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From the Infinity Ward comes this second installment on PC of the Call Of Duty franchise on a all-new proprietary engine of their own. For Call Of Duty 2, we'll refer to it as CoD2 from now on, Infinity Ward has decided to get rid of the widely used Quake 3 engine and use their own new engine instead which brings along a few added features to improve the experience. While things may appear to be very similar at first glance with the other characters moving similarly and the menu looking similar as well but looking further you will see that the lighting has improved extensively giving a much more real feel to things along with the most amazing smoke ever to be seen in any game.
The single player aspect of the game is the most impressive part of this WWII FPS. Making you feel like one soldier in a vast war. You start out the game as a Soviet soldier in training which leads right into your first mission against the fascist German army. The snowy Soviet missions are in great detail as are all of the mission in CoD2 but you soon find out the Soviet way of doing things is a bit different than others when the Germans are held up in a building in the early parts of the game. The Germans want to negotiate and you superiors instead order the building blown up with all the Germans inside. When the building comes down you can feel the awe of things in this game and sets the tone of big things to come.
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The Soviet weapons you get to use are as follows, SVt40, PPsh, PPs42, Mosin-Nagant, and the Scoped Mosin-Nagant. You will find all of these weapons to be useful in their own right at times. The SVt40 is good at medium-long to short range. The PPsh is good at medium range with lots of enemies because of it being highly inaccurate and best for short range action. Just about the same goes for the PPs42 with it only being slightly more accurate than the PPsh but not as damaging, if given the choice it may be better to go with the PPsh over the PPs42. Mosin-Nagant was a cheap high production gun and a solid gun and the scoped version does hold an advantage over it's German counterpart and that is the ability to quickly load a full five round clip all at once over having to load each bullet one at a time. You will also get to use the Soviet's grenade and also smoke grenades.
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While the previous installment of CoD made you complete one nations section of the game before moving on, CoD2 seems to go but a time scale so you can quickly move on to parts of the British section before completing the Soviets. The most of the British section of the game happens in the nicely created desert of Northern Africa, some in small groups of buildings fighting off the Germans as they advance on you, while happen in the vast desert with tanks and others in a large town or small city in the African Desert. At times the fighting takes on a defender feel while at other times it's a bit like trench warfare and others it feels like urban warfare, hiding behind barrels and throwing smoke grenades for cover. The British section feels quite impressive at times as you may now by playing the CoD2 demo. The British section ends with a mission in France.
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The British weapons in game are as follows, Lee-Enfield, Sten, Bren LMG, and you will also get to use the American Thompson. The Lee-Enfield is the bolt action of choice, if you need a bolt action gun the Lee-Enfield is the way to go. The Sten is a highly inaccurate sub-machine gun and although it is only really good for close ranges it's still quite fun to use at times. The Bren LMG is quite a cool gun. The Bren is a fast firing highly accurate, when in aiming mode, machine gun and you will find it quite useful. The Thompson well is that famous gun every one has heard of, the Tommy Gun, although if you are not familiar with WWII you may not recognize it with out the round clip which is not used. You also get grenades to use as well, including smoke grenades.
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The last national part in the game is the American campaign into France on D-Day and across Europe. The maps for the American section are also extremely well done with all the details all the way down to the mud in the trenches on D-Day. The lighting of the new engine along with the great textures and details make the D-Day mission in this game one of the best if not the best. Your riding in a Higgins landing craft, as with other games, and the usual things happen as you expect in a D-Day mission and then you see the cliff and the hooked rope lines are shot up off of the landing craft headed for the cliffs. You are coming ashore at Point Du Hoc where their mission was to eliminate the big guns so that the soldiers at other beaches on that day wouldn't have to deal with them. The action soon gets intense and lasts just about constantly through out the whole mission.
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The Weapons for the Americans were as follows, Colt .45, M2 Frag Grenade, M1A1 Carbine, Grease Gun, M1 Garand, Thompson, Browning Automatic Rifle, M1897 Trench Gun, and the Springfield Sniper Rifle. The Colt .45 is really only a last resort weapon if you run out of ammo for any thing else. The M2 Frag Grenade is well a Grenade and you know what Grenades do. The M1A1 Carbine is gun designed for paratroopers and can be useful at times. The Grease Gun is like the Sten, a highly inaccurate sub-machine gun and there is no reason not to go with the Thompson instead unless you run out of ammo. The M1 Garand is one of the guns to use and you should. The Thompson is a good reliable machine gun and you will find use with it at times. The Browning Automatic Rifle(BAR) is a really powerful gun and can put out just about the most damage in a short time than any other gun, although it is heavy. The M1897 Trench Gun is only available in the multiplayer part of the game and some find it to be a cheap weapon even though it is only good for short range shooting. The Springfield Sniper Rifle is a historic gun going back a long ways, one of it's draw backs is the extremely long reload times. Of course you also get access to smoke grenades as well.
