Call of Duty: World at War Comments by Dan Whitehead

It's a beta. Not the final product. I understand the final game ships with 24 multi-player maps. Let's not forget there's a single player game in there too.

The devs are in a no win situation here. As they copy 4, they'll get slagged off for no original ideas. Do something different (dogs) and people go mad. I quite like them but do admit, if you unleash the hounds then you're more likely to win the game.

I'll be getting it. Even if it's a re-skinned 4. Next up COD 6 - Rebellion vs Imperials! A 7 kill streak is awarded with a blast from the Death Star - and the destruction of the planet :-)

they need destructacle environments in this game, a la battlefield bad company.... hopefully cod6 will do this.

this is a rental for me.

Poor Treyrarch. Fab4 is right, they have clearly been forced to just make what is essentially a crappy WW2 mod Call of Duty 4 rather than a genuine sequel to Call of Duty 3, which remains one of the best multiplayer FPS games on the 360. Yes, really. All you clots who only touch Infinity Ward's bathing suit area are missing out.

This, unfortunately, is just a total disgrace. I have played this a lot to ensure it had a chance to grow on me.

The weapon system is a joke - why do a historical FPS and then throw the history book out the window? Germans wielding American weapons face down Russians armed with Japanese weapons? Or rearrange the four nations for the next match. Why is the BAR a weedy (in all respects - rate of fire, power and sound) shadow of the one in CoD3.

Hateful perks like Martyrdom (wow, even though I'm DEAD I still get a totally undeserved kill because you couldn't get away from my RIDICULOUS EXPLODING CORPSE fast enough!) and Juggernaut (WHY? Especially if it all but negates headshots which are the only way the bolt-action rifles are usable) return, along side things that should have been in CoD4 (like a medic class).

The worst thing is the utterly ludicrous attack dogs. This will surely go down in history as one of the most idiotic additions to a game ever. It spoils it. The armies of the world DID NOT cart HUNDREDS OF F***ING DOGS AROUND WITH THEM, keeping them at the frontline so they could unleash them against their foes. You can't see them on the radar, they absorb far too many hits (one took an entire Thompson clip, another survived an Arisaka shot to the face) before dying, and they kill you instantly.

I don't play a first person shooter to spend my time shooting AI controlled dogs. And I'm not buying Call of Duty: World of Woof-fare. Way to 'beta' (which is just a demo by another name to stir up hype) yourselves out of loads of sales by revealing in advance and for free how terrible your game is.

@metalangel

+1 bigtime.

lol @ world of woof fare.

Seriously guys, what's all the hate with the dogs?

I squealed with joy the first time I realised what was happening after hearing barking! Besides a quick shot to the head and the dog goes away.

/ weeps for the heroic death of one of mans best friends :(

Oh and metalangel

"WW2 mod Call of Duty 4 rather than a genuine sequel to Call of Duty 3, which remains one of the best multiplayer FPS games on the 360."

Dude come on! Sure it wasn't as bad as some like to think but it was dull and not as good, or exciting, as (fully patched) COD2. (can't speak for COD1 as I never played it!)

Why is it referred to as CoD5 in the article? I think it's pretty explicitly NOT CoD5 (something which Infinity Ward should be working on right now). I wonder if they will end up calling CoD5 CoD6 instead anyway because of this confusion...

"Dude come on! Sure it wasn't as bad as some like to think but it was dull and not as good, or exciting, as (fully patched) COD2. (can't speak for COD1 as I never played it!) "

Nothing dull about a 24 player, 1 hour long game of WAR on glorious maps, or a similar amount of players playing CTF with vehicles adding to tactical oportunities. You see, you could have 1 hour games in CoD3, because they recognized that in order to do so you have to remove the dependence on a single host. In that respect, CoD4, and its ugly sister, WaW, are a major step back.

i know its a beta but this is not for me unfortunately....

quite glad really...LBP...fable 2...dead space....far cry 2.....socom confrontation....

I think someone must have said it by now but something is REALLY bugging me;

I remember a dev interview on COD5 with treyarch banging on about a 2yr build time on this game that started BEFORE COD4....am i being daft for wondering why this is like an expansion pack with a new skin?

I am looking forward to this. I have not played a lot of the beta as my connection lags at every game.

