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Provides a great single-player experience that immerses the player completely in the experience. If not for the lacking multiplayer, this game would be nearly perfect.

Call of Duty 2 has very large shoes to fill. The original Call of Duty reset the standard by which all World War 2 first person shooters are judged. Taking over the premiere position from EA's Medal of Honor wasn't easy, but Activision managed just fine. By redefining cinematic gameplay and adding innovative new gameplay mechanics the original Call of Duty became the new king of the very crowded WW2 shooter hill. Will its sequel set the bar higher yet?



Immediately obvious with this title is the updated graphics. With a completely new proprietary graphics engine Call of Duty 2 looks leaps and bounds better than its predecessor. The environments are rendered beautifully with high resolution textures, impressive lighting and great particle effects. The character models have improved substantially as well. They are highly detailed models which are animated fluidly and realistically. This game is easily the best looking WW2 shooter available and also ranks as one of the best looking games available in any genre.



As expected the audio experience provided here is exceptional. The effects are excellent, as is the voice acting and surround sound execution. This game should be played loud with surround sound whenever possible. The immersion provided by today's games is greatly dependent on the sound, and Call of Duty 2 doesn't disappoint.



There are a variety of changes that have been made to the singeplayer experience since its predecessor. The most apparent of which is the updated health system. Rather than requiring “Health Kits” pick-ups to refill an onscreen “Health Bar”, Infinity Ward Moved to a Health Bar-less self healing system. The players health is not indicated onscreen while uninjured. Once damage is incurred however, the outer edges of the screen slowly turn red and the player character starts breathing heavy. The first couple of times this happens the game will also pop up a message telling you to take cover to return to full health. Once cover is taken the labored breathing slowly stops and the screen fades back to normal.



The move to this system was in response to players in the previous game (and most games like it) backtracking after sustaining damage to pick up left-behind Health Kits before moving on to new areas. Infinity Ward wanted to keep the player moving forward to provide a more intense experience that isn't broken up with the lulls in gameplay caused by backtracking. In this regard they were successful, very successful. Once the single-player campaign has begun, the action doesn't let up till the end.



The levels are fairly linear in nature with some parallel branching of objectives provided in certain instances, allowing for their completion in which ever order the player chooses.

The parallelism of objectives is a nice change, but under-used. The levels where this is implemented were fairly open and allowed for a lot more freedom in tactics that can be used. The objectives blend seamlessly regardless of order choice, and all in all makes for a more visceral experience.



An example of this is where upon encountering resistance in a town the objective given is to secure all the buildings in the area. Each building is indicated on the player's compass individually and can be cleared out in any order. The close proximity of the buildings means that while clearing out one, fire will also be received from enemies in other buildings. In addition there are clearings in which the player can be shot at from several buildings at any given moment.



This experience is so enjoyable that it very effectively displays the weaknesses of levels not designed in this manner found in many games of this type included many levels also found in this title. There is a stark contrast between these levels and the levels that follow the same linear, 'follow a specific path and play it out the same way every time' formula carried over from the previous Call of Duty and its expansion pack.



The multiplayer aspect of Call of Duty 2 is a different story entirely. Going opposite of the trend recently visible in online gaming, Call of Duty 2 removes the vehicular combat ability Gray Matter added to the original Call of Duty with the United Offensive expansion pack. In fact, most of what Gray Matter added is gone. There is no more moving up the ranks while playing online and the large-scale maps used for the vehicular combat are gone too. The only element that remains from United Offensive's expanding of the Call of Duty experience is the smoke grenades.



There are no major additions made to the multiplayer experience provided making this a far less rich experience than Call of Duty: United Offensive. In fact the only addition found that affects gameplay is the addition of the “Trench Gun”- or shotgun. In the eyes of many (included this reviewer), the shottie can very quickly deteriorate the online experience to an annoying mash of idiots running around with shotguns. While the shotgun's effectiveness is lessened at a distance, the lack of any large scale levels and focus on street and trench warfare makes it overly effective in its current implementation. Hopefully there will be some weapon balancing done with a patch sometime in the future.



Overall, Infinity Ward has once again made the best WW2 shooter on the market. The single player campaign is fantastic and alone is worth every penny this game will cost gamers. The multiplayer on the other hand is not improved in any manner save graphically. In fact the multiplayer falls short of the bar set by Call of Duty: United Offensive. Offering less choice is never an improvement, and hopefully Infinity Ward will remedy this in the future - or maybe someone such as Gray Matter Studios will make an expansion pack and fix what's broken.

Review by Nigel Grammer.