Reviewed: December 7, 2006
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Activision

Developer
Treyarch

Released: November 14, 2006
Genre: FPS
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

8
8
9
7
8.1

Supported Features:

And therein lies the rub – the PS3 is consistently proving that it cannot begin to compete with the Xbox 360, at least on cross-platform titles where comparisons are easy and quick to prove the PS3’s shortcomings. In a perfect editorial world I shouldn’t even be comparing PS3 games (apples) to 360 titles (oranges), but most serious gamers own both systems, so you need to know how these games compare.

Call of Duty 3, has arrived for the PS3 launch, hoping to compete with Sony’s first-part Resistance: Fall of Man as the dominate FPS launch title. Only time will tell who wins this battle. Treyarch’s shooter is prepared to blow you away with some explosive gameplay, slick graphics, incredible 3D sound, and a few twists, like Battle Actions, that actually help evolve the franchise. Combine all this with multiplayer support for up to 16 players in teams and head-to-head and you have a good WWII title…just not a great one thank to the PS3 conversion.

Call of Duty 3 breaks new ground in several areas, both technically, and from a design perspective. Unlike last year’s game where you bounced around from campaign to campaign, country to country, you now play a single campaign, the 1944 Normandy Breakout, one of the most crucial and brutal battles of WWII. Along with the US and British troops, Call of Duty 3 also introduces us to the Canadians and the Polish who also play vital roles in this campaign.

The game consists of 14 chronologically ordered missions that are played from the perspective of each nationality, giving you a rare look at how these men actually coordinated their efforts and supported the actions of the others.

The level of historical accuracy is like nothing you have seen or experience. Treyarch has gone the extra mile to make every location and every event as close to the actual experience it was based on. Lt. Col. Hank Keirsey, the chief consultant responsible for making sure your Call of Duty experience is the closest thing to real battle, actually went to Buffalo, NY and interviewed surviving Polish soldiers, and many of their stories and heroic actions have been integrated right into the gameplay.

The game avoids getting too personal by not telling the story of any one soldier, but that doesn’t mean Call of Duty 3 is not cinematic. In fact, this is easily the most cinematic Call of Duty ever made. From the open movie to the closing credits, you will never see a load screen. Using some clever data streaming technology (and 600+ MB on your hard drive), the designers will already have a gorgeous cinematic prepared when one mission ends, and while it plays out the next mission will be loading.

Aside from the screen temporarily shrinking to letterbox proportions for these movies, you would never know it was happening. It’s totally seamless and totally immersive. It’s also slightly “dangerous” because it doesn’t provide any natural stopping points. You might just find yourself playing this game a lot longer than you realize.

This is just the first of countless “wow moments” in Call of Duty 3. It’s also one of my favorite levels to load up and just watch somebody else play to observe their reaction. There are so many cool levels and parts of levels in this game, but I don’t dare spoil any of the surprises that wait for you. Many of them, like getting ambushed by an enemy soldier and having to do melee combat with the trigger buttons aren’t even scripted so you never know when they might pop up.

For those of you who had a tough time beating Call of Duty 2 on Veteran mode (yes, my hand is raised too) you will be either sad or glad to know that the AI has definitely been stepped up a notch and the new Hard skill level is now the equivalent to last year’s Veteran mode, and this year’s Veteran mode is, well, let’s just say morally devastating. I was playing on Normal mode to get through the game for this review and there were numerous times when I just “knew” I would already be dead on Veteran.

Mission structure has been radically redesigned. While Call of Duty 2 offered a few missions where you had multiple objectives and could tackle them in the order of your choosing, almost every mission in Call of Duty 3 features mission branching requiring special tactics for each path you might take. This gives the game a more open feel with greater replay potential.

Call of Duty 3 is going to “get in your face” with their new Battle Actions, an all-new close-quarters battle system that allows players to fight hand-to-hand, improvise explosive devices, disarm traps and perform other battlefield actions that require rapid reflexes to survive. These “moments” are scattered throughout the game, some predictable and others, not so much.

It’s a clever system that works well with the triggers and analog sticks and even some button presses. It very much reminded me of the QTE (quick time events) in games like Shenmue and God of War. You’ll be playing along as normal and then you’ll need to set a C4 charge which requires two button presses with a swirling of the analog stick between them. Or you might need to crank open a steam vent (also swirling the stick) or vigorously row a boat (half swirls of the stick) across a river under explosive fire.

