Call of Duty 3 is yet another historical jump back to the late days of World War II, with the liberation of France around August 1944 soon at hand. You take command of three separate soldiers all working with both the Allied troops and local resistance. As opposed to telling each story completely before moving onto the next as in the previous Call of Duty games, each chapter switches the action to a different part of the campaign, with the successful completion of one mission making possible the next objective for another one of the player characters. This change provides a slightly tighter feel for the story instead of the multiple arena stories in the prequels.
There aren’t many surprises in the game for anyone that’s player a first person shooter, and even less for those that have played previous Call of Duty games. Using numerous real weapons available during the latter part of the war, you work from objective to objective marked on your compass, which include clearing out nests of German soldiers, demolishing anti-aircraft guns, or defending a strategic position until reinforcements can arrive. You’re able to take a fair amount of damage, but as your vision reddens, you either need to find cover behind trees or crumbled walls, or change your stance from standing to kneeling or prone for a short bit of time to recover before you take too much more. As part of the realism, you can only carry two weapons at a time, but you can pick up any you find left in the battlefield as needed or the situation demands. You also carry both explosive and smoke grenades, and new to this version, you can pick up live grenades thrown at you and toss them back towards the enemy before they go off. Special actions, such as triggering a detonation device or facing an enraged German in melee combat use reactive commands that appear on screen that you need to complete before continuing. In addition, you get to try your hands at tanks, jeeps, mortars, and mounted guns at various points during the campaign.
Where Call of Duty 3 takes another deviation from prequels is the level design across the fourteen chapters in the game. First, by having the entire game take place within the confines of France and a short time period, all the levels feel much more cohesive and connected, even if the textures seem to get repetitive. Regardless, the game does a great job of reproducing the ravages of war across France’s villages and countrysides while still providing some strategy for cover and offensive strikes. Secondly, while the game is primarily linear, there are several points where you have an option of which path to take based on the orders given by the ranking officer, splitting the squad to deal with all options eventually. In one case, you can opt to lead a sniper team or instead rush Germans in a trench, while in another, both teams work together to clear the way forward on criss-crossing paths. While most of the game is linear, these branches points do help to make the game feel somewhat larger than it is. A few levels also make use of objectives that move you through the level multiple times, as to make it feel that you’re not confined to a linear tunnel with no way of turning around and going back.
Unfortunately, Call of Duty 3 has little new for the experienced gamer besides the challenge of new levels. The AI used for both the enemy and your allies is rather predictable and it becomes rather easy to know likely ambush points and what they’ll use for cover. The challenge only increases through the levels as your stance becomes less offensive and more defensive with the numbers in favor of the Germans over your loyal troops, but anyone that’s played any first-person shooter is well familiar with this pattern. While multiple difficulty levels can challenge you once you’ve played through once, the mission layouts and attack patterns remain the same, leaving a second run-through rather dull.
Outside of the single player game is online multiplayer for the 360 through XBox Live. Both ranked and quick matches are available, with deathmatch, capture-the-flag, and capture-point maps as in the Battlefield series with character classes that one can chose to promote teamwork. Maps can be rather large and support up to 24 players, though some maps, if using well less than this number, can seem very empty. Even though there’s been one patch issued already for the 360 version, there’s still a few buggy issues left with multiplayer, but likely not going to ruin the fun of these matches.
On the 360, the game’s next-gen graphics and sound help pretty well with placing you in the battle. Graphic filters are used well for when you focus along a gunsight or in a dusty, dimly-lit wreckage. The sounds of battle can get pretty intense, but fortunately the volume of the voice over work is sufficiently loud to carry over this though subtitles are available if needed. There’s a few places where you can see a few frames dropped when the action gets pretty intense but otherwise runs rather smooth. There’s also a decent physics engine that’s primarily used for objects used as cover, like crates and furniture, for if they take enough hits, they’ll collapse and leave you exposed.
Call of Duty 3 basically plays it safe, taking the established gameplay from the previous games and attempts to add a few new features, but definitely doesn’t break the mold. As a result, it feels just like another first-person shooter taking advantage of the abilities of a next-gen system. The game is executed well, but can quickly become forgettable.
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