Also for: Windows, Xbox One
[Please note that I'm reviewing this game's single-player campaign only.
I'm no fan of online multiplayer and have played very little of it, so my
opinion wouldn't be worth a damn anyway.]
Call of Duty: WWII numbs the mind, assaults the senses and very rarely makes
me believe this is a realistic depiction of war, although it fakes it in a
convincing manner. The characters talk in stupid military jargon and long
for the war to be over, but at the same time seem to get a hard-on from
being good soldiers. I couldn't care less about that. I have an easier time accepting
stuff like a death-defying chase sequence, where you drive a jeep and
try to derail a train whilst avoiding gunfire from its wagons.
Peter Jackson would be proud of that one.
The running and gunning works fine with an undetectable aim assist and a
helpful sound design. CoD: WWII goes all in on the camaraderie of
war. Your war buddies keep barking out orders or warning calls. If
you'd like to respond you can request help, like extra ammo, health kits,
grenades, or scouting. You occasionally earn some gratitude by helping
allies in a pickle. All this is no novel concept, but for what it's worth it
does a decent job of it. You feel like a part of something bigger.
The clarity is the most impressive aspect of the game, which is a testament
to good level design. Amidst all the chaos, with gunfire and ear-shattering explosions everywhere, I know what to do at all times. Whenever I screw up, I can only
blame myself for not looking around the detailed surroundings well enough.
Amidst crumbling cities, overgrown fields and foreign village streets I find my
way in an instant. The weapons, always logically placed, should tell
me what to expect. A sniper rifle is a relief, because I know I get
to pick Nazis off from a safe distance behind cover. Finding a bazooka,
on the other hand, makes me piss my pants.
One-off sequences like stealth, infiltration and vehicular combat break the spell. It's tricky to adapt to the new control methods that don't work
nearly as well, let alone change the point of view to a new character. The
unforgiving stealth segments in particular really don't add to the
experience, even though the infiltration and sabotage objective have become
a mainstay in WW2-depictions. Luckily, creators
Sledgehammer knows man-to-man combat is where Call of Duty excels,
and the detours don't last too long.
It's baffling how similar the experience felt to the Call of Duty I
remember from decades past, with cutscene and action, cutscene and action
in a linear chain of events until the closing credits. The chaos,
intensity and immersion is real, as is the intrusion of the formulaic story that breaks in to change the conditions. Just as you get into the
groove, the game interrupts it. I can understand why so many people prefer
the more systemic, free-flowing multiplayer gameplay.
The eleven missions (twelve if you count the epilogue story mission) take
you from the beaches of Normandy on the 6th of June 1944, to the
liberation of the concentration camps in the spring and summer of '45.
Coincidentally, these are the missions I recall the best. The Normandy
sequences are tough, with you trying to learn the controls as you clear
out a handful of bunkers. Realistically you shouldn't survive even the
opening cutscene, but how much fun would realism be in a war setting? You'd be cowering in trenches or marching down roads for hours, only to die in an ambush.
But if it feels old-school, at least the presentation is top-notch. You
hardly have time to enjoy the detailed environments, like the quaint
summertime French villages and the snowy Ardennes forests around
Christmas. They provide a great sense of place that is hard to pass on,
since the motion blur often makes screenshots useless.
You follow the same platoon throughout, with brief interjections from
branching war efforts where you get the taste of different gameplay
mechanics. The high-quality character models let me instantly
recognize Josh Duhamel as Sergeant Pierson, the tough,
antagonistic second-in-command to Lieutenant Turner (Jeffrey Pierce), the saintly guy. Their good vs evil dynamic, obviously inspired
by the classic Vietnam movie Platoon (1986), instils some
hope of a statement on war, but it disappointingly chickens out right
before the end.
You, in the role of Private Daniels (Brett Zimmerman), are an instrument in this power struggle. You've been living in the shadow of a big
brother whom you let down when it mattered the most. By telling Daniels'
story, the writers try to make it personal, but I don't buy into that
redemption baloney. The way Sledgehammer don't reveal the full scope of it until the
end makes no sense. And when it's delivered through decades-old clichés like
"You ain't got nothin' to prove", "I'm tired of taking his shit" and "Glad you
got my back" it doesn't mean much.
World War II is the great human tragedy that fiction has transformed into
joyous glory time after time. In this umpteenth attempt, the words
that tell the story have become so washed-out they just ring hollow, no matter how convicing the acting. Luckily,
in its finest moments Call of Duty: WWII turns into the visceral experience
that makes the words unnecessary. When you crawl around unarmed in a darkened basement looking for a doomed French girl, with the enemy swarming
the building, the horror is quite real.
It might not keep the quality all the way through the six to eight hours it
takes to finish, but however uneven, the Call of Duty: WWII campaign turns out
a moderately enjoyable experience in the end. When it embraces its core gameplay
mechanics of man-versus-man I'm eager to try out more, but throw anything else
into the mix and I'm out.
Comments
Post a Comment