main campaign focuses on three distinct sides of the conflict: the Americans, the British, and the Russians. This was relatively unique back then, as most other military shooters around the same time would pick one pair of eyes and stick to them. In general Call of Duty does a great job with differentiating between the three armies. Each has their own set of period accurate weaponry, each fights in their own theater, each are voice acted, and each campaign is grouped together so there is no confusion to who you’re playing as. That being said, the through line that connects each level together can be spotty and vague. The pre-level loading screens with their wall of text do an all right job of giving the player some context, but there are certainly levels that feel like blatant filler.
-----
-----Additionally, the three campaigns fail to form a cohesive whole. The American levels are mind-numbingly dull. They have no real memorability to them. They blur together in my head. The Russian levels are more grand by comparison, as most take place during the Battle of Stalingrad. The high city walls and scope of these scenes can be pretty effective, which is eye opening as Call of Duty was technically doing city levels well a year before Half-Life 2’s City 17. However the Russian levels themselves can be hit or miss. Some are exciting and tense, others are frustrating. This is mostly due to getting lost, or being shot at from somewhere high and out of the way. Finally there is the British portion of Call of Duty’s campaign. These are the best moments of the software, as there’s never a dull moment. One level you’re shooting panzerfaust anti-tank missiles out of the back of a truck, the next you’re taking over an airport demolishing stukas. My favorite level of the game is where you clear out an entire German dam base, destroying key weaponry and picking off the security as you go along.
-----
-----A key as to why I may love these levels so much may have to do with the absence of Call of Duty’s trademark regenerative health. Instead you get a very video gamey health bar in the bottom right corner of the screen. I think this feature adds an element of risk and carefulness to the gameplay of Call of Duty that subsequent entries don’t have. That being said, a consequence of this form of health is that you need items to replenish it. This comes in the form of little health kits. While I didn’t have a huge issue with these, health kits weren’t as plentiful or were rewarded as often as I would have liked. For some examples, one of the ways health kits can be acquired is through killing enemies, though this rarely and unreliably dispenses the item. There is also the method of finding them placed throughout the level, though the developers didn’t spread these out enough in my opinion, nor did they reward exploration as there are several dead ends in the level designs of Call of Duty that don’t have any kind of reward at all.
-----
-----Changing focus, I think the look of Call of Duty has aged well enough. The graphical fidelity is surely of it’s time, but the developers’ texture work and eye for coloring and focus help keeps things clear...except for whose an enemy, and whose an ally. I found distinguishing between the two could be a bit confusing in the heat of battle, which can be frustrating as the game punishes those who engage in friendly fire. This confusion wasn’t helped by the AI all sharing the same animations; most of which looked clunky and goofy. This form of Call of Duty also has it’s crosshair behavior work in a way opposite to what some may be used to. In Call of Duty, when you turn your crosshairs toward an ally, the element turns red. Normally it’s the other way around, as red subconsciously means bad, thus is used for enemies. However, giving credit where credit is due: Call of Duty has a good safeguard system against friendly fire where pressing fire while over looking at an ally doesn’t shoot them, but rather tells them to move out of your way. Albeit, you have to do this explicitly, but it shows the developers thought this through.
-----
-----Staying on the topic of AI, Call of Duty’s biggest selling point was it’s NPC helpers. Most other military shooters didn’t have that. Call of Duty, on the other hand, puts enough bucketheads on the field to help you feel the full scope of an actual battle. Honestly I think this was towards the game’s detriment. Part of that has to do with what effect these added helpers have towards the core player experience. These AI feel like they take away more from player agency than do to help player immersion. It’s kind of a bummer because the AI are clearly smart (for their time). They get behind cover, they flank, they’ll even have audio lines pertaining to the situation. However I don’t think they were really worth the cost of making the game more boring.
-----
-----What wasn’t boring though was the audio. The audio is honestly great. Too great. What I mean by that is due to the most persistent sound Call of Duty has to offer: it’s wall of gunfire. It makes sense this would be the core of the audio experience of Call of Duty because, well, it’s a game about war. Gunfire is kinda a given. And yet, of all the games I’ve played, Call of Duty 2003 has to have offered the most dense, overpowering, and at times terrifying wall of audio in video games I've heard. In fact it shows up so much it can become annoying. I’m willing to bet that this wall of gunfire is what caused most moments in Call of Duty to feel monotonous. It’s loud, it’s deafening, it kind of feels like you’re actually on the battlefield.
