"The Americans are rightly miffed"
One of the least fun games in the series so far, at least on Veteran, which is very, very unfortunate. I loved the idea of experiencing one front through the eyes of multiple different nationalities, it's the only CoD game to feature a Polish campaign and the first to include a Canadian one. The assault on the occupied France, with the resistance helping the British, the Polish tank division working together with the Americans and Canadians during the final assault, this interaction between the campaigns is a great idea which makes for what is likely the most engrossing CoD campaign yet. Unfortunately, everything else makes it so the experience is as miserable as possible. Some characters have solid character arcs, while others are head-scratching. Why present the French resistance as some cowards, why have this French guy be a presumed spy only for it to go nowhere, why have this Canadian kid die the moment he decides to do something heroic when your characters do much riskier things all the time? The writing doesn't help much. Who can forget such an iconic line as "Would you look at that? A pisser pissing?" to introduce stealth as a concept only for stealth to never appear again.
Gameplay suffers tremendously due to the terrible job someone did at making edges of objects believable. The entire time you're in forests, you will shoot at a guy who is clearly visible behind a tree, but your bullets won't hit him because there is actually an invisible wall where he's standing. Enemies will also shoot you through solid objects, such as wooden window frames and others, while you are unable to penetrate the same objects with your bullets.
The AI, both of your teammates and enemies, is always set on running towards certain points. It makes for countless moments where your teammates run past enemies, enemies run past your teammates, or they run into each other and stare awkwardly for a second before resetting. In general, enemies tend to focus on you, the player, a lot more than your teammates, which sucks, because you already take more damage than in any of the previous game.
Hardest Veteran campaign so far in my opinion. Checkpoints are back, of course, but you can die in one magazine, sometimes you'll die and you have no idea how or from where. In some stages, you tend to move around a lot between defensive points, and during retreating it tends to feel random whether you'll die or not. Sometimes even smoke doesn't help.
There are certainly positives, I mentioned the story but the ending of the Polish campaign especially, while a somewhat frustrating level, it was very poignant and beautiful, same goes for the American one. The introduction of the ability to actually drive a car (usually you'd just be shooting out of it) made for some quite entertaining sections. The game looks good, you can actually recognize people by their faces for the first time in the mainline games, and there are memorable setpieces for sure.
The game just feels a bit rushed out is all, uneven and frustrating to play for most of the time on the hardest difficulty. I remember it a lot more fondly back when I first played it on normal. One thing that remains a weird choice to me is the inclusion quicktime events and the controls for mortars and anti-tank weaponry. Feels unnecessary.
I still hold more affinity for it than Treyarch's previous CoD game. The way this campaign is structured and presented is likely what inspired the future games in the series, and it is an overall ambitious undertaking. I have a soft spot for it is all, perhaps.
One of the least fun games in the series so far, at least on Veteran, which is very, very unfortunate. I loved the idea of experiencing one front through the eyes of multiple different nationalities, it's the only CoD game to feature a Polish campaign and the first to include a Canadian one. The assault on the occupied France, with the resistance helping the British, the Polish tank division working together with the Americans and Canadians during the final assault, this interaction between the campaigns is a great idea which makes for what is likely the most engrossing CoD campaign yet. Unfortunately, everything else makes it so the experience is as miserable as possible. Some characters have solid character arcs, while others are head-scratching. Why present the French resistance as some cowards, why have this French guy be a presumed spy only for it to go nowhere, why have this Canadian kid die the moment he decides to do something heroic when your characters do much riskier things all the time? The writing doesn't help much. Who can forget such an iconic line as "Would you look at that? A pisser pissing?" to introduce stealth as a concept only for stealth to never appear again.
Gameplay suffers tremendously due to the terrible job someone did at making edges of objects believable. The entire time you're in forests, you will shoot at a guy who is clearly visible behind a tree, but your bullets won't hit him because there is actually an invisible wall where he's standing. Enemies will also shoot you through solid objects, such as wooden window frames and others, while you are unable to penetrate the same objects with your bullets.
The AI, both of your teammates and enemies, is always set on running towards certain points. It makes for countless moments where your teammates run past enemies, enemies run past your teammates, or they run into each other and stare awkwardly for a second before resetting. In general, enemies tend to focus on you, the player, a lot more than your teammates, which sucks, because you already take more damage than in any of the previous game.
Hardest Veteran campaign so far in my opinion. Checkpoints are back, of course, but you can die in one magazine, sometimes you'll die and you have no idea how or from where. In some stages, you tend to move around a lot between defensive points, and during retreating it tends to feel random whether you'll die or not. Sometimes even smoke doesn't help.
There are certainly positives, I mentioned the story but the ending of the Polish campaign especially, while a somewhat frustrating level, it was very poignant and beautiful, same goes for the American one. The introduction of the ability to actually drive a car (usually you'd just be shooting out of it) made for some quite entertaining sections. The game looks good, you can actually recognize people by their faces for the first time in the mainline games, and there are memorable setpieces for sure.
The game just feels a bit rushed out is all, uneven and frustrating to play for most of the time on the hardest difficulty. I remember it a lot more fondly back when I first played it on normal. One thing that remains a weird choice to me is the inclusion quicktime events and the controls for mortars and anti-tank weaponry. Feels unnecessary.
I still hold more affinity for it than Treyarch's previous CoD game. The way this campaign is structured and presented is likely what inspired the future games in the series, and it is an overall ambitious undertaking. I have a soft spot for it is all, perhaps.