Driving missions are back with three levels that allow you to drive vehicles like jeeps and tanks. Sadly, there is no bomber mission, but you will get to jump out of a plane in a mission called Night Drop, but there is no freefall and no chute steering. You get to look around for about ten seconds before you crash into a tree. There is one fun mission early in the game where you get to ride on the back of a tank and use your binoculars to call out enemy locations as you move through town.

Treyarch has managed to work the motion control ability of the Sixaxis controller into the game, but its implementation seems forced and awkward, and most of the time just doesn’t work, forcing you to return to the more conventional input style. You can shake your controller to grapple with enemies and hit them with your rifle stock, and you can hold the controller like a steering wheel to drive the vehicles, but it is way too sensitive given the level of difficulty in these driving sequences. Stick with the analog sticks.

If you have ever felt like a coward for turning and running away when that grenade indicator appeared on the screen, while simultaneously cursing the enemies ability to throw your own grenades right back at you, now is the time for rejoicing. Call of Duty 3 finally allows you to pick-up and throw enemy grenades back at them. Payback at last! Just watch for the grenade in a fist icon and don’t blow your arm off trying it.

The PlayStation 3 doesn’t have anything that resembles the 360’s Achievement Point so there is no incentive (other than personal satisfaction) for replaying on the harder skills levels, and there is certainly no reason to try playing a level with a certain weapon or doing a level entirely by stealth or hand-to-hand. I never realized until now just how much those gamer score points really lend themselves to playing games longer than you normally would.

Multiplayer is supported for up to 16 players (versus the 24 on the 360), but the PS Network is a pale substitute for Xbox Live. It’s harder to find players, and once you do the laggy gameplay makes the online modes nearly unplayable and the lack of voice support destroys any chance of team tactics.

A good example is while you are riding on the truck just after training. On the 360 if you look at the guys’ helmets you can see netting that appears to be a separate entity popping off the helmet with its own shadow. On the PS3 this net texture is just “painted on” and looks very flat.

Of course this might be nitpicking but when you start compiling all these small flaws on top of each other it becomes very noticeably in the overall picture that the scenery and the men aren’t just up to next-gen status, especially when you factor in some collision detection issues that have dead bodies stuck in walls or hovering in mid-air.

Water looks good but not as good as the 360 and the smoke just doesn’t seem to have that same vaporous quality to it. About the only thing the PS3 manages to do as good as, if not slightly better is particle effects, which really help to enhance the battle sequences and explosions. Smoke, dirt, and dust have all been enhanced and look and act more realistically. Fire and particularly the heat vapors are awesome. One trip through the orange pulsating foundry air will have you sweating.

The architecture is very realistic and the interiors of buildings feature a lot of detail. There is also environmental physics (destructible cover) that not only provides a unique approach to planning your attacks, it can also change the battlefield in real-time. That wall might provide a good hiding spot until a grenade or tank cannon blasts it into rubble.

One of the most stunning levels for me was in the first half of the game where you storm a train yard and then you enter this abandoned office building where all the walls are made of windows. So you are looking through maybe three or four walls and you can just make out an enemy, and they can just see you. Once bullets start flying there is glass shattering and you really have no cover unless you duck below the windowsill. And if a grenade happens to go off…well, let’s just say the resulting glass shower is impressive.

The forest level is also one of the more impressive levels in the game. The PS3 seemed to be able to handle the outdoor environments, trees, grass, and other foliage really well. The sunlight gleams through the canopy and each blade of grass waves in the breeze.

There is some truly excellent dialogue that shows the quickly formed bonds of men during wartime. After my third time of getting knocked down by explosions and getting carried to safety, I had to laugh when my new buddy actually said something about it. You’ll fall out of the sky and join with total strangers who accept you and make you part of their mission. The foreign accents are excellent and the script is very well written.

As always, Call of Duty 3 comes with a stirring soundtrack that includes battle-ready music for the menus and real-time scoring for the gameplay that cues to the action. It will be deathly silent as you creep through the cricket laced forest at night but once the sky lights up orange and the AA guns go off, your sub-woofer is in for the ride of its life.

The lack of an achievement point or other type or reward system really takes away from the replayability of the solo campaign and the multiplayer has been stripped down in modes and number of players, but the PS Network with its laggy gameplay, not to mention no voice support, scores, or leaderboards, just ruin the online experience.

The best thing I can say about Call of Duty 3 is that after playing I actually felt like I had been through a war. There were moments when I would catch myself physically ducking or leaning my body as I tried to look around a corner. I started to appreciate the men in my unit and a sense of loss when somebody was lost. Signing up and going off to war might not be for everybody, but playing this game will certainly make you respect those who did and those who still do.