-----
-----Actually, that’s a key point to all of this. Of all the things Call of Duty made me feel, nothing was as poignant or present as the feeling of this being a game about war. This begs the question: what does Call of Duty even have to say about war? I never really thought about it because Call of Duty games are normally big and dumb, and when I look back at other games in the franchise, I can’t think of any particular stance those games took. Call of Duty 2003 however has a very clear feeling about war to me. It starts with it’s opening movie right before the title screen. It’s sombre and full of strings, like it’s some emotional tragic moment in a film. A very odd way to start the game. Then there’s the pre-level loading screens I mentioned earlier. They’re functionally a wall of text, but aesthetically they take the form of notebooks soldiers would keep while on the frontline, or dossiers from higher up generals, or even physical order pages with instructions that the soldier you’re playing as is scribbling on as the levels progress. These are items based on real life media that were used during WWII. I should also mention the real-life quotes that would pop-up on loading screens as well. Each seemed to reflect upon things like the cost of war, the bravery of the men, or the tragic nature of it all. All real sombre stuff.
-----
-----One of the most effective moments in the game for me however was at the very start of the Russian campaign. In the first level, you play as a Russian soldier amongst many, crowded on a small boat that’s sailing towards the shores of Stalingrad. The boat is carved in a way where higher up military officers can stand completely above the infantry men who will actually be doing the fighting. One of these military officers is shouting in a megaphone directly above you. He relays the orders of Stalin, saying how we’re going to be serving our country, and reminds us “not to take one step back” lest we be fired up for being a traitorous coward. As this is happening, the ocean is being bombed and shot around us by German planes. The planes actually manage to shoot down one of the military officers above us. This causes one of the infantry men on the boat with me to abandon ship, only to be shot dead by the surviving officers. This makes that “Not a step back” policy a stark reality.
-----
-----Then we reach the shore, and we pour out of the boat. Each of us gather in a blob at the end of the pier as another military officer is handing out weaponry. He shouts a repetition slogan over the gunfire happening behind him. Most officers on the pier get a weapon. You, the player, do not. You then rush, defenseless, onto the battlefield. You’re joined by infantrymen like you. However one by one they’re either shot dead by adversaries you can’t see, or bombed out of existence by place. You yourself barely make it. You post behind a mostly destroyed brick wall with another, more experienced and equipped soldier. His progress is being stalled by deafening German machine guns. Thus, once you join him, he tells you to run out of cover once the gunners reload. He wants you to act like bait for their gunfire, while he takes care of them. At the first sign of silence, you bolt towards a blown up car for cover. The soldier, now unencumbered, shoots the gunners dead and joins you. This happens again and again until finally the soldier calls in an airstrike, flattening the line of buildings the Germans were using to suppress the Russian force. This is where the level ends. You only have to shoot one shot.
-----
-----Never have I had a level, or really any piece of media, make me feel as small and expendable as this sequence in Call of Duty. Even the numerous recounts of D-Day pale in comparison to what happens here. The horrors and tragedy of war never have felt more omnipresent, and it’s all historically accurate. This is all based on real life events. Just look up Order No. 227. Stalin deliberately had his own troops shot at, to no effect, all because his idea of turning back and retreating was cowardice. It’s something like this level here that really helps remind you how much of a waste of life war really is, how the lives of soldiers and what they fight for are up to politicians that have their own goals, and couldn’t give less of a shit about what they’re spending for that. It’s because of this level and everything else I’ve mentioned and more that the final level of Call of Duty had me sick to my stomach. In this level, the Russians are closing in upon Germany’s capital.
-----
-----Now, I’m going to throw a bit of a content warning in the review at this point, as I’m going to put some context as to why seeing Russians in Germany at the end of WWII triggered me. In the game, this level is kind of like the final hurdle you need to cross before dealing the final blow to the Nazis. You take down anti-tank weapons, cross courtyards, and finally overtake the Reichstag, Germany’s chief political building during this era, all to heroically wave your Russian flag above the German Nazi scum. Though, that doesn’t really begin to touch upon a full picture here. You see, it was during this time, and afterward that something that is now referred to as the “Rape during the occupation of Germany” occurred. While many Allied soldiers took part in this, it’s agreed upon that Soviet troops were in the majority of raping many, many German women. The type of women these troops would assault ranged from age 80, to as young as 8 years old. Some estimates on the amount of victims of these rapes range in the hundreds of thousands, to around the single digit millions. I think it’s safe to say that an entire generation of German women were defiled, traumatized, and even murdered at the hands of Allied soldiers, specifically Russians. That’s why playing as a Russian in Germany, being portrayed as a hero as if my presence is a good thing, sickens me to my fucking core.
