Call Of Duty 2

[ConDor 0]

First WordsCall of Duty. Released in a time when WW2 shooters were announced one after another, it seemed like just one of them, untill the first people got a chance to play it. The action was intense, and really made you feel like you were in the heat of the battle. Chaos, large numbers of soldiers, and numerous scripted events, all brought with perfect sound made you feel like no war game ever achieved. Now, it's sequel is released. Call of Duty was a great game, but expectations were low, so it was all the more easier to amaze the masses. This time, expectations are sky-high. We've been given promises of new light effects for real time reflections, fellow soldiers shouting useful information as they would in the real world, and so much more. Can CoD2 live up to these expectations?First Impressions of the gameAfter going through an (in my opinion) bit of old-fashioned setup, I start the game, and must admit I am quite impressed by the intro. It's not as good as the BF1942 one, arguably the best intro ever, but it certainly manages to set the right atmosphere. The menu is just like the one in the original CoD, nothing wrong with that! I check the graphic settings in the options menu, and notice almost everything is on low, resolution even at 800x600. My pc may not be perfect, I thought of it better than that. Resolution goes up (yep, I'm quite stubborn), and I start the game, soon to find out I have to turn the resolution back to get a steady framerate. When my new pc arives next week, I will update the graphic part of this review.GameplayCall Of Duty is know for it's hectic, intense experience, more than anything else. Does it succeed here? I played the game on medium diffuculty, and watched my brother play on easy (bit too much ego to play in that setting myself to be honest), and can't say I was that impressed. Yes, it is a nice game, but not what I expected from it. The first bad thing I noticed was the feel of the weapons. They seem to weak for me. If I have a M1 Garand, I expect to have an instant kill if I hit somebody in the chest, rather than only in the head. Submachineguns have very little accuracy, therefore it would be nice if they were deadly, but I can only recommend they be used at short distance. In fact, the best tactic often seems to be to flank, then go berserk with a submachinegun. Running straight at the enemy, shooting as much as possible actually get's you through 80% of the game. In CoD1, carefully sniping the opponent was the best way, so personally I think is a step backward. The mission objectives are good though, and you do get pulled right in the game. Gameplay get 7.5/10GraphicsThis is quite a hard one to write, because as I said before, I had most settings at lowest. Still, I thought they were great. Even at low resolutions it's nice to watch the faces of different soldiers, each being (as far as I saw) more or less unique. Smoke spreads in a realistic way, and it's great to see great clouds of dust in the desert levels. It really adds much to the experience. Water has two sides: the sea in the D-day level looks just plain lame: one blue area with a few waves. On the other hand, when you get in the trenches, the reflections in the pubbles are great. Possibly, the sea will look nice too, if I raise my settings, so I'll come back to this. Overall, I love the details, there obviosly has been a lot of work in this. Graphics get 8.5/10, untill I have a chance to see them in full glory.ConclusionThis game has everything it needs to be a great game, but not, like it predecessor, an instant classic. I hate having to say this, because I've been looking forward to this game for ages. It's probably partially the reason it's not that special: with such high expectations, how can it live up to it? Still, like said before, it is a great game. The atmosphere is nice, and the visuals quite stunning. It's just not what I expected of it, yet enough to keep me playing for 7 hours straight. Yes, I know, this is going to get me accusations of being addicted, and I more or less am. But not like I was with CoD1. Overall, this game gets 8/10.System Specs of the testing machine:- P4 2,66GHz, 533Mhz FSB, 1MB cache- 512MB Dual Channel DDR RAM- ATI Radeon 9600XT 256MB- 120GB HDD @ 7200 rpm

[jipman 0]

What you are saying about gameplay depends on your skills really. In call of duty, you can rush towards enemies with a bolt-action rifle and just shoot m dead in one shot. Same thing is applicable in CoD2. Machinegunning is too wastefull because you seem to need buckets of lead in order for bots to finally drop dead. And with a rifle, although it requires something called a-i-m they're dead on instant, which saves you time for the 3 other enemies standing there.FYI, I play the game at hardenedWeapon balance has took a deep fall down since the sniperrifles are way to overpowered, the scope is more stable and has a greater field-of-view. The german machinegun, the mp44 has too much stability and shoots too accurate. Also, when using smokegrenades you are still visible for your enemies because their crosshairs will turn red if they spot you. Finally (about weapons) they could have turned that ridiculous X mark of when you aim at someone's head.Graphics, it looks really sweet, agreed, but if I can't even play it without stuttering with my Geforce 7800GT and AMD 64 clocked at 2400mhz and 1024 of RAM... Well forget it. The game is coded way to inefficiently and almost never runs smoothly, whatever setup you have. Of course, unless you use Directx 7 mode. Which makes the game looks like CoD, which makes it pointless to buy cod2 since CoD's gameplay is nicer.I'm running it with everything on high or maximum, but even so, it should run perfectly smooth, which it doesn't. And to confirm what you said. Details are soooo pretty, CoD's graphics are nothing compared to it.The reason why it's not an instant classic is as follows:- The impossibillity to run the game smoothly, which renders it not playable , especially online, where everyone happily runs around spraying with submachineguns.- Useless stuff like red-turning crosshairs and a special you're-aiming-at-a-head-crosshair.- Screwed up weaponbalance, any n00b can use a sniper now, or will just walk around with a shotgun, handling submachineguns is too easy. Aiming with rifles is more difficult because the aiming-down-the-sight is covers more of your view.- Finally --> NO ANTICHEAT, CoD came with Punkbuster anticheat clients, and CoD2 doesn't even have something similar.Conclusion:I did buy CoD but CoD2 is just not worth the €20 of the €60 they ask for it.

