Hunterdigest

1. Call Of Duty Waw Specs
2. Call Of Duty Waw Server
3. Call Of Duty Waw Stairway To Hell

This patch includes map pack 3 and updates Call of Duty: World at War to v1.6. Using the Call of Duty 4 engine, Treyarch brings the franchise back to World War II, including taking on Imperial. Co-Op Campaign Mode, Call of Duty Style: For the first time in the franchise, Call of Duty: World at War introduces co-op play, bringing fresh meaning to No One Fights Alone. Campaign co-op features up to four-players online, allowing gamers to experience harrowing campaign missions together for greater camaraderie and tactical execution. Call of Duty: World at War's Urban Warfare vignette displays the gritty turmoil of combat. The fast-paced intensity never lets up us as cities get annihilated by planes, tanks, missiles and gunfire. Call of Duty®: World at War re-defines the entire war experience, pitting players against enemies in the Pacific and European theaters who know no.

So CoD: WWII is constantly being compared to World at War, henceforth referred to as WaW or, “The previous CoD set in WW2.” I decided to go back and boot up my old Xbox 360 to see if my nostalgia goggles were still working, or if the game really was that good. (For an in depth look at CoD:WWII, you can see Russ’s review here.)

Now I’m not going to go after graphics in these games since they’re about ten years apart, on two different consoles from two different generations.

I will, however, be taking all console constrictions into account, ie, technologies and standard industry practices at the time.

So without further ado, let’s get this over with.

Story

So let’s be honest, CoD: WaW doesn’t really have a story beyond the timeline of the war. There isn’t any other string to its bow besides the major attacks and offenses going on. This is compounded by the fact that in the American campaign you only visit three islands and an atoll. This campaign doesn’t really feature any characters… sure you have dialogue between Polanski and Roebuck. But they’re very static. They don’t even have the standard “war story tropes” to work off of, which could make serious moments kinda funny.

In the Russian campaign, Reznov has a lot more character, and Chernov as well. This made certain actions during the campaign more memorable and heartfelt. During these campaigns you actually feel the characters change a bit more. Reznov gets more and more brutal and Chernov comes to see Dimitri and Reznov as heartless butchers, blood drunk on revenge. It was good storytelling all things considered.

However, any and all story in gameplay by WaW was far out classed by WWII’s method of story. Say what you will about WWII ripping off Band of Brothers. But hey, don’t dismiss the fact that competent ripoff is a lot more preferable to static characters. Also I can list about 12 movies that rip off the Dances with Wolves plot, so WWII gets a pass.

Call Of Duty Waw Specs

Back on the WaW front, it didn’t take long for my classic complaints to start coming back. This time I played the whole campaign on Hard. I wasn’t in a mood to try it on Veteran and I already got that achievement back in the day, so Hard would be the best point to really get into the feel of fighting on the frontlines. Unfortunately, WaW was made in 2003-ish, which means Hard translates to the AI being able to shoot through walls, your health pool being nonexistent, and grenades. So many grenades. Of the hundred some odd deaths I had, about 90% of them were from grenades. You’d walk out from cover after clearing enemies and the ground would just explode. No indicator, no audio queue, just the game saying, “Fuck you.”

This was further compounded by me randomly dying but never knowing from where I was shot. I could clear a trench, the audio would calm down, and then a flash would go off and I was dead. No snipers in sight, no enemies spawning in, no grenade explosions. Just shitty game design.

Oh, and on that topic, let’s talk gun sounds. They suck. I don’t understand how CoD 4 could get this down but WaW couldn’t. The M1 sounds like a dry fart when firing instead of a satisfying thud. Shotguns sound like someone dropping a rock in a pond. Even the rifles make more of a puff than a band noise. All the SMGs sound like a playing card striking the spokes on the back wheel of some kid’s bicycle. And the heart-stopping roar of an MG-42 sounds like someone making a motorboat noise with their mouth. The MG-42, may I remind you, was known as “Hitler’s Buzzsaw” for not only its distinctive noise, but also its ability to spray lead down range and cut infantry to pieces. That gun should reflect that. WWII had this issue too, I grant you, but that’s partially because any gun in that game with a fire rate above 750 rounds a minute would butt fuck modern day servers, and run your ammo out faster than a fat man burns through KFC, and the MG-42 in real life sprayed at almost twice that speed.

In WaW, these shitty sound effects are topped with boring missions. Admittedly, the Russian campaign does have a few stand out moments, most of which were ripped directly out of movies (like line for line, hilariously enough). A lot of the game books down to just move and shoot. There are no tactics like tank swarming, stealth missions, or pincer maneuvers. In fact the only missions that really stood out were the two opening campaign missions, the turret mission on the plane, and the ending missions. Everything else just kinda ran together, especially in the American Pacific campaign.

Multiplayer

Okay, so I didn’t actually play WaW multiplayer this time for three reasons:

1. I’m not activating Xbox live for this game.
2. The wait for a multiplayer match could be anywhere between an hour and a decade.
3. Any and all servers are going to be player hosted and full of mods, .hacks, and angry Russian kids.

So instead I had to pull from YouTube reviews and wiki entries. And this is the most shocking part here. CoD: WaW had better multiplayer than WWII currently. The map design was so much better and diversified. Weapons felt weighty and not just like carbon copies of each other. Guns had recoil to account for. I love WWII’s multiplayer and headquarters, challenges and loot box system. However, the maps get repetitive and are very rock-paper-scissors on the whole, so if I wanted to boil WWII down to a level with WaW, it just couldn’t hold up. Now, once we start adding on War mode and the extra stuff, WWII passes WaW in content, handling, setup, and replayability. However, as I said, I tried to keep things on a level playing field for comparison.

Zombies

Call Of Duty Waw Server

Okay, so I never really liked Zombies. I don’t like zombies; they’re dumb. Most people like them because they think they’ll actually survive against them. (Even though most people I’ve met would be equal in cognitive power to a zombie.) So I didn’t go into this expecting much.

Call Of Duty Waw Stairway To Hell

While Zombies in both games had their respective niches, WaW Zombies just got boring. Granted, the game was harder because for Zombies in WaW my max wave was 17, where as in WWII I could go upwards of 38 by myself not worrying about Easter eggs or plot. But that was were I had a moment of realization. The most fun I ever had with CoD Zombies was when I had friends in the room because we all had each other to build on. But by yourself? Zombies gets boring after the catharsis wears off.

That said, in WWII? I have objectives, I have challenges, I have goals to accomplish. I have a tangible reason to be there along with a story to work off of, and an established lore for why zombies exist. In WaW? Those zombies were explained in Easter eggs and such. But the story wasn’t the sole focus. The only benefit I would give WaW was that there was a lot of fanmade maps I saw advertised in my YouTube research which were really cool.

At the End of the Day

I came away being able to say that CoD: WaW may have been great for its time, but aged as it was expected to. WWII is the superior game. Sorry to channel “The Act Man” and that one “Tiger-Spartan-Beast” asshole. But I gotta defend my CoD: WWII here. Better story, better Zombies, better mission diversity, better characters, and multiplayer that is shit in principle but does get better with the addition of new modes and advantages.