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During your play you will come across German weapons of the dead German soldiers, these will be extremely useful when running out of ammo with you normal guns or you may choose to switch to a German Weapon by choice. The German weapons are as follows, MP40, MP44, Kar98k, Panzerschrek, Gewehr 43, and the Luger. The MP40 will be very useful to you and some call it the best submachine gun in the game due to the very little recoil it has. The MP44 is a bigger machine gun and is some people's personal favorite because of it's ability to take down enemies fast and it looks kind of cool as well. The Kar98k is a bolt action rifle and has an extremely long rate of fire because the bolt has to be moved after every shot. The Panzerschrek is the only anti-tank weapon you fire in CoD2. The other anti-tank weapons, although not German weapons, are the sticky bombs. With the next weapon the CoD2 makers made a factual historical error, the Gewehr 43 is available for you to pick up off the ground and use in the the Soviet missions which happen a year before the Gewehr 43 was available. In fact the Soviet missions happening in 1942 were the battles the inspired the the then current Gewehr 41 to be upgraded with the air pressure system of the Soviet SVT40 to become the Gewehr 43. The Luger is a handgun like the Colt .45 but does hold one round more than the .45. You also come across German Grenades that are extremely useful at many times.
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Infinity Ward has included an other nice little feature to the single player section of this game and that is historic WWII video clips, stills, and audio before some of the missions. The video clips are provided by the Military Channel and adds a nice effect for those who are WWII history buffs. For example before the D-Day mission they show a long video clip of various scenes of WWII while having an address to the troops from Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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The multiplayer consists of five different modes, Deathmatch(DM), Team Deathmatch(TDM), Capture the Flag(CTF), Headquarters(HQ), and Search & Destroy(SD). Deathmatch is a free for all, every man for himself. Team Deathmatch is where the objective is to kill as many on the other team as you can for your teams cause. Capture the flag is self explanatory, two teams and the objective is to capture the other team's flag and bring it back to your base. Headquarters is where two teams attempt to capture one of two different points on the map designated as capture points for each team in special parts of the map. Enemy players can destroy the headquarters by getting close to an opponents headquarters and waiting. While a team has an operational headquarters it gains points for every second that goes by but can not spawn again, if they die, until the headquarters is destroyed. Search & Destroy is where one team has to plant a bomb at one of the other team's two objectives in order to blow it up.
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Now all that concerning multiplayer makes for some great multiplayer action and lots of fun but if you have played Wolfenstein:ET or even the objective based single player mode of this game you won't be getting objective based type multiplayer. This is a big long running mistake by mistake by Infinity Ward is some opinions. You will also find that the multiplayer is also missing any sort of D-Day beach invasion type of map which would be really nice to have for multiplayer and hopefully one may come along at some point. If not for those two things this games multiplayer could be great but still with out those two important things it still finds ways of being enjoyable.
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Now to bring every thing together the new engine which brings spectacular game player and amazing visuals, the nice looking textures and attention to detail, and the best smoke in any game hands down. With all that along with the historical setting of WWII and the historically accurateness of most thing in the game make this one of the most immersive games we have ever seen. The single player is fantastic and has a great story line with the time line like progression through the game. The only real thing that holds this game back is the lack of objective based multiplayer and the lack of a D-Day beach invasion mulitplayer map, if Infinity Ward were to of had these two things in the game, maybe they will be added, it may have gotten an overall full ten out of ten.
<b>Graphics</b> - We give it a <b>9/10</b> because it has amazing graphics but we have seen a few games with better but for being able to run a little bit slower machine, if you turn stuff down, you can't really beat it. It's not even just about the lighting and textures but the way the characters move seems to be part of the graphics that make it more real like and not over done in any way.
<b>Sound</b> - We would give it a <b>10/10</b> because the sound really pulls you in more than you would think it does and makes the game more believable, as if you were there.
<b>AI</b> - We give it a <b>9/10</b> because they can be pretty smart at times ducking for cover and with the enemy throwing back grenades at times.
<b>Gameplay</b> - We give it a <b>10/10</b> because you just can't beat the way the single player part of the game plays, it's just the best it could be.
<b>Multiplayer</b> - We give it a <b>7/10</b> because while the game types they have included do make for some good play and nice fun, the lack of real objectives like knock out the tank or take the tower or some thing like that really pulls down the online experience for some. It would also be nice to have a D-Day beach invasion map as well.
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<b>Overall</b> - We give it a <b>9/10</b>. Definitely go get this one if you can, it's one of the best games out there for WWII shooters.
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<b>Minimum System Requirements</b>
- 3D Hardware Accelerator Card Required - 100% DirectX(R) 9.0c compatible 64 MB Hardware Accelerator video card and the latest drivers
- English version of Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 2000/XP
- Pentium(R) IV 1.4GHz or AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1700+
- 256 MB RAM (512 MB RAM recommended)
- 100% DirectX(R) 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers.
- 100% Windows(R) 2000/XP compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers
- 4.0GB of uncompressed free hard disk space (plus 600MB for Windows(R) 2000/XP swap file)
- 8x Speed CD-ROM drive or 2x DVD-ROM drive
<b>Multiplayer Requirements</b>
- Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported
- Internet play requires broadband connection and latest drivers
- LAN play requires network interface card and latest drivers
<b>Computer Used in Review</b>
-PNY GeForce6200 128MB AGP8x - DirectX(R) 9.0c
-Windows XP Professional x64 Trial
-AMD Athlon64 2800+
-512MB RAM
-Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit
-Note: All screenshots taking in the lesser DX7 Mode for FPS playability reasons.
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