The weapons in CoD 3 are apparently authentic when you see that each country in the game has guns that were really used during the conflict itself. As with CoD 2, every gamer out there will have a particular favourite Rifle or Assault rifle. Every gun has a different way of aiming, and sometimes you’ll find yourself back tracking through the last moments of a map trying to find your favourite gun on the ground, should you suddenly run out of ammo. One nice addition is the ability to pick up thrown grenades, and quickly throw them back. Fans of the series had been begging for this feature to be added and their cries were heard. Smoke grenades are still a crucial part of the game, and the volumetric smoke is very realistic. You can only just make out enemy soldiers up close before you either take them out, or vice versa.
The single player campaign felt longer then it should have. Maybe it’s because I spent more of my game time complaining, swearing and cursing every time I died because I had found myself stuck to an object or piece of debris, just as a Nazi should appear in front of me. You’ve got the usual Easy, Normal, Hard and Veteran difficulty settings, the latter being a test of patience, anger management rather then skill. On Veteran mode, as stated before the entire enemy army is after you. It’s a one man show and you have to put up with soldiers who are not only 100% accurate at head shots, but who also are bugged to bits, so it does feel like an impossible battle. Kudos to those gamers who have finished it on Veteran mode, I’ve done it once in CoD 2 and got my rewards however I’m not going through that again.
The ever present in-game radar hasn’t changed much, showing you key objectives with a gold star. Health also regenerates in the same way as it did in CoD 2. Just find shelter out of harms way, and your health recharges itself. Checkpoints however feel more frequent then before, which can only be a good thing because on the latter two difficulty levels, you’ll need them.
Visuals/Audio
CoD 3 uses a heavily tweaked up engine from CoD 2. Yet it looks like a completely different one altogether. Treyarch’s last game for Call of Duty 2 was Big Red One, and they succeeded in re-creating a frantic war zone with huge amounts of scripted events and effects. You can see the crafts of their labour carried on to CoD 3. Visually, CoD3 is outstanding and surprised the hell out of me. Lighting and shadowing is incredibly realistic, add extremely impressive explosions and smoke effects, combined with superb audio and you’re onto a winner.
My favourite feature of CoD3 has to be the superb use of trees and foliage. They’re both animated so well that they can be used realistically for cover, and it works too, especially in multiplayer games. On Multiplayer maps, you’ve got woodland areas that are a major danger zone as snipers can be hidden amongst vegetation almost anywhere, and it’s quite scary to venture out alone. It’s not just foliage that is well implemented. Destroyed towns and houses are quite prominent and have scattered bits of burnt out furniture that can be used as cover. All of this comes together to form a very atmospheric experience.
The audio in CoD 3 excels too; mind you it doesn’t feel too different from CoD 2 which was also superb sound wise. The various accents that the soldiers use aren’t too bad. The Scottish and English accents do sound slightly suspect at times though.
Multiplayer
Call of Duty 2 had extremely poor multiplayer support out of the box, especially given that it was a PC port. Call of Duty 3 on the other hand is incredible, and absolutely brilliant. It’s extremely close to EA’s Battlefield series. Up to 24 players can play at once in any of the multiplayer modes, which consist of Capture the flag, War, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Headquarters. Jeeps, Tanks, APC’s are also provided on some maps and add to the already chaotic game play. Gamers will be pleased to know that the graphics aren’t toned down on the multiplayer maps; they’re as action packed as the levels from the single player campaign.
Just like EA’s Battlefield series, as well as Valve’s popular Team Fortress Classic, CoD 3 features character classes, with each class having a special ability. I won’t go into the details of each class so let’s just say that the Scout, who is a sniper class can call down a lethal artillery strike on the enemy and the intensity of this strike depends on what rank level you are at during a single session, there are 3 in total. Medics can revive fallen team mates and the Support class can drop ammo packs for his team mates. The class system works extremely well and it’s great fun to try out different classes.
All of this sounds too good to be true, and it is. Out of the box, ranked games were quite poor. It was almost impossible to connect to any servers, and sitting in a lobby for 5-10mins before it filled up with gamers was a common experience. Player created games worked perfectly out of the box though, and this is where all the fun was, and currently is. Treyarch eventually just recently released a patch to address the ranked issues. All was well for a few weeks anyway, but now once again everyone is having issues connecting to ranked servers. What the hell is going on? Lately it’s not common to spend around 2-5mins sitting in a ranked lobby just waiting for players to appear.