[reldas 0]

When the original Call of Duty was released a few years ago, it made an impact both on critics and on consumers, even in the already-crowded WWII shooter genre. Call of Duty's visceral action struck a chord with PC shooter fans, thanks to a well-designed campaign, enjoyable multiplayer, and outstanding sound effects. If you liked those aspects of the original, then you're sure to enjoy the sequel, which stays true to the strengths of its predecessor, while enhancing the sense that you're just one soldier in the midst of a massive war machine. It doesn't really break any new ground, but the game nails the core aspects of first-person-shooter gameplay so well that it doesn't need to.As in the first game, Call of Duty 2's campaign will put you in the shoes of a few different soldiers fighting for different Allied factions. You start off as a private in the Russian army, visciously fighting off the invading Germans in Moscow and Stalingrad. The British campaign is unlocked after beating the first Russian mission. For most of these missions you'll be fighting in the sand-swept deserts of North Africa alongside the Desert Rats against Field Marshal Rommel's troops. The final mission in the British campaign sends you to the bombed-out houses and hedgerows of Caen, France. After you're done with that, you'll play as an American corporal in Europe. Yes, you will be doing a D-Day landing, but not on Omaha Beach or Utah Beach, which you've probably played several times before. Instead, you'll be scaling the sheer cliffs of Pointe du Hoc as artillery with the Army Rangers. If you already thought rock climbing was an "extreme" sport, try doing it with artillery and machine-gun fire raining down on you.Each of the game's 10 missions is broken up into a few different stages. If you play the game on regular difficulty, you could blow through it in about 10 hours. Ratcheting up the difficulty a notch makes the game much harder and more tactical (this is probably the experience the designers intended). Since you'll be creeping and peeking more carefully through all the encounters, you'll lengthen the campaign significantly, and enjoy it more.Breaking up the campaign into several different narrative vignettes arguably weakens the impact of the plot as a whole, although that was never the strength of Call of Duty in the first place. What this does is allow the designers to put you in a lot of different, interesting situations. One memorable moment in the Russian campaign has you crawling through a raised pipeline to sneak behind German lines and into a fortified factory building. As you make your way through the pipeline, you'll spot and snipe small pockets of German infantry through holes in the pipe. When they fire back up at you, you'll notice bullets tearing through the rusted pipe, ripping open holes for shafts of light to poke through. It's a thrilling effect. You'll also get quite a rush from both participating in and defending against all-out infantry charges across open city squares in Stalingrad. But just as the novelty of these wears off, you're shunted over to the British campaign in North Africa, where you'll do things like participate in night raids of small Tunisian towns, climb up to the top of spires to call in artillery on enemy tanks, and even drive a tank yourself. The American campaign has its own memorable moments, like scaling the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc, or sniping at German mortar crews from the top of a grain silo. The game paces itself so that you're always on your toes, and you'll find yourself switching back and forth almost constantly from an offensive position to making a defensive stand against counterattacks on the objective you've just captured. Yes, at the end of the day you're still just shooting a lot of Nazis, but the constantly varying contexts of how and why you're doing it keep the game compelling from start to finish. You won't be participating in these forays alone; far from it. In every setting you'll be surrounded by what seems like dozens of soldiers, both friends and foes, who move and act in a realistic fashion. Lots of your artificially intelligent mates will die by your side, along with the dozens of enemy soldiers you kill, but more will come in from the rear echelons to take their place. The designers often do a good job of reminding you that the war isn't just the infantry skirmish in which you're fighting. From time to time you'll see planes engaged in dogfights flying overhead, or when you complete an objective of capturing a German harbor, you'll call in a naval strike and see enemy merchant ships being sunk at the docks.In each confrontation, you'll find yourself setting up at logical stopping points to exchange fire with German resistance. You can snipe dozens of enemies out of the windows and from the trenches in front of a house, for example, but reinforcements replace them. It never feels as though the game is cheaply spawning in more fodder for you; it just does a great job of making you feel like there are a realistic number of soldiers holed up in a building. You need to get a feel for the flow of each pitched battle, and this can be done by advancing your line when the enemy ranks look thin enough, and then breaking into the house or bunker. Your allies will follow you in and help you clear out the objective. Of course, if you're too meek at attacking and pressing your advantage, the enemy AI is wily and aggressive enough to take charge. They're not afraid to pour fire on your position and toss tons of grenades at you. Thankfully, a handy grenade danger indicator lets you know when and where you have to scurry away from an impending blast. When you do die, the game reloads very quickly, and you're even treated to a quote about war from various historical figures. One that sticks out in our minds is an ironic one from Solomon Short: "The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky."