Yet another WWII shooter. You might thing everyone is sick of them now but somehow this sequel is still great fun.
For those who have played many WWII shooters on consoles or the PC, you won't find anything ground breaking in this game in terms of gameplay or story. What you will be treated to is the most realistic immersion into a warzone you've ever experienced. This is achievable due to the Xbox 360's brute graphics processing power and amazing 5.1 surround sound support. There is no other shooter as visually or auditorilly astounding as this game.
Every texture of the environment is rendered in incredibly high detail giving you an amazing high definition treat for your eyes. Character models still don't look really life-like in the face but there is still just so much detail in everything else. Tanks, jeeps and artillery guns are full of every little detail so even up close they look like the real thing. I believe the most impressive and innovative graphics feature though, is the realism of smoke and dust. This game makes full use of Xbox 360's power to produce huge amounts of realistic smoke from explosions, grenades and other smouldering ruins and this is no easy task. You will also see a lot of sand and dust kicked up in the desert missions. Perhaps they made use of smoke a little too much because I was dissapointed that I couldn't see very much of the actual flames from explosions. There are occassions where you will see the fireball but sadly, the developers still haven't managed to make a good fireball effect. I guess this must be very hard to do becuase I haven't played a game yet that had realistic explosions. One final note about the graphics; the game runs buttery smooth at 60fps 99% of the time. No PC can put out graphics like this and run at rock solid frame rates. Now if the developers had made the graphics overall look a little more realistic then I would have to give it a perfect 10.
The missions are action packed from beginning to end. There is nothing sneaky or covert about COD2. You are immediately thrown into an insane, chaotic battle with many of your comrades fighting alongside you. Above are plains dog fighting while artillery shells explode all around you. The screams and frantic yells of allies and the enemy can be heard constantly as bullets and tracer fire zip by your head. This is just my way of giving you a small description of a small part of what the action is like.
Most of the fighting takes place with you in the thick of the action surrounded by allied soldiers fighting with you which helps to give you the feeling of being part of a large scale assault. But the downside is that your helpful little buddies always get in your way. For example, you're ducking behind some crates for cover while peaking out to shoot at the enemy then suddenly you realize you can't move back to cover because an ally has sat down right beside you. I think they should have just let you be able to push them out of the way so this creates some frustrating moments.
One of the more interesting aspects of the game is the absence of a health bar. It may seem strange or scary but really it is much better than the standard health system. When you get shot the screen flashes red in the direction you were hit from so there won't be any cheap kills where you can't find your killer. Also the whole perimeter of the screen will glow red when you are almost dead giving you a few seconds to duck into cover and while you are resting you regain your "health". This feature eliminates the constant watching of your health and encourages you to take risks because there is always time to recover if you happen to get shot up really bad. Even if you die your respawn area is not far from where you died thanks to the many checkpoints.
On the downside I was dissapointed that this "next-gen" game doesn't have many destructable areas. There is the odd crates and barrels you can destroy but not much else which is a real shame and detracts from the realism the rest of the game provides. Thankfully some variety is thrown in, in the form of vehicle missions where you take control of a tank or ride on a jeep. Here you can finally get to blow up lots of other vehicles and objects and some of these missions are extremely fun.
The sound perfectly matches the caliber of the graphics. With a 5.1 surround sound system you will be literally ducking for cover as you swear there is a tank about to roll right into your living room! Big booms and deep base from explosions will shake your boots and the loud crackle and sputtering of weapons fire will jolt you out of your chair. There is just so much going on visually and audibly in this game that it all comes together to give you the most intense WWII shooter anywhere.
Sadly I do not have anything good to say about the online play becuase, well, I could only log in once and that was only for a few minutes until I got disconnected. Everywhere you go you will find people complaining that they cannot log into an online game at all. Activision wrote an apology at www.xbox.com and gives empty promises that they are working to fix these issues. As far as I can see they totally dropped the ball on the online component. There is hardly any options for customizing online games as well. Maybe the game was rushed to meet the launch deadline and multiplayer had to suffer but I sure hope that they come up with a good fix for the disconnect and lag issues soon.
As it stands, COD2 is one of the best single player games on the Xbox 360. It has great graphics with some surprisingly good use of smoke and other environmental effects. The action is frantic, fast and fun to play and the sound will knock your socks off. Just don't expect much when you try playing on Xbox Live just yet. If you are hoping for some great online action then check out Perfect Dark Zero. COD2 can't quite shake off that compromised launch game feel but it is still a very good accomplishment and showcase for the Xbox 360 thus far.