-----
-----Of course, I think there’s even more here to touch upon, like how the “heroic” victory of the Allies against the Nazis was “all around good” when, in fact, the politicians that ordered these men around would then carve Germany into four parts, form Israel on top of Palenstine, introduce the concept of the nuclear bomb to the world, fight amongst each other, form Neo-Nazi movements of their own and ignore them, and more. That’s why when I was playing Call of Duty, I didn’t see the men fighting as heroes. I saw them as fools. I also saw any kind of tragedy or respect Infinity Ward showed for the soldiers who gave their lives in WWII as shallow. I don’t think any developer really understood the full weight of what they were making when they made these military shooters. They most likely thought it was cool to play a part in this seemingly simple war where you’re a hero taking on the bad guy.
-----
-----Then again, I think that’s why it’s so important we take a look back at the origins of things, and gain from our new understanding of them. For me I learned two things. One, war is terrible, and useless, and unnecessary, and is really an excuse to put monsters on a power trip while lives are wasted for a future uncertain to the one actually holding the gun. Two, while Call of Duty has come a long way from it’s debut, in ways it hasn’t really changed all that much. The first Call of Duty is still big, and dumb, and ignorant like it’s bigger brothers and sisters. That being said, it’s not like it can’t be fun from time to time, especially during the British missions. However, I wouldn’t necessarily play Call of Duty again. Maybe those British missions, but certainly not the whole game through.
-----
-----A monolith of the first person shooter genre, Call of Duty took hold of the minds of the mainstream with it’s seminal fourth entry: Modern Warfare. Modern Warfare was a slick, gritty, and enthralling video game that set the stage for video games not only in its own genre, but across the entire spectrum. That influence extends to it’s multiplayer, whose integration of RPG elements, customizability, and matchmaking would lay out the blueprint for any other multiplayer focused game to come in its wake. Call of Duty entries can be equal parts epic, and equal parts dumb, and it all depends on the kind of person you are and what you tolerate. Personally I look back fondly on Call of Duty’s classic period. This in turn fuels my interest for the three games that came before it.
-----
-----Now, Call of Duty 3 I’ve already played, so that just leaves two others to experience. Enter Call of Duty (the first one). Released back in 2003, Call of Duty entered a quickly saturating market of military shooters. Simulations of the two world wars, especially World War II for it’s simplistic us vs. them narrative, were incredibly popular due to the already extensive and geeky field of World War aficionados. One of the top game franchises of this movement was the Medal of Honor series, a series I’m not familiar with at all. What I do know is how Call of Duty was partially developed as a counterpoint to that very franchise. In fact, many developers of Call of Duty were also key staff involved in making Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. No doubt this experience helped the newly formed Infinity Ward create this new franchise which had a focus on AI, improved animation, and of course a multi-perspective narrative.
-----
-----Though, calling what Call of Duty has a “Narrative” would be pushing things a bit. In the game, you play as soldiers of the Allies during WWII. The main campaign focuses on three distinct sides of the conflict: the Americans, the British, and the Russians. This was relatively unique back then, as most other military shooters around the same time would pick one pair of eyes and stick to them. In general Call of Duty does a great job with differentiating between the three armies. Each has their own set of period accurate weaponry, each fights in their own theater, each are voice acted, and each campaign is grouped together so there is no confusion to who you’re playing as. That being said, the through line that connects each level together can be spotty and vague. The pre-level loading screens with their wall of text do an all right job of giving the player some context, but there are certainly levels that feel like blatant filler.
-----
-----Additionally, the three campaigns fail to form a cohesive whole. The American levels are mind-numbingly dull. They have no real memorability to them. They blur together in my head. The Russian levels are more grand by comparison, as most take place during the Battle of Stalingrad. The high city walls and scope of these scenes can be pretty effective, which is eye opening as Call of Duty was technically doing city levels well a year before Half-Life 2’s City 17. However the Russian levels themselves can be hit or miss. Some are exciting and tense, others are frustrating. This is mostly due to getting lost, or being shot at from somewhere high and out of the way. Finally there is the British portion of Call of Duty’s campaign. These are the best moments of the software, as there’s never a dull moment. One level you’re shooting panzerfaust anti-tank missiles out of the back of a truck, the next you’re taking over an airport demolishing stukas. My favorite level of the game is where you clear out an entire German dam base, destroying key weaponry and picking off the security as you go along.
