Call of Duty 3

As another WWII game like Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3 is best reviewed in comparison to its predecessor. How much did the game improve in a year? Can developer Treyarch stand up to Infinity Ward's lofty abilities? The answer is a wishy-washy "sort of." CoD 3 follows a single mission on several different fronts- the Allied forces pushing into the French village of Chambois. Why this was so important, I still don't know, but I'm no WWII historian. One of the big changes here is the push towards a full-time story with recurring characters with different personalities. It doesn't work great, but it's simultaneously miles ahead of Call of Duty 2, and behind Modern Warfare. The other big noticable change is that you play as a Canadian. Okay, maybe that's not so big, but it's worth mentioning. One of the playable scenarios in Call of Duty 3 involves playing as a Canadian. Interesting move, Treyarch. The missions here are for the most part more interesting and varied than the ones found in Call of Duty 2- in a given level you might fight your way to a tank, hop on board and cause all sorts of destruction, jump off, infiltrate a bunker while placing explosives at weak points in the structure, fight your way out, then make a getaway in a GTA-style open-world driving segment. Again, this appears to be a very transitory quality of the game- the static environments and most repetitive levels from CoD 2 are gone, but it's not quite up to the thrill-a-minute level of Modern Warfare. With the longer levels, though, comes a terrible use of checkpoints. While all the other Call of Duty games I've played have been loaded with checkpoints, ensuring you're never starting far back from the location of your last death, the checkpoints in Call of Duty 3 are few and far between, leading to tons of frustration and audible cuss words from me (just ask my roommate). It's a more technically impressive game than before in some respects with better graphics and animation, but also appeared to have a few glitches I hadn't seen in the previous installment- enemies running in place, discoloration in the background. It got distracting enough to detract from the game. Overall though, there were plenty of pluses and minuses here, and for the most part they all cancel out. I got the same amount of enjoyment out of Call of Duty 3 that I did from Call of Duty 2.