October 8, 2008 - When everyone heard that Treyarch would be returning to helm development on the next installment in the heralded Call of Duty series, the gaming world held their breath in trepidation. That's not to say that Call of Duty 3 (the last game in the series to be developed at Treyarch) was a bad game, it just wasn't up to the vaunted standards of Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
I recently got to spend some time with the four-player co-op campaign as well as the competitive multiplayer beta that is set to hit the Internet sometime before the game launches. Being a huge fan of Call of Duty 4, it was going to take something special to impress me. Luckily Treyarch had something on deck that would do exactly that.
The biggest problem with Call of Duty 3 was that it was too much like other games in the series. It was World War II, featured no real difference in core gameplay and was set in Europe. We had seen all of that before. World at War puts us in the Pacific Theater, a piece of World War II that has gone nearly untouched in the videogame world and gives us brand spankin' new four-player cooperative gameplay that follows the entire campaign mode. As if that wasn't enough, there's also a structure built around the competitive multiplayer that is reminiscent of COD4 while still changing it in a few important ways to keep things fresh.
The four-player co-op match that I hopped into started up without a hitch and presented my squad and I with a tree-shrouded river bed that we needed to progress along. An interesting touch to World at War's co-op gameplay is that it isn't just the four human-controlled soldiers venturing onto the field of battle, but instead you're with an entire squad of men. That's an important fact that ups the intensity when you get into some of the more serious standoffs, something that I was about to encounter.
Before long, the river gave way to a huge, dirt-ridden battlefield with enemy tanks and troops that needed to be taken out. Vehicles pay an important role in the multiplayer in COD: World at War as you'll now be able to hop into them while playing competitively. Sadly I had to play the part of demolition man while in co-op mode. Before long my men and I made our way to a multi-tiered structure with gun placements and soldiers firing down on us. It was a standoff that had to be waded through, not rushed as I learned through several deaths of my own.
When you go down in World at War's co-op play, you're alive for a certain amount of time until you bleed out. It's in that window that your friendly soldiers can revive you, but doing so usually means putting themselves in harm's way.
It was on my third or fourth life that I realized I just needed to hang back with my crew and pick off soldiers one by one. I'd just leave it to the AI-controlled soldiers to run out and get killed. And so they did. Not in a dumb way, but in a way that made it obvious that their intention was to push our frontline forward and push the enemy back. Sadly, that didn't exactly work. It's that feeling of watching your comrades run to their death while three actual people are screaming into your ear about how they're being pinned down by mortar and tank shells, that really sells the co-op play in World at War.
Oh, and did I forget to mention that a latter part of the mission had us sticking the end of the new M2 Flamethrower into a bunker and flaming the Japanese soldiers inside? Yeah, it was cool. Or was it hot?
Not to be outdone, the competitive multiplayer has also made a few additions to the tried-and-true formula that worked so well in COD4. You can still level up your character and unlock new perks and you can still earn prestige several times over (though this time you get a reward for doing so), but there are a few important differences. First of all, perks now include the ability to sprint while crawling, climb trees faster, play dead, and swim faster among others.
Not only that, but in-game rewards have changed a bit as well. Now, instead of getting a UAV for three kills in a row, an airstrike for five and a gunship for seven, you'll get a recon plane for three, an artillery barrage for five, and a pack of wild, rabid dogs for seven. Yes, you read that right, you'll actually be able to unleash a pack of dogs that go around looking for enemy soldiers to devour. You'll also no longer have the opportunity to stab those suckers in the neck when they pounce on you, making your tracking ability important when trying to gun them down on the fly.
The other two rewards performed exactly as you remember despite their different names. Oh, and having both Keifer Sutherland and Gary Oldman in your ear at all times yelling out things like, "Release the dogs!" and "Our Recon Plane'll find 'em!" is truly awesome. It's like a scene from 24 and Air Force One all wrapped in one!
Tanks are a big change to the multiplayer that should provide some help to those put off by the twitch-oriented nature of the COD gameplay. Two players can hop into the massive machine, one at the gunner and one in the main driver's seat. Interestingly enough, the man sitting on top at the gunner seat can actually take cover if things get too hot.
Yes, the multiplayer gameplay of Call of Duty: World at War was a pleasant surprise. While it certainly felt similar to Modern Warfare, it did what appears to be enough to keep it near the top of the pack. The co-op is fast and even more intense than the single-player campaign promises to be and the competitive multiplayer packs a similar punch as I remember, but this time with the excitement of vehicles thrown in. World War II might be a familiar battleground for some gamers, but Call of Duty: World at War looks like it could show it off in a whole new light.
Call of Duty: World at War is set to release on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC on November 11.
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