-----
-----A key as to why I may love these levels so much may have to do with the absence of Call of Duty’s trademark regenerative health. Instead you get a very video gamey health bar in the bottom right corner of the screen. I think this feature adds an element of risk and carefulness to the gameplay of Call of Duty that subsequent entries don’t have. That being said, a consequence of this form of health is that you need items to replenish it. This comes in the form of little health kits. While I didn’t have a huge issue with these, health kits weren’t as plentiful or were rewarded as often as I would have liked. For some examples, one of the ways health kits can be acquired is through killing enemies, though this rarely and unreliably dispenses the item. There is also the method of finding them placed throughout the level, though the developers didn’t spread these out enough in my opinion, nor did they reward exploration as there are several dead ends in the level designs of Call of Duty that don’t have any kind of reward at all.
-----
-----Changing focus, I think the look of Call of Duty has aged well enough. The graphical fidelity is surely of it’s time, but the developers’ texture work and eye for coloring and focus help keeps things clear...except for whose an enemy, and whose an ally. I found distinguishing between the two could be a bit confusing in the heat of battle, which can be frustrating as the game punishes those who engage in friendly fire. This confusion wasn’t helped by the AI all sharing the same animations; most of which looked clunky and goofy. This form of Call of Duty also has it’s crosshair behavior work in a way opposite to what some may be used to. In Call of Duty, when you turn your crosshairs toward an ally, the element turns red. Normally it’s the other way around, as red subconsciously means bad, thus is used for enemies. However, giving credit where credit is due: Call of Duty has a good safeguard system against friendly fire where pressing fire while over looking at an ally doesn’t shoot them, but rather tells them to move out of your way. Albeit, you have to do this explicitly, but it shows the developers thought this through.
-----
-----Staying on the topic of AI, Call of Duty’s biggest selling point was it’s NPC helpers. Most other military shooters didn’t have that. Call of Duty, on the other hand, puts enough bucketheads on the field to help you feel the full scope of an actual battle. Honestly I think this was towards the game’s detriment. Part of that has to do with what effect these added helpers have towards the core player experience. These AI feel like they take away more from player agency than do to help player immersion. It’s kind of a bummer because the AI are clearly smart (for their time). They get behind cover, they flank, they’ll even have audio lines pertaining to the situation. However I don’t think they were really worth the cost of making the game more boring.
-----
-----What wasn’t boring though was the audio. The audio is honestly great. Too great. What I mean by that is due to the most persistent sound Call of Duty has to offer: it’s wall of gunfire. It makes sense this would be the core of the audio experience of Call of Duty because, well, it’s a game about war. Gunfire is kinda a given. And yet, of all the games I’ve played, Call of Duty 2003 has to have offered the most dense, overpowering, and at times terrifying wall of audio in video games I've heard. In fact it shows up so much it can become annoying. I’m willing to bet that this wall of gunfire is what caused most moments in Call of Duty to feel monotonous. It’s loud, it’s deafening, it kind of feels like you’re actually on the battlefield.
-----
-----Actually, that’s a key point to all of this. Of all the things Call of Duty made me feel, nothing was as poignant or present as the feeling of this being a game about war. This begs the question: what does Call of Duty even have to say about war? I never really thought about it because Call of Duty games are normally big and dumb, and when I look back at other games in the franchise, I can’t think of any particular stance those games took. Call of Duty 2003 however has a very clear feeling about war to me. It starts with it’s opening movie right before the title screen. It’s sombre and full of strings, like it’s some emotional tragic moment in a film. A very odd way to start the game. Then there’s the pre-level loading screens I mentioned earlier. They’re functionally a wall of text, but aesthetically they take the form of notebooks soldiers would keep while on the frontline, or dossiers from higher up generals, or even physical order pages with instructions that the soldier you’re playing as is scribbling on as the levels progress. These are items based on real life media that were used during WWII. I should also mention the real-life quotes that would pop-up on loading screens as well. Each seemed to reflect upon things like the cost of war, the bravery of the men, or the tragic nature of it all. All real sombre stuff.
-----
-----One of the most effective moments in the game for me however was at the very start of the Russian campaign. In the first level, you play as a Russian soldier amongst many, crowded on a small boat that’s sailing towards the shores of Stalingrad. The boat is carved in a way where higher up military officers can stand completely above the infantry men who will actually be doing the fighting. One of these military officers is shouting in a megaphone directly above you. He relays the orders of Stalin, saying how we’re going to be serving our country, and reminds us “not to take one step back” lest we be fired up for being a traitorous coward. As this is happening, the ocean is being bombed and shot around us by German planes. The planes actually manage to shoot down one of the military officers above us. This causes one of the infantry men on the boat with me to abandon ship, only to be shot dead by the surviving officers. This makes that “Not a step back” policy a stark reality.