I like the dogs, in the first online beta game I played and the dogs started howling there was a delicious feeling of terror as you KNEW what was going to happen next. It was a pleasant surprise to machine gun the two that came at me so easily.

I played a lot of CoD 4 multiplayer but the initial purpose for me is single player I love long singleplayer campaigns and I am hoping it will be longer than 4.

I hope Treyarch do well from this, I am happy buying one CoD game per year and if it were only IW then it would be a two year gap. The CoD 3 multiplayer is good grab your disc and a couple of friends and have another go. The servers are not crowded and the lag is nonexistent it is very quick a good contrast with cod 4. and moreso the beta.

'
Nothing dull about a 24 player, 1 hour long game of WAR on glorious maps, or a similar amount of players playing CTF with vehicles adding to tactical oportunities.'

Oh hell yes. Eder Dam War, or that one with the ruins and the river. Aw. Poisson too. It was epic, a real push and pull with constant themes and personal vendettas running amidst artillery strikes and tanks, smoke grenades and painful pushes up to the next flag, explosions going off everywhere.

And me with my rifle at the back. Pewpew!

"making it hard for campers to ply their sneaky trade, but when such measures end up annoying those who are playing fair"

Congrats on spurring on a new generation of whiners by insinuating people who don't run and gun are cheating. Would have credited a journalist with a touch more intelligence.

Worst game release of 2008. The developer are lazy and have no imagination making this a very bad game with shit WW2 guns that arent balanced , any game that does'nt reward skill is going to be a epic fail, COD5 is that bad it makes COD3 look good lol

overall i would give this game a bad 3/10.

Congrats on spurring on a new generation of whiners by insinuating people who don't run and gun are cheating. Would have credited a journalist with a touch more intelligence.

There's a pretty big difference between sniping and camping.

"There's a pretty big difference between sniping and camping."

Still..., I mean, as long as it's not exploiting the code I don't think one should whine about "game styles", even more in a genre that praises "reality", therefor it sounds kinda silly to imagine a guy in a real war complaining about camping/sniping.



Disclaimer: I don't even play DM much (or at all).

"There's a pretty big difference between sniping and camping."

There's also a pretty big difference between either of those and not playing fair. Getting under the map on roundhouse is not playing fair, covering an arc of fire is perfectly within the context of the game. If people either lack the skill to flank/grenade/whatever you or are dumb enough to keep running blindly into that arc then that's their problem but it's by no means not playing fair. Brains > brawn.

I do love your reviews though, Dan...

I see the little un is still complaining about the dogs eh take it she still sucks at the beta

Can't really complain about snipers, but it does get cheesy. Let's face it, you're fighting a team that likely isn't using teamwork and thus you have almost no opposition. It's almost, to me, a coward's way to play the game. If you were going clan for clan, that's a different story, but against a team of nobodies you basically have all day to sit around picking people off.

It's in the game, so you can't complain too much, but it's not something I personally feel good about if I take advantage of it. Juggernaut, too, is in the game, so you really can't complain. But, again, not something I personally feel good about using. Some people don't care about feeling good, though. :P

And I agree WHOLE HEARTEDLY with the COD3 love. Greatest maps EV-RAR!!! :D

Big fan of cod4, especially online, but this just comes across as a bit cartoony, from the animations to the garish primary colours look of the Pacific maps and the rubbish dogs which look like they've come from a PS one game!!

And ww2 is a real bore after Modern Warfare. They should revisit ww2 in a couple of generations down the line so they can really go to town on the graphics and fx which this game sadly doesn't.

I'll probably end up buying it but i don't think i'll be bothered about getting to prestige level online.

I really really want to like this game... I loved using weapons like the K98 and Thompson in CoD3 and am delighted to be able to use weapons like that (unlike the all-powerful modern assault rifles in CoD4) but am dismayed that all the balancing issues of CoD4 have been carried over (Juggernaut, Martyrdom) along with new ones being introduced (the "momentum" thing just means that the team that gets ahead gets even more advantages over their enemy who are surely the ones who need the boost). Add in the dogs, crap presentation and the weakened bolt-action rifles and I will not be buying this any time soon.

what is pwning, why do americans say this (and now brits) ?