-----
-----Then we reach the shore, and we pour out of the boat. Each of us gather in a blob at the end of the pier as another military officer is handing out weaponry. He shouts a repetition slogan over the gunfire happening behind him. Most officers on the pier get a weapon. You, the player, do not. You then rush, defenseless, onto the battlefield. You’re joined by infantrymen like you. However one by one they’re either shot dead by adversaries you can’t see, or bombed out of existence by place. You yourself barely make it. You post behind a mostly destroyed brick wall with another, more experienced and equipped soldier. His progress is being stalled by deafening German machine guns. Thus, once you join him, he tells you to run out of cover once the gunners reload. He wants you to act like bait for their gunfire, while he takes care of them. At the first sign of silence, you bolt towards a blown up car for cover. The soldier, now unencumbered, shoots the gunners dead and joins you. This happens again and again until finally the soldier calls in an airstrike, flattening the line of buildings the Germans were using to suppress the Russian force. This is where the level ends. You only have to shoot one shot.
-----
-----Never have I had a level, or really any piece of media, make me feel as small and expendable as this sequence in Call of Duty. Even the numerous recounts of D-Day pale in comparison to what happens here. The horrors and tragedy of war never have felt more omnipresent, and it’s all historically accurate. This is all based on real life events. Just look up Order No. 227. Stalin deliberately had his own troops shot at, to no effect, all because his idea of turning back and retreating was cowardice. It’s something like this level here that really helps remind you how much of a waste of life war really is, how the lives of soldiers and what they fight for are up to politicians that have their own goals, and couldn’t give less of a shit about what they’re spending for that. It’s because of this level and everything else I’ve mentioned and more that the final level of Call of Duty had me sick to my stomach. In this level, the Russians are closing in upon Germany’s capital.
-----
-----Now, I’m going to throw a bit of a content warning in the review at this point, as I’m going to put some context as to why seeing Russians in Germany at the end of WWII triggered me. In the game, this level is kind of like the final hurdle you need to cross before dealing the final blow to the Nazis. You take down anti-tank weapons, cross courtyards, and finally overtake the Reichstag, Germany’s chief political building during this era, all to heroically wave your Russian flag above the German Nazi scum. Though, that doesn’t really begin to touch upon a full picture here. You see, it was during this time, and afterward that something that is now referred to as the “Rape during the occupation of Germany” occurred. While many Allied soldiers took part in this, it’s agreed upon that Soviet troops were in the majority of raping many, many German women. The type of women these troops would assault ranged from age 80, to as young as 8 years old. Some estimates on the amount of victims of these rapes range in the hundreds of thousands, to around the single digit millions. I think it’s safe to say that an entire generation of German women were defiled, traumatized, and even murdered at the hands of Allied soldiers, specifically Russians. That’s why playing as a Russian in Germany, being portrayed as a hero as if my presence is a good thing, sickens me to my fucking core.
-----
-----Of course, I think there’s even more here to touch upon, like how the “heroic” victory of the Allies against the Nazis was “all around good” when, in fact, the politicians that ordered these men around would then carve Germany into four parts, form Israel on top of Palenstine, introduce the concept of the nuclear bomb to the world, fight amongst each other, form Neo-Nazi movements of their own and ignore them, and more. That’s why when I was playing Call of Duty, I didn’t see the men fighting as heroes. I saw them as fools. I also saw any kind of tragedy or respect Infinity Ward showed for the soldiers who gave their lives in WWII as shallow. I don’t think any developer really understood the full weight of what they were making when they made these military shooters. They most likely thought it was cool to play a part in this seemingly simple war where you’re a hero taking on the bad guy.
-----
-----Then again, I think that’s why it’s so important we take a look back at the origins of things, and gain from our new understanding of them. For me I learned two things. One, war is terrible, and useless, and unnecessary, and is really an excuse to put monsters on a power trip while lives are wasted for a future uncertain to the one actually holding the gun. Two, while Call of Duty has come a long way from it’s debut, in ways it hasn’t really changed all that much. The first Call of Duty is still big, and dumb, and ignorant like it’s bigger brothers and sisters. That being said, it’s not like it can’t be fun from time to time, especially during the British missions. However, I wouldn’t necessarily play Call of Duty again. Maybe those British missions, but certainly